Skills for English B2 study guide
Skills for English B2 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
Skills for English is a suite of English proficiency tests for work, study, travel and residency. It is delivered through a partnership between PSI Services LLC, a global testing provider with over 70 years in workforce solutions that delivers 22 million assessments a year in more than 160 countries, and the Qualifications Scotland, the Scottish Government body responsible for accrediting educational awards. Two routes exist: Skills for English: SELT, approved by the Home Office for UK visas and immigration, and Skills for English: Global, for international student direct entry, career improvement and school testing. The suite covers the four skills - Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing - and the B2 level is the upper of the two levels for which the site publishes dedicated test-taker guides, alongside B1. The Skills for English B2 study guide has 4 sections and about 1,397 words.
01Reading
Reading in Skills for English B2 is delivered on computer and uses texts of the kind an educated adult meets at work, in study and in public life. The test asks you to do more than locate words: it checks whether you can identify gist, follow an argument, infer meaning and recognise the writer's attitude.
366 words, about 2 min02Listening
Listening in Skills for English B2 is computer-delivered. You hear short monologues and conversations, usually played once, and answer multiple-choice, matching or note-completion questions.
328 words, about 2 min03Speaking
Speaking in Skills for English B2 is a recorded one-to-one test with an examiner, taken face-to-face or online. It includes an introductory interview, an individual long turn from a prompt, and a discussion in which you respond to the examiner's questions and develop a viewpoint.
357 words, about 2 min04Writing
Writing in Skills for English B2 is computer-based and has two tasks: a functional text such as an email or letter, and a longer discursive piece such as an essay. Marks come from task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy.
346 words, about 2 min