Twelve units, ten questions
Ten questions, one from each of ten units. Thirty seconds each. Whatever stalls is worth an hour this week.
1. Unit 13 · I ___ in this city since 2019.
2. Unit 14 · I ___ the report when the power ___.
3. Unit 15 · When I got there, she ___ already.
4. Unit 16 · You are in a museum and there is a sign. Which?
5. Unit 17 · If I ___ more time, I ___ it properly. — hypothetical
6. Unit 18 · She said, "I’ll send it tomorrow." Reported:
7. Unit 19 · The speaker has one sister. Which?
8. Unit 20 · She suggested ___ for the other post.
9. Unit 21 · Her badge has not been used all day. Which?
10. Unit 23 · ___ people value privacy. — people in general
What the exit assessment is
Four parts, and only the first happens today.
1 · A ten-minute speaking interview across the level’s themes — identity, story, work, opinion, decision, place, time.
2 · Eight written pieces selected from Units 13 to 24, assembled as a portfolio.
3 · A vocabulary size check, aiming at around two thousand word families receptively.
4 · A self-assessment against the B1 can-do statements, which is in the feedback phase below.
Six things the interview is listening for. Match each to what it sounds like when somebody is doing it.
Twelve units on one card
What each unit gave you
| Units | The grammar | The idea underneath it |
|---|---|---|
| 13 · 14 · 15 | Present perfect · past simple and continuous · past perfect | A tense says where you are standing, not only when it happened |
| 16 · 17 | Obligation and permission · conditionals 0, 1, 2 | English marks social force and hypothetical distance in the grammar, not in the voice |
| 18 · 19 | Reported speech · relative clauses | How other people’s words are carried, and how a comma changes who you are describing |
| 20 · 21 | Gerund and infinitive · modals of deduction | Some things are stored as pairs; others are chosen by how much your evidence buys |
| 22 · 23 | Passive · articles | Both decide what the sentence is about, and both are choices about your listener |
| 24 | Future continuous · future perfect | The vantage point again, at the far end — and the same rule as the perfects |
Fast. No discussion.
1. By next June I ___ here for ten years.
2. You want to borrow the car and would rather not force a decision. Which?
3. Which is correct?
4. This time next week I ___ on a train.
The B1 interview
How the thirty minutes run. Three minutes to prepare, then two interviews of ten minutes — one in each direction — with a third student timing and noting. Groups of three; the teacher moves. Five minutes at the end to assemble the portfolio list.
Part 1 · The interview · 10 minutes each way
Four sections, roughly two and a half minutes each. The interviewer keeps time and asks the follow-up.
Ten minutes of continuous, connected speech across the themes of the level.
- Section 1 · Story. Tell something that happened to you that changed a plan. Background and foreground. Follow-up: what had happened before that?
- Section 2 · Opinion. Take a position on something you actually care about. Follow-up: what would change your mind?
- Section 3 · Speculation. The interviewer names an object or a situation; you speculate. Follow-up: what rules out the alternatives?
- Section 4 · Time. Ten years back and five years forward, in three minutes. Follow-up: what does that depend on?
The third student · Notes, not marks
While the other two work, you keep four short lists.
Four lists, handed to the speaker at the end. No scores, no corrections during.
- Every vantage phrase you hear, and the tense that followed it.
- Every must or can’t, and whether the evidence was named.
- Every place the speaker repaired themselves and carried on — those are wins, and they get written down as wins.
- One sentence you would steal for your own English.
Part 2 · The portfolio · 5 minutes
List the eight pieces you will submit from Units 13 to 24.
A list of eight, with one line each saying why that piece is in it.
- Include at least one from each term, and at least one you would now write differently.
- For each, write the single thing it shows you can do — not the topic.
- Mark the two you intend to revise before submitting.
- Mark the one you would show somebody who does not know you.
B1 self-assessment
Can-do statements · tick honestly, this is not collected
| I can… | Not yet | With effort | Comfortably |
|---|---|---|---|
| tell a story with a background and a foreground, in the past | |||
| say how sure I am, and mean the level I chose | |||
| report what somebody said without changing what they meant | |||
| describe a person or thing in one sentence instead of four | |||
| argue a decision, conceding the strongest objection first | |||
| explain how something works so that a stranger can follow it | |||
| describe a place to somebody who has never been there | |||
| place myself in time — ten years back and five years forward | |||
| keep going for two minutes without stopping to repair | |||
| repair a wrong start and continue, rather than starting again |
Three questions. Answer for yourself.
1. Which follow-up question was hardest?
2. Across the level, which idea turned out to be doing the most work?
3. What is the honest state of the errors that never get corrected — articles, modal strength, verb patterns?
The end of B1
Twelve units ago you could describe your routine, your city and your plans. You now have: three past tenses and the vantage points that separate them; the conditionals; obligation and permission at eight levels of force; reported speech; relative clauses and what a comma claims; thirty verb patterns as pairs; deduction, graded and defensible; the passive as a choice about what the sentence is about; the article system as a claim about your listener; and both futures.
And one thing that is not a grammar point. Almost every unit at this level turned out to be about somebody else — what your listener already knows, how strong a claim you are making about a person, whose words you are carrying, who disappears when you use a passive. That is what B1 actually is: the level at which the language stops being about you.
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What do the three perfects have in common?
2. What has most of this level been about?
Next — B2 begins: The Self in Context. You have described what happened and what will. B2 opens with what did not: if I had stayed, I would be somebody else, I wish I had asked. Mixed conditionals and wish — the grammar of the lives you did not have, which is where English gets genuinely difficult and genuinely interesting.