PEIC B1 cheat sheet

PEIC Speaking has four parts: warm-up interview, picture description, role-play/dialogue, and a topic discussion with an opinion question.

B1 speaking performance is judged on task achievement, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and pronunciation; errors that do not block meaning do not fail the candidate.

Picture description structure: say what you see in general, then details (people, place, action), then one short personal reaction or guess.

For role-play, the prompt gives a function (request, suggest, apologise, ask for information); answer with the function plus one follow-up question to keep the exchange going.

Present perfect is the standard tense for experience questions: 'Have you ever been to...?' - 'Yes, I have been there twice.'

Fluency markers that buy thinking time without long silence: 'Well, let me think...', 'That's an interesting question...', 'What I mean is...'.

Comparatives for opinion turns: 'much more convenient than', 'not as expensive as', 'the best thing about it is...'.

If you do not understand, ask for repetition: 'Sorry, could you say that again, please?' - silence or guessing is penalised more.

PEIC Listening uses short monologues and dialogues followed by multiple-choice or short-answer items; each recording is heard twice.

Answers come in the same order as the audio, so track the question number while listening and never go back to a missed item.

Distractors are usually numbers, prices, or times mentioned and then corrected: 'at six... sorry, make that half past six'.

Listen for the function word that signals the answer: 'but' introduces a correction, 'so' introduces a result, 'because' introduces a reason.

In short-answer items, write the exact words heard; spelling and singular/plural must match the audio.

Before each recording, read the question stems and underline the question word (who, when, how much) to know what type of answer to expect.

Numbers trap: 'thirteen' vs 'thirty', 'fifteen' vs 'fifty' - the stress falls on the second syllable of -teen numbers.

If two options look possible, the audio usually negates one: 'We didn't go to the museum, we went to the park instead.'

PEIC Reading passages are short practical texts (notices, adverts, emails, articles) followed by multiple-choice, matching, or true/false items.

Skim first for the topic and text type in 30 seconds, then scan for the keywords of each question rather than reading word by word.

True/False items are decided by the text only, not by general knowledge; the exact phrase in the passage is the evidence.

Matching headings to paragraphs: the topic sentence is usually the first or second sentence of the paragraph.

Watch for paraphrase: the question says 'costly' where the text says 'expensive'; identical wording is often a distractor.

Gapped-text items (sentences inserted into a text) are solved by pronoun and linker reference: 'this', 'however', 'as a result' must point to the sentence before.

Inference questions ask what is implied, not stated; the answer must be supportable from the text without adding new information.

Time budget: roughly one minute per item; leave any item you cannot locate and return to it at the end.

PEIC Writing at B1 includes a short message/email task and a longer piece (informal email, article, or story) of about 100-150 words.

Assessment covers content (all task points covered), organisation (paragraphs, linkers), grammar range and accuracy, and vocabulary range and spelling.

Informal email frame: greeting ('Hi Anna,'), opening line ('Thanks for your email.'), body paragraphs, closing ('Write back soon,'), sign-off ('Best wishes, Sam').

Formal email frame: 'Dear Mr Smith,' / 'I am writing to...' / 'I look forward to hearing from you.' / 'Yours sincerely,'.

Linkers to reach B1 range: 'although', 'however', 'in addition', 'so that', 'whereas', 'on the other hand'.

Narrative task: use past simple for main events, past continuous for background ('I was walking home when...'), past perfect for earlier events.

Word-count discipline: write within 10% of the required length; under-length answers lose content marks regardless of accuracy.

Plan for two minutes: list the task points, decide one paragraph per point, then write - unplanned answers usually miss a bullet.

PEIC Use of English tests grammar and vocabulary through multiple-choice gaps, word formation, and open cloze items.

Present perfect vs past simple rule: past simple with a finished time ('yesterday', 'in 2019'); present perfect with 'ever', 'never', 'since', 'for', 'already', 'yet'.

Conditionals: zero (if + present, present), first (if + present, will), second (if + past, would), third (if + had + past participle, would have + past participle).

Reported speech backshift: present becomes past, 'will' becomes 'would', 'can' becomes 'could'; time words shift ('today' to 'that day', 'tomorrow' to 'the next day').

Word formation: decide the part of speech needed from the gap position, then apply the suffix - noun -tion/-ment/-ness, adjective -ful/-less/-able, adverb -ly.

Gerund or infinitive: 'enjoy', 'mind', 'suggest', 'look forward to' take -ing; 'decide', 'hope', 'want', 'plan' take to + infinitive.

Preposition collocations to memorise: 'depend on', 'interested in', 'good at', 'afraid of', 'arrive at/in', 'listen to'.

Countable/uncountable quantifiers: 'much' and 'a little' with uncountables; 'many' and 'a few' with countables; 'a lot of' with both.