Budgeting your time is very important during the exam.

Take several practice tests and time yourself to see how much time you can afford to spend on each section.

Allow yourself some extra time for questions you find more challenging.

Wear a watch so that you can time yourself during the exam.

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Make sure you understand what a question is asking before you try to answer it.

For the writing section, be sure to read the prompt and task carefully before you begin writing.

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Hangovers: Avoid drinking the night before an exam since a bad hangover is among the worst things to be suffering from in an exam room.

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Honesty: In writing an answer to a question, you will not be penalized if you tell the examiners that your star sign is Cancer when it is really Sagittarius because you aren’t sure how to spell Sagittarius.

Language tests are designed to test your language and not whether a response is entirely honest or not- don't worry about distorting the truth a little in order to demonstrate an accurate use of language.

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Deal with an exam as you would with a giant jigsaw puzzle.

It might be tough, but you can do it one piece at a time!

In other words, go into the exam with a positive attitude.

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In multiple choice questions use the process of elimination.

Cross out the choices that you know are wrong.

Focus on the most probable choices.

Then, select the option you think is correct.

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Before filling in the blanks on the Cloze part of the ECPE, read through the passage quickly to get an overall impression of the content

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It may sound self-evident, but ...

don't forget to read the instructions and make sure you know what you are being asked to do.

You should go into the exam well aware of what is expected of you, but you should always check the instructions just to be sure.

Don't spend too much time doing this, though.

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On time, not just in time:

Allow for problems, hold-ups and traffic jams on the way to the exam center and make sure you arrive with time to spare so that you can go in calmly rather than in a frantic rush.

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Take spare pens and pencils just in case the one you are using stops working.

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Writing - Don't get carried away and overload your writing with too many obvious connectives and contrastives. If every sentence has two or three such words or expressions, then the writing can seem forced and artificial. Remember, you can try too hard as well as not hard enough

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Speaking: Think over your answers to common questions about yourself.

The first stage of a speaking test is an opportunity for examiners to get a general picture of your language level, especially your ability to talk about past, present and future experiences, so run these things over in your mind and try to use appropriate verb forms.

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speaking: don't bother learning speeches and trying to say them verbatim (word-for-word) in interviews; examiners will usually spot this without too much difficulty and mark you down for it. It is very hard to recite memorized material and sound natural.

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Deal with an exam as you would with a giant jigsaw puzzle.

It might be tough, but you can do it one piece at a time! In other words, go into the exam with a positive attitude.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In multiple choice questions use the process of elimination.

Cross out the choices that you know are wrong. Focus on the most probable choices.

Then, select the option you think is correct.

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Before filling in the blanks on the Cloze part of the ECPE, read through the passage quickly to get an overall impression of the content.

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Multiple choice: Many times after class tests students say, “I had the right answer, but I filled in the wrong circle on the sheet.”

Students who have completed the test before the time limit can take advantage of the remaining time to check their answers carefully.