Password Skills Plus common mistakes
Password Skills Plus · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Choosing a Reading answer because a word or number in the option appears verbatim in the passage, without checking that the whole option means the same as the passage sentence.
Keyword spotting is fast and feels productive under time pressure, so candidates stop at the first lexical match instead of reading the full clause around it.
What to do instead
For every option, underline the exact words in the passage that support it and ask whether the option is a paraphrase or a distortion; reject any option whose support you cannot point to in one sentence.
Leaving Reading items blank, or guessing only in the last minute, because a single hard item absorbed several minutes of the section.
Sunk-cost behaviour: candidates believe the answer is 'just about to come' and refuse to abandon a question, then run out of time for three easy items at the end.
What to do instead
Set a hard per-item ceiling in practice (roughly 60–90 seconds depending on item type), mark and move on, and never submit a blank - an unanswered item has a guaranteed zero, a guess does not.
Breaking the task instructions in gap-fill and short-answer items - writing three or four words where one is required, copying a whole clause, or answering in the wrong form (e.g. a phrase when a date is asked for).
Candidates read the passage carefully but skim the rubric, and they copy the surrounding text verbatim because it looks 'safer' than rewording.
What to do instead
Before reading the passage, read the instruction and write the word limit and required answer type at the top of your notes; after answering, count the words and check the grammatical form matches the gap.
Losing the next two or three Listening answers because attention is still on an item that was already missed.
The audio keeps moving but working memory does not; candidates rehearse the lost answer mentally and miss the cue for the following question.
What to do instead
Practise a deliberate 'drop it' routine: put a dash in the answer line, move your eyes immediately to the next question stem, and re-enter at the next question rather than trying to reconstruct the lost one.
Writing down the first number, name or date heard, before the speaker corrects or revises it later in the same turn.
Answers are often self-corrected in natural speech ('Tuesday - no, sorry, Wednesday'), and candidates treat the first mention as final because it arrives at the moment they are listening for it.
What to do instead
Treat first mentions as provisional: hold the pencil, wait for the end of the speaker's turn, and only commit once the utterance is complete, listening specifically for reformulation cues such as 'actually', 'sorry' and 'I mean'.
Writing an essay or long response that recycles a memorised introduction and stock phrases, then only addresses the actual prompt in one generic sentence near the end.
Pre-learned templates reduce anxiety and give a confident opening, but they consume the word count and the planning time that the specific question needed.
What to do instead
In the first two minutes, underline the prompt's topic words and any limiting words (e.g. 'young people', 'in your country'), and write a one-line thesis that answers precisely that question; refuse to start writing until the thesis is on the page.
Producing a response well under the required length, with no paragraph breaks and no time left to check it.
Candidates write a strong first idea, over-edit it as they go, and never allocate time for a second point or a review pass, so ideas are thin and errors survive.
What to do instead
Budget the section in advance (planning, writing, checking), aim for the middle of the required word range rather than the minimum, and reserve the final minutes to check only high-frequency errors: verb agreement, articles, plurals and sentence boundaries.
Switching into an informal or spoken register in a formal task - contractions, slang, rhetorical questions, 'you' used to mean people in general - and lifting phrasing directly from the prompt.
Candidates transfer habits from casual messages and social media, and copying prompt wording feels like staying on topic when it actually signals limited range.
What to do instead
Build a short personal list of formal equivalents (avoid 'a lot of', 'get', 'things', 'you') and paraphrase the prompt in your own words in the opening sentence so no more than two or three prompt words are reused.
Giving one-sentence Speaking answers that stop as soon as the direct question is answered, leaving long silences before the next prompt.
Candidates treat each question as a comprehension check rather than a sample of extended speech, and they fear that adding detail will introduce errors.
What to do instead
Use a fixed expansion frame for every answer - direct answer, one reason, one concrete example or personal detail - and practise speaking to a timer so that answers naturally run 20–40 seconds without hesitation.
Restarting the same sentence repeatedly to correct a small grammar slip, so the recording contains fragments and the planned content never gets delivered.
Self-monitoring is over-activated: candidates prioritise accuracy over fluency and treat any error as fatal, which destroys coherence and reduces the range of language they show.
What to do instead
Adopt a 'no restart' rule: finish the sentence, then repair with a natural phrase ('or rather', 'what I mean is'), and in practice record answers and count restarts so the habit becomes visible and declines.