Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE): How to write a report - Professor Phil (2023)

introduction

A report can be written for a superior (for example, a head or school principal) or a group of colleagues (for example, club members or colleagues). The content of a report is factual to some extent and builds on the material on the call, but there will be room for applicants to contribute their own ideas and experiences. Candidates are asked to do more than just describe a situation; You may be asked to rate the extent to which a specific objective has been achieved or to suggest an alternative course of action.

aus: Cambridge English Advanced Handbook for Teachers

Reports are one of the possible texts that you can choose in the second part of the C1 Advanced Writing exam. You always have to write in the first paragrapha dissertationwhile in the second task you can choose between oneemail or letter,a suggestion,A reviewora report.

Reports are simpler than they look

Writing a good report is not that difficult. As with all CAE writing assignments, there are very clear criteria that provide guidance and a framework you can use to succeed.

All reporting tasks usually have certain characteristics in common, so they are quite similar, which means that you can practice and learn to recognize these common characteristics. In this way, you can improve very quickly and report writing becomes an easy task for you.

So this article is about those similarities, the structure to follow when writing a report, useful language, and common mistakes to avoid if you want to get good grades. With all that in mind, let's get started right away.

>>>> Find out more about how your essay will be assessed on the C1 Advanced here. <<<

What a typical reporting task looks like

As I said before, reporting tasks always look very similar. Of course, the exact topics and things that need to be included will change from exam to exam, but in general there are a lot of features that all these tasks have in common and we'll see what they look like and how you can use them to your advantage. and can use advantage.

When you see a task and are ready to review it, always remember to look for these specific points:

1. What are you going to write about? (Theme)
2. What exactly do you need to include in your report?
3. Who reads your report?

You must read the assignment very carefully and underline the key words that will give you the answers to the above questions. Can it be like this:

You can see the colorful pieces that provide the answer to our three crucial questions. First,the topic of your report revolves around your new job(Red). Of course, the most important thing is to know what you are going to write about.

Second, we need to analyze exactly what we need to write about and what key points we need to include in our report. In this example there are three main points (blue):

• Explain what you've achieved so far.
• Describe your problems in this job.
• Suggest future training.

There are always three main topics you have to deal with in a reportso you can keep that in mind.

Last but not least, we need to find out who will be reading your (green) report. Here you write to your manager who is the manager. You might be wondering why this is important though.this tells you which register (formal, neutral, informal) is most appropriate.

In our case, we must use formal English as we are basically writing to our boss.In formal English, you shouldn't use contractions (I am-> I am), colloquial expressions or colloquial verbs and idioms.Remember that using the registry is part of your grades, so be careful with it and make sure you get it right.

How to organize your report

Once you've figured out what your report is about, what exactly you need to include, and what the most appropriate tone and tone is, it's time to start thinking about how to organize your report. As in the previous section, you can structure each report in the same way. Of course, there's always room for interpretation, but what I'm about to tell you in this article has helped many students get the grades they want, so give me a chance. 🙂

I hope you remember that there are three main themes that need to be included in our report.

• Explain what you've achieved so far.
• Describe your problems in this job.
• Suggest future training.

Each of these topics deserves its own paragraph, which brings us to three paragraphs. You should also add a title and introduction to explain the purpose of your report and a closing paragraph to conclude the report and make recommendations based on the main points. In all, we have five paragraphs:

1. Title/Introduction
2. Explain what you've achieved so far.
3. Describe your problems in this job.
4. Suggest future training.
5. Conclusion/recommendations

Finally, give each section a title to help the reader find specific ideas in your report, and you're done.

Note that this structure works for all reporting tasks in C1 Advanced. Of course, the topic and the main three paragraphs change depending on the exam question, but if you simply replace sections 2-4 with what you must write on the test, you will be safe.

always make a plan

One of the biggest mistakes I find is that students look at the assignment and immediately start writing their report. In the middle of the task, they realize that your text doesn't make sense, so they panic and change everything just to waste time.

Please don't make the same mistake. Creating a plan takes 3-5 minutes, but it can save you a lot more because you know exactly what you want to include in your copy and you can stay calm and relaxed.

Just use the list we made earlier and add a few keywords to each section as anchors in case you forget some of the details you want to write about. And that.

>>> Learn more about writing an essay for the C1 Advanced. <<<

>>> Learn how to write an offer for C1 Advanced. <<<

The different parts of a report

Returning to our previous exam paper example, we will now look at the different parts of a C1 Interim Report. I'll show you how to write good introductions, bullet point paragraphs, and conclusions so you can see where you can score better than most other candidates.

Title/Introduction

A report is factual writing, which means it doesn't have to sound too sensational, but it should be clearly structured and highly descriptive and evaluative.

It is very important that your introduction makes it clear what the purpose of the report is and what you will be writing about. Rather than simply copying the text from the assignment, try to paraphrase and use your own words.to show the examiner that you understand what is expected of you.

Some good sentences to start your report are as follows:

• Purpose/objective/objective of this report is...
• This report aims to show/evaluate/analyze/discuss...
• In this report I will...

A possible introductory example could look something like this:

Six month progress report

introduction

The purpose of this report is to assess progress after the first semester in my current position as an English teacher and to make suggestions for professional development activities in the coming months and years.

See, I didn't do anything revolutionary. Choose a simple title and subtitle and make it clear what you want to achieve with your report, and you're ready to move on to the next part.

topic paragraphs

In a report, topic paragraphs are the most content-rich parts. This is where you work on the main points of the task. Again, you don't have to make it sound sensational, as you're not trying to write a story or review, but to describe and assess your professional situation.

Similar to the introduction, you want to use headings for each of these three paragraphs to help the reader follow along and better understand your report.

successes

See Also

How do I write a C1 Advanced Proposal (CAE)? | engxam.com

During the first six months of my tenure here at XYZ School, I made important strides in my professional development by incorporating several new methodologies, such as the task-based approach, into my daily teaching practice, which greatly improved my students' experience. In addition to my personal progress, several students have achieved their goals and advanced to institutions of higher learning under my guidance.

problems

Despite all this, I am still struggling with the organization of our internal exams as there seem to be no guidelines and students have expressed displeasure that other groups at the same level are given easier or harder questions on their tests. Also, my mentor was not always available, although some level of guidance is still needed in certain areas, such as developing the courseware itself.

Future training opportunities

With all this in mind, two main areas of potential improvement can be identified. First, student and teacher satisfaction can be increased by establishing a resource bank for tests and exams and training all teachers to use them to ensure a consistent experience for our students. Second, regular meetings with a mentor should be mandatory to provide guidance and help teachers become independent and confident in using teaching materials.

If you look at my topic paragraphs, you can see thatI use formal languagethrough,Some passive structures(e.g. "A certain amount of guidance...is still needed", "Possible improvements can be identified") to make the report a bit more impersonal (although this assignment is about my personal experience at work) andI just focus on the task without including anything unnecessary.

Conclusion/Recommendation

Finally, we need a last short paragraph to conclude our report. What you write in your conclusion depends on the things you mentioned in the body and the exact requirements of the task. Most of the time you need to make a recommendation, so it's important to use persuasive language (after all, you want the person reading your report to follow through on your recommendation).

In our specific example, we already gave some recommendations in the previous section so that we can simply reinforce what we said there and try to convince the director of the language school.

Some legal expressions are as follows:

• I would recommend/suggest (that)...
• The following (improvements) are recommended: …
• The best ideas/solutions seem to be...
• It would be (very) advisable...
• If it is decided to follow my recommendations...
• Based on the results of this report, I recommend/suggest + -ing
• I exhort you (strongly) to...

Let's see how this might look in practice:

Diploma

If you decide to follow my recommendations, the situation for teachers and students in our school is likely to improve, and overall satisfaction is likely to increase due to more efficient work processes, so I recommend that you consider these ideas.

Again, I'm trying to get to the point here in a condensed form and really push the manager without being rude or overly direct.

I'll also go back to my suggestions from the last section of the thread ("Work More Efficiently") and use some of the helpful expressions I recommended above... and that's it.

How your report will be flagged

Marking writing assignments in C1 Advanced is very complex and there are many things to consider, so I decided to write a separate article about it where you will find all the information you need to better understand the criteria and requirements in C1 to understand the Writing CAE exam.

So if you want to know more, you can follow the link below.

>>>See how your C1 Advanced essay will be graded.<<<

exercise time

I hope the information in this article will help you in your preparation for the C1 Advanced Writing exam. Reports really aren't that difficult to master and if you start practicing today, you'll definitely improve and be able to crush it when the official exam comes around.

Much love,

Professor Phil 🙂