My road to CPE

[Via Diva]

I noticed that you've read or was going to read a bunch of Daphne Du Maurier's books. She's one of my favourite writers, so the questions are: what do you think of the books you've read, how do you find her language, her writing style, can you recommend something resembling her novels?

[Ольга]

I noticed that you've read or was going to read a bunch of Daphne Du Maurier's books. She's one of my favourite writers, so the questions are: what do you think of the books you've read, how do you find her language, her writing style, can you recommend something resembling her novels?

My acquaintance gave me this bunch of books (I do love paper books and take any second-hand papers books in English). I just start to read them.
The last book I have read was "Little women" by Louisa May Alcott. I can surely advise this book, but I don't know if it's similar to what you want or not.

[DaveBee]

For good English style:

1. avoid cliches (marked in red) -- cliches are easy for natives to spot, I don't know how English learners spot them. But avoid them you must.

This is a tricky one. Use collocations, but avoid cliches. Yikes!

[DaveBee]

The last book I have read was "Little women" by Louisa May Alcott. I can surely advise this book, but I don't know if it's similar to what you want or not.

The film adaptions of that are often shown around Christmas. I like the 1994 one with Winona Ryder as Josephine.

[Ольга]

Создала группку по подготовке к CPE вконтакте.
https://vk.com/cpe_cpe
CPE- чисто логический экзамен, самого языка там очень мало. Больше на эрудицию и логику.
Такое мое заключение из опыта прохождения предыдущих экзаменов.

[Ольга]

545 out of 50 000 words for the Output Challenge are written ( I have counted only my penpal emails).
I need some Speaking Practice for the challenge; besides, I have created a beautiful preparation plan for CPE:

January: Use of English and Reading
Lexical Cloze, Open Cloze, Word Formation, Transformations, Multiple Choice Text, Gapped Text, Multiple Matching.

February: Listening
Multiple Choice, Sentence Completion, Multiple Choice, Multiple Matching.

March: Use of English and Reading
Lexical Cloze, Open Cloze, Word Formation, Transformations, Multiple Choice Text, Gapped Text, Multiple Matching.

April: Listening
Multiple Choice, Sentence Completion, Multiple Choice, Multiple Matching.

May: Use of English and Reading
Lexical Cloze, Open Cloze, Word Formation, Transformations, Multiple Choice Text, Gapped Text, Multiple Matching.

June: Writing and Speaking
Interview, 2-way conversation, Long Turn, Essay, Article, Letter, Report, Review.

July: Writing and Speaking
Interview, 2-way conversation, Long Turn, Essay, Article, Letter, Report, Review.

August: Writing and Speaking
Interview, 2-way conversation, Long Turn, Essay, Article, Letter, Report, Review.

September: Use of English and Reading
Lexical Cloze, Open Cloze, Word Formation, Transformations, Multiple Choice Text, Gapped Text, Multiple Matching.

To be continued.

[Ольга]

Guys, are old-format textbooks still good for preparation for CPE?
I mean, the structure of the exam was changed in 2002, and in 2013, if I am not mistaken.
I am creating a list of super-duper useful resources/sites/books/services for preparation for CPE, which are must-have personally for me (I don't include well-known sources like Oxford Online Dictionary, Ozdic, British/American National Corpus, Gutenberg, BBC, Librivox, etc, because I know by heart all the links for online dictionaries, thesauruses, and corpuses, I know BBC, Gutenberg and Librivox sites (and I had been fed up with the last three when I was only a Beginner, and now I am looking for something fresher, like Flo-Joe, Macmillan Online Practice, and Oxford English Testing.)

Now I use these services:
http://www.macmillanpracticeonline.com - CPE Practice Tests
https://www.oxfordenglishtesting.com/De ... 4&menuId=1 - CPE Practice Tests
https://flo-joe.co.uk - CPE Practice Tests
https://www.memrise.com/home/ - Vocabulary Cards
http://www.macmillanenglish.com/courses ... d-edition/ - My CD and paper dictionary
https://app.grammarly.com - a service for highliting grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, slips, and errors
https://languagetool.org - another correction service
http://www.online-spellcheck.com - one more correction service
http://www.penpalworld.com - the place where I have found several penpals from different corners of the world.

[Ольга]

Hello guys!
Some news about my learnings and studies:
I am going to take my last exam at the university tonight and I will have about 2 weeks of rest.
It's amazing!
I even have a super-duper structured plan of my English learning for 2 first weeks of February.
First of all, I have learnt how to use Habitica at last.
Now I know that it is better to make tasks for every day SMART (specific, measurable, achievable).
First time when I used Habitica I failed! I wrote some strange goals like "read 500 pages per day" or "listen 5 hours per day".
Now my plan is pretty logical, concise and neat.
For January/February it looks something like that:
•
Reading/Use of English 1 Part every day (CPE)

• Writing 300 words in English every day

• Listening (+drawing) 1 hour every day

• Reading 15 pages every day

Actually, I wrote the line “Listening+Drawing” because I can concentrate on Listening only when I draw some vector images. Probably, somebody will like my method, somebody won’t, but it perfectly works for me. Because when I am listening to audiobooks while I am walking or cleaning my flat, it only spoils everything, I cannot concentrate. But drawing works marvelously!
Another thing which I really like is Chats and Forums on Habitica! I have found even a community for those, who are doing their PhDs, it is so cool! I am going to do a Ph.D. as well, (of course, if I manage to do my Master’s degree).
Besides, I have found one new penpal on the website penpalworld. Sometimes I don’t have any inspiration for emails, I just don’t know what to write, that’s why my penpaling usually stops after 5-6 months of emails’ exchange. What a pity! I hope my new penpal won’t be offended that I have not written an email for 6 days (but I have sent her some interesting email at last).

I am really obsessed with https://ru.scribd.com! It is an e-library of my dreams. Now I have a trial period and I will surely continue to use this site even when my free period will be cancelled.
I have found a great variety of audiobooks, articles, and books over there in a great quality!
And what’s more, I don’t have to download anything from the site, I can use the books/audio/files/etc just listening/reading online! No more downloading and wasting of PC’s memory. That’s awesome. Besides, now I know that I won’t catch any virus because of some malicious files.

I am still not so concentrated on my preparation for CPE. I mostly read/write/listen, (very rarely speak), but for all this month (January) I have done probably only some parts from Reading/Use of English Past Papers. But at least I have some plan for Listening and Speaking. I will try to do Listening in the summer when I am absolutely free (if everything is fine) and Speaking probably as well. I think I will practice Writing in the autumn because I never had any trouble with that. Of course, I don’t write as Thackeray, but I have some ideas, know some grammar and vocabulary. Not sure if that’s enough for CPE, but my major problems are Speaking and Listening. So, I will dedicate to Speaking and Listening all my free time when I have that enough.
I am going to dedicate all winter and spring to Reading and Use of English because I had some problems with these parts In TOEFL (actually, only with Reading because TOEFL doesn’t have any Use of English part).
Probably, that’s it.
Thank you, guys, for this warm and interesting community and place where I can post my notes. I hope they may be useful for somebody.

[Ольга]

Hello, there,
I have not written in my log for several days.
Now I am going to use my recently self-created method of learning English for those, who have already C1. Probably somebody has already invented this method, but I got to know that the hard way.
I tried for a couple of days and I liked that because it is simple, enjoyable, and gives some results.
What am I going to do? Actually, to listen to, copy-handwrite, and read out loud the same book. I have chosen imaginative prose because British imaginative prose is more suitable for my goals (I am going to take CPE by the end of 2018).
I am reading out loud some books in English (now my books are The Light Between Oceans: A Novel by M.L. Stedman, and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (American, not actually suitable for my exam goal, but I like that))
Then I am listening to these books (thanks to https://scribd.com).
Then I am copy-handwriting in my writing pad as accurately and beautifully as possible the book I started to read (I am used to doing that when nobody disturbs me).
They are my three most useful and interesting tasks: reading out loud, listening to, and copy-handwriting. The key idea I do that with the same book (grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary are going to be repeated several times in the same context).
I do some additional work, like writing to my penpals or just listening to English podcasts for pleasure, but these features are main.
I’ll try to test drive this method for 2 weeks, if it is effective enough and I don’t get tired, I’ll use that for my languages with a lower level (German, French). The only problem to find abridged versions of audiobooks and pdf books (or any other format of an electronic book) which will coincide for German and French (I cannot read the full versions in these languages yet, I’m afraid.)
I still don’t have enough of speaking practice and I’m not sure that I can count my reading out loud for speaking. This silent period never ends.

[MamaPata]

I don't think Little Women will be a problem for you in terms of practice for the exam. It will be useful for automating grammar, and it's fun. However, there are definitely some words that you won't need to bother learning, because they're outdated or just weirdly specific (mostly I think in terms of things like clothes). I think it's a very sweet book and enjoy it.