A2 Key Reading and Writing: Paper Map, Grammar Gaps and Short Writing
How the paper is built
Reading and Writing lasts about 70 minutes and has seven parts. Parts 1–5 test reading: short notices and messages (Part 1), matching people to short texts (Part 2), a longer text with multiple-choice questions (Part 3), a text with three-option gaps (Part 4) and a text with six gaps you fill with one word (Part 5). Part 6 asks for a short message or email of about 25 words; Part 7 asks for a story of about 35 words. All answers go on an answer sheet, so practise transferring them.
Concepts you must control
- Meaning, not matching words. Part 1 questions ask what a notice means or what you must do. The correct option rarely repeats the words printed in the sign.
- Grammar words for Part 5: prepositions (at, on, in), articles (a/an/the), pronouns (it, them), auxiliaries (do, have), comparatives and common linkers. Exactly one word per gap.
- Spelling must be correct from Part 4 onwards; a misspelt word can lose the mark.
- The writing task must do everything it asks: three notes in Part 6, three content points in Part 7, plus a greeting and a closing.
Traps
Distractor options that reuse vocabulary from the text; negatives in notices ("No food in the library" - you must NOT eat); answering a whole-text question with a detail from one sentence; writing 60 words in Part 6 when 25 are wanted; running out of time because one reading text was read five times.
Worked example
Sign: "Swimming pool - children under 8 must come with an adult." Question: Who can swim alone? Options: A an 8-year-old, B a 6-year-old, C a parent. "Under 8" excludes 8, so an 8-year-old may swim alone: A. Check boundary words - under/over, before/after, free/not free.
Rule of thumb
For every gap or option, put your choice back into the sentence and read it through: it must fit both the grammar and the meaning.