深圳大学金融系 赖小琪
These days a lot of my schoolmates as well as my students I taught before who are going to take the BEC exam in may asked me the same question as to how to prepare for the BEC compositions. They told me that they are totally puzzled at how to undertake this task from the first step. Though I am not so perfectly skillful at writing business compositions, I am still willing to share with you my experience according to my preparation for the BEC Higher in the past. As most of you are meant to take the BEC Vantage, therefore, I am going to detail something simply about Vantage. If you are taking the Higher and eager to know something, please contact me privately.
As we know, the writing part falls into two sections, the first part of which is writing a notice, a memo or an email. Each of these has its own distinctive characteristics, while memo should be paid special attention to for its format is totally different from the other two. In a memo you should include four fundamental elements before you go straight into body of the article as to “To”, “From”, “Date” and “subject”. Each should take up a line on the paper. Do not forget to add the title of the target person in “To” or “From” like Manager of the human resources and Director of the board, etc. Afterwards, we come to the body of the article. Keep in mind that you are supposed to write about 50 words for this part. The number of the words should not outnumber the one required by more than 15 words, or your score will be greatly deducted. In practical cases, many candidates have written around 70 words or even 100 words in this part and got a terribly low score. In an email or memo, your statement should be concise and all-points-concluded. Hence, you should study the typical examples at the back of our books of past paper carefully and simulate their writing skills. Actually, generally speaking this part is the easiest to accomplish and get a content score due to its easy task and low workload. So do not worry too much about that if you have pay enough efforts on it.
The second part is categorized into three types: report, letter and proposal. Needless to say, they are having their own formats which should be paid great attention to again. The format of letter is the easiest owing to its similarity to our personal letters apart from some specific points that are special for business letter. Report and proposal have similar format. For example, a commonly used format may be to divide the whole article into four parts: Introduction, Finding, Recommendation and conclusion. Introduction is to summarize the theme or the aim of the report or proposal. You should write it with one or two sentences to give the reader an overview of your following content. Finding is intended to uncover the present or potential problems the organization has. You should detail the problems one by one in the order of importance. You are well advised to mark some numbers like1, 2, 3 before each point so that your content will be clearly and delicately ordered and the reviewer can read your article conveniently and comfortably, thereby giving you a preferable score. As with the recommendation, it is meant to provide some practical and specific suggestions to solve the problems you raise above accordingly. You also need to number each of your points in the order of significance. Conclusion, as its name indicates, is to conclude the benefits of adopting your suggestions. It is suppose to be as concise and brief as introduction part with two or three sentences. Then an overall intact article comes into being. In terms of letter, except for the format, it is almost the same. Altogether, you need to refer to some typical examples and study them carefully. Of course, it is also well suggested that you need to put pen to paper often within a time set so as to poise yourself for the upcoming exam. You had better read the titles first and turn over how to write it in your mind with a few minutes, then turn to the answer to see the differences between yours and it. Then next day you write it by yourself and check it with the answer again. That is exactly what I did in the past. I am fully convinced that you will harvest tremendously by doing it. Trust me!
Ok, since time is limited, I have to stop here. If you have any question, you are welcome to my English corner to consult face to face or phone me at the weekend. Finally, I am extending my best wishes to all of you candidates or perspective candidates for passing the exam successfully! |
