FCE (Cambridge First Certificate) Writing Part One Useful Phrases

B2 First Writing Part One essays useful phrases brainstorming and key words

Write at least two or three useful phrases for doing each of these things in Cambridge First essays:

Introduction

Background to the topic (why it is important etc)

 

 

 

 

Explaining the structure of your essay

 

 

 

 

Introduction/ Body

Giving strong opinions

 

 

 

 

Giving weak opinions

 

 

 

 

Strongly agreeing

 

 

 

 

Weakly agreeing

 

 

 

 

Strongly disagreeing

 

 

 

 

Weakly disagreeing/ Politely disagreeing

 

 

Body

Supporting your opinions

Personal experience

 

 

 

 

Giving examples

 

 

 

 

Other people opinions and knowledge/ Things you heard and read

 

 

 

 

Giving reasons/ Cause and effect/ Consequences

 

 

 

 

Further explanation

 

 

 

 

Looking at both sides/ Looking at the other side/ Contrasting

 

 

 

 

Final paragraph

Summarising/ Conclusion

 

 

 

 

Recommending/ Giving advice/ Talking about solutions/ Adding a further point that leads on from your conclusion

 

 

 

 

Use the words below to help with the task above. Using other forms of the words is also possible.

Key words

Use the words below to help with the task above. Using other forms of the words is also possible.

Introduction

Background to the topic (why it is important etc)

believed

common

change

controversial

last

lot

majority

modern

news

people

society

two

world

 

Explaining the structure of your essay

both

divided

reasons

then

 

Introduction/ Body

Giving strong opinions

absolutely

certain

clear

definitely

doubt

honest

obvious

really

strongly

 

Giving weak opinions

arguments

both

experience

expert

humble

know

personal

would

 

Strongly agreeing

agree

more

right

sense

think

 

Weakly agreeing

accept

agree

sense

 

Strongly disagreeing

accept

agree

merit

 

Weakly disagreeing/ Politely disagreeing

agree

but

 

Body

Supporting your opinions

Personal experience

experience

found

 

Giving examples

example

instance

such

 

Other people opinions and knowledge/ Things you heard and read

according

once

 

Giving reasons/ Cause and effect/ Consequences

caused

consequence

due

order

reason

result

 

Further explanation

other

say

Looking at both sides/ Looking at the other side/ Contrasting

also

hand

opposite

side

spite

turning

 

Final paragraph

Summarising/ Conclusion

above

all

although

balance

conclude

having

outweigh

restate

said

sum

whole

 

Recommending/ Giving advice/ Talking about solutions/ Adding a further point that leads on from your conclusion

best

choice

government

really

 

Compare your answers as a class or with the suggested answers.

Test each other in pairs:

• Read out sentences from one section with the key words missing for your partner to complete
• Read out one heading and help your partner make suitable sentences
• Work together to use as many of the sentences as you can to talk about an essay question that you find or that your teacher gives you
• Work together to use as many of the key words as you can to talk about an essay question that you find or that your teacher gives you

 

 

 

Suggested answers

Many other answers are possible, so please check if you wrote different sentences.

Background to the topic (why it is important etc)

It is widely believed that…

… is a common talking point./ It is a common view that…/ It is commonly thought that…/ There is a common opinion that…

There has been a change in…

…is a controversial topic./ is very controversial.

Over the last few years/ decades…

There has been a lot of discussion of…/ There has been a lot of debate over…/ There has been a lot of controversy over…

The majority of people (who I know) seem to think that…

In modern life,…

… has been getting a lot of newspaper coverage recently./ … has been in the news a lot recently. .

For people nowadays,…/ (In my country) many (older/ younger) people (think/ say that)...

It is often said that…

In today’s society,…

There are two very different points of view on the topic of…

In our globalised world,…

 

Explaining the structure of your essay

I will examine both sides below and then give my own opinion./ After looking at this matter from both sides, I will…

I have divided my essay into three parts.

I will give three reasons for that below.

I will look at/ write about/ examine/ consider/ discuss … and then …

 

Giving strong opinions

I’m absolutely certain that…/ I’m absolutely positive that…/ I’m absolutely convinced that…/ There can be absolutely no doubt that…/ I have absolutely no doubt that…

I am certain that…/ I certainly don't believe that ...

It seems clear to me that…/ It is clear to me that…

I would definitely say that…

I have (absolutely) no doubt that…/ There can be (absolutely) no doubt that…/ I don’t think anyone can doubt that…/ Without (the shadow of) a doubt…

In my honest opinion,…

It seems obvious to me that…/ It is obvious to me that…/ Obviously…

I really think that…

I strongly believe that…/ I strongly object to (the idea that)…

 

Giving weak opinions

Although the arguments for/ against are also quite convincing,…/ Although there are also arguments for/ against…

Although there are both advantages and disadvantages,…

I don’t have much experience of this, but…/ In my limited experience,…

I’m no expert on this, but…

In my humble opinion,…

As far as I know,…/ I don’t know (very) much about this topic, but…/ To the best of my knowledge,…

In my personal opinion,…/ I personally feel that ...

I would guess that…/ I would imagine that…/ I would probably say that…

 

Strongly agreeing

I strongly/ totally/ wholeheartedly agree that…

I couldn’t agree with… more.

… is absolutely right.

…makes complete sense.

… is exactly/ just what I think.

 

Weakly agreeing

I can probably accept that…/ I might be able to accept that…

I partially/ partly agree with…

… seems to make sense.

 

Strongly disagreeing

There’s no way I can accept that…

I can’t agree with the idea of…/ I don’t agree at all with…/ I really don’t agree with…

I can’t see any merit in…

 

Weakly disagreeing/ Politely disagreeing

I don’t really agree with…/ I don’t think I agree with…/ I’m not sure that I agree with…

I can see why some people might think that, but…/ I can understand why people think that, but…

 

Supporting your opinions

Personal experience

A relevant experience that I had was…/ Although I don’t have (much) experience of this…,…./ Experience has shown me that…/ From personal experience, I would say…/ I (once) experienced this when…/ In my (personal/ limited/ own) experience,…/ This is supported by my own experience in that…

I have (generally) found that…

 

Giving examples

A (good) example of this is…/ An example from my own experience is…/ For example,…/ To give an example,…/ One (typical/ well known) example of this is…

For instance,...

…, such as…

 

Other people opinions and knowledge/ Things you heard and read

According to an article that I read last week,…/ According to one of my professors…

I once heard that…/ I once read that…/ I once saw a television programme in which…/ Someone once told me that…

 

Giving reasons/ Cause and effect/ Consequences

This is caused by…

As a consequence of this,…/ One consequence of this is…

This is due to…

… in order to…

For that reason,…/ The main reason for that is…

As a result of that,…

 

Further explanation

In other words…/ To put that another way,…

That is to say…

 

Looking at both sides/ Looking at the other side/ Contrasting

… but you could also say that…

On the other hand,…

It is also possible to argue the opposite point that…

Looking at the other side of the argument,…

Despite (all) this…/ In spite of all this,…

Turning to the opposing argument,…/ Turning from the pros to the cons,…

 

Summarising/ Conclusion

As should be clear from the arguments above,…/ For (all) the reasons given above,…/ Taking (all) the things above into account,…

Overall,…/ All in all,…

Although the arguments against are also quite convincing,…/ Although there are also arguments for (such as…)/ Although there are both advantages and disadvantages above,…

On balance, I would say that…

I therefore conclude that…./ In conclusion,…

Having considered (all) the points above,…/ Having weighed up both sides of the argument,…

The benefits of ... outweigh the drawbacks.

To restate the arguments above,…

As I said in the introduction, I am convinced that…

To sum up what I have written above,…/ To summarise the points above,…

On the whole,…

 

Recommending/ Giving advice/ Talking about solutions/ Adding a further point that leads on from your conclusion

The best idea is to…/ The best solution is…/ The best thing to do would be…

We have (absolutely) no choice but to…

The government should do something about/ find a solution for/ put more effort into/ work towards/ deal with/ take action on/ take care of/ try to solve…

We really must…/ We really need to…/ We really have to…/ We really should…