Quite a number of people willing to find useful information from countless websites or forums don't weigh the effectiveness of exploiting those DOC or PDF. What I really want to say is that if your objective is just pass that, say BEC HIGHER, the possibility of achieving that, without genuine efforts made and solid determination, is less than 10 per cent.
Almost 90 per cent of those documents are meaningless or useless because they are not relevant to the exact things we need. So I would like to make my first advice noticeable that do not track those kinds of documents or potentially want to do this because it's not only wasting your time and energy but also affect your process of improvements.
Secondly, learning from others' experience is highly recommended, like mine or other useful advice, except those which contain errors such as the level BEC HIGHER represents. (BEC HIGHER = CAE not CPE. CPE is the most difficult test of its kind.)
Thirdly, drawing up your own plan to facilitate the possibility of improvements. Do not decide to attend BEC HIGHER test without enough confidence and practice. It's common that someone can get a C easily, not because of their several-months practice, but because of the long time they spent in improving English along with their several-months practice and effective plans. If you feel that the plan is no longer fit for your purpose, try to change it immediately and rightly.
Apart from good planning, the selection of materials on different periods also matters. Find your weaknesses, and focus your attention on reading, collocations, listening, writing, speaking or understanding. Two textbooks are proven to be acceptable to those who want to attend BEC HIGHER test. But it is highly recommended that you should choose the new edition of the Cambridge BEC HIGHER Student Book which is better than the seemingly wonderful but old-fashioned books. Remember the new book was published in 2007 new enough really!
You must put more emphasis on PAST PAPERS.
Furthermore, nurturing your ability to read, listen, write and speak is difficult. You must find the right way of doing that. Which one do you like best: US English or UK English? Or both? If you choose the first, well, you'd better know more about British English. A good solution is that you keep your spelling, accent unchanged and are more familiar with articles or accent from major newspapers and radio station (like the Guardian or the BBC). Try to read and listen as much as possible every day on business, which you should start doing so a year earlier, including not only business but also politics, society, health, environment, education, etc. If you are confident of achieving your goal, like the successful realisation of a BEC VANTAGE OR other certificates, you are bound to maintain your efforts in the long run.
The last thing is that you'd do better to stick to your plan, without any doubts. 首先是得找本好字典，我指的是英英字典，裝一下，最好是英式英語字典。然后，一定要弄懂用法，搭配等，因為學英語不是為了考試。而是為了用。
聽力問題就是多聽，選新聞聽比較好，我個人喜歡BBC RADIO FIVE LIVE BREAKFAST，這個節目3小時，不過你可以只聽1小時。千萬不要只聽幾分鐘。每天都有，可以選擇周一到周五聽。當然，每天3小時更好，只要你有時間和耐心。WAKE UP TO MONEY也不錯，主要是說BUSINESS, STOCK MARKET等，速度很快，正是好材料。我個人不推薦1，2分鐘的BBC，因為太少了。這個節目30分鐘。NEWSPOD也是推薦的33分鐘每天。
閱讀問題就是讀什么呢？不要讀中國日報什么的。讀英國報紙最好。當然，紐約時報也是我喜歡的。每天希望多讀點，讀5000字以上。推薦是10000字。自己選擇一期復制到WORD，或者就是在網頁上讀。打印出來不環保。放大到150%字就大了。一些書本，雜志如HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW可以選讀，選擇不太深奧的讀，那像上課的一步一步的，還有圖的，就可以不讀。
讀報紙干什么？一是練速度和理解力+熟練程度。二是積累COLLOCATIONS，VERBAL PHRASE，難的單詞可以暫時不管。因為ENGLISH IN USE才是我們的重點。
還有，我上面說了買新教材比較好，真題集，最多買本ADVANCED CAMBRIDGE BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE，其他可以不用買了，買了沒用而且最好的書其實就是FT, GUARDIAN或BBC等媒體。
寫作重要的是練。自己在規定的時間內做完一套題，作文在自己批改的時候可以改寫的完美些，這樣會有30篇左右的作文，自己反復看，復習。有時可以借鑒一下范文，不過還得有自己的一套思路和用法。
做題之前問一下自己，我積累的足夠多了嗎？閱讀足夠多了嗎？快嗎？聽的夠嗎？自學的課本掌握了嗎？筆記整理了嗎？
如果是NO, 請還是等等再做題吧，因為結果不會滿意。
如果是YES，那么請想辦法研究真題吧。同時，繼續積累。
口語，很簡單，真題的問題自己反復說，1分鐘內。
3分鐘討論？自己說，不需要討論。有人了自然會說了。
說了那么多，考試還得要講時間，時間最重要，有時可以放棄幾道題，抓分數多的題。
最后，考好試也不要停止提高，因為不斷提高英語才有意義。說不定還有機會參加更高級的考試。或者，能真正熟練運用英語。 |
