Part 4 transformation: right grammar, wrong meaning
Marta is 52 minutes into the 75-minute Reading and Use of English paper. Parts 1–3 are finished, and she has answered five of the six Part 4 transformations. The last item reads: People believe the bridge was designed by a local engineer. Key word: THOUGHT. She has written: The bridge is thought to be designed by a local engineer. She has now spent four minutes on that single item, rewriting the ending three times. Twenty-three minutes remain, and she has not yet looked at Part 5 (a long text with six four-option questions), Part 6 (six gapped sentences) or Part 7 (ten matching questions). In her last two mock exams she ran out of time before the final four questions of Part 7.
1. Should Marta's sentence receive full marks? Justify your answer using what Part 4 is actually testing.
Read the worked answer
No - it is grammatically elegant but semantically shifted.
Part 4 rewards one thing: a second sentence that is equivalent in meaning to the first, uses the given word unchanged, and fits the 2–5 word limit.
- Marta has chosen the correct impersonal passive frame (is thought to…), so the structure is right.
- But is thought to be designed presents a belief about a present state or an ongoing process. The original reports a past event - the designing already happened.
- The completion that preserves meaning is is thought to have been designed.
Marking follows meaning first: a slip that leaves the proposition intact (typically spelling) can still earn partial credit, but an answer where the proposition changes cannot score full marks however sophisticated it sounds. Marta has optimised for how the sentence looks, not for what it states - the single most common way strong B2 candidates lose Part 4 marks.
2. She has 23 minutes left. What should she do in the next 60 seconds, and how should she spend the rest of the time?
Read the worked answer
Next 60 seconds: make the three-word edit, then walk away - win or lose.
- Change to be → to have been. That is a ten-second fix for a potential two-mark item. Cheap marks deserve seconds, not minutes.
- Then stop, regardless of whether she is satisfied. The four minutes already spent are sunk cost and cannot be recovered by a fifth.
Remaining ~22 minutes, allocated by marks-per-minute rather than by comfort:
- Part 5 (~9 min) - one text, six questions; rereading is efficient because all six come from the same passage.
- Part 6 (~6 min) - short, and the sentences are eliminated by cohesion links.
- Part 7 (~6 min) - last only because it is her known failure point, so it gets a protected slot rather than whatever is left.
- Transfer/check (~1 min).
The governing principle: unfinished questions score zero, and a perfect answer to one item never buys back four unread ones. Her history says Part 7 is where the damage happens, so it must be scheduled before the clock decides for her.