6 Sep 2023

B2 First Review Analysis and Checklist

TagsB2 First, B2 First for Schools, Reviews, Tips

In today’s post, I’m going to analyse the review task which could appear in Part 2 of the B2 First and B2 First for Schools writing paper.

As I said in my previous post, many students, including our teenage students, are writing and reading reviews these days, so it really does relate to real life situations.

The context

A review in the B2 First (& for Schools)Writing paper is usually written for an English language magazine or website.

The target reader

The people who will read the review will probably have similar interests.

The content

Students will be asked to describe an experience/product and express a personal opinion on a place they have visited (e.g. a hotel, restaurant, shop, exhibition), experienced (e.g. a course, festival, concert) or used (e.g. a website, app, product, etc.).

The review should probably also include a recommendation. For example, to choose (not) to buy something or (not) to go somewhere or (not) to buy a ticket, etc).

Organisation

The review should have 4-5 paragraphs in total

an introduction
two or three middle paragraphs
a conclusion

A review should have a range of cohesive devices

to build an argument (e.g. to begin with …; a further attraction …; In addition to … ;Moreover ….; Not only…, but …)
to add reasons (e.g. In view of this, …; Logically, …; Since/As …; Consequently, …; As a result, …)
to share examples and illustrate points (e.g. Take, for example …; In the case of …)

Language

Vocabulary related to the topic (e.g. for a film: – story/plot, setting, actors, music, soundtrack, special effects, etc)

A range of grammatical forms, which could well include –

past tenses to describe the experience
present tenses to give details of the features, facilities, etc,
modal verbs (e.g. should, must(n’t)) for suggestions and recommendations
conditionals for suggestions and recommendations

To help students check their review writing, I have created a checklist.