Hello Exam Seekers,
As a student or an English language learner, I know that whenever we start studying for an English exam, we tend to look for information everywhere to help us understand the content and gain knowledge. Moreover, we search for extra practice everywhere.
As a teacher, I created this blog to help people know what kinds of exams are out there and to help them get the best scores they can. I do hope that I’ve been able to do so and that Exam Seekers continues to help people.
I recently got into contact with Jonny Sleeman another content creator and the founder of English Swami, a website that offers online practice for B2 First (Cambridge English: First). Last week I had the chance to get to know his work and I can say that, like me, he does try and help people to get the best results in the B2 First exam.
Now, let me share what I got from his website so that you can decide for yourselves if it is worth it to practice with English Swami.
First things first, why English Swami?
According to the Hindi word origin in Oxford Dictionary, Swami /swāmī/ means ‘master, prince’, from Sanskrit svāmin. So, English Swami would be an English Master. Well, let’s see what the English Swami website offers us:
I believe it is a very clean and organized website. As you enter, you can find easily where to log in or to sign up for free.
As you can see from the screenshot above the website offers Practice Tests, Forums, and you can also contact the creators of the tests to have your questions answered. I had to use the contact area and they answered within 24 hours – this is really important when looking for websites.
As soon as I registered, I came across this lovely and warm wecoming message:
So as I could see, English Swami is not only an online B2 First practice website, but they planned the website to be a community.
So you can Complete Your Profile by uploading your picture and writing some information about yourself:
- About Me
- Country
- B2 First target date
- Website
You choose how to complete this info that will be available for everyone to see. If you are a teacher, it is a great opportunity to leave your contact info available. If you are a student, you can go to the Forum and ask your questions:
Anyone in English Swami can reply to your questions: teachers, other students, or English Swami. It is a nice space to feel welcome and heard. Also, it is possible to make new friends.
Even though the forums are nice, the main focus of English Swami are the Practice Tests. As you join for free, there are two practice tests available out of sixteen:
Like Cambridge English B2 First, the practices take 1 hour 15 minutes each and they follow the same punctuation structure:
- INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
- Answer all the questions.
- You can change your answers at any time during the test.
- INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES
- There are 52 questions in this test.
- Each question in Parts 1, 2, 3 and 7 carries one mark.
- Each question in Part 4 carries up to two marks.
- Each question in Parts 5 and 6 carries two marks.
This is a sample of one of the practices:
It is visually clean and easy to find everything: the questions, the place where to answer, the alternatives, etc.
If you are familiar with the B2 First Reading and Use of English, you know that this website offers similar texts and similar questions. As I tried to answer the questions, I felt I was really practicing for the B2 First.
In the end, you get your results. If you made mistakes, you can go over the questions and check the mistakes. You can also retake the test and try and get a better score.
Also, at the bottom of the score, there is a forum (for the upgrade version), where you can ask questions related to this specific test. So you can interact with people and have your specific questions answered.
One thing that I missed, though, was the previous results shown somewhere, so that you could compare the results of several practices.
Well, I must say that I enjoyed the experience, and I think that it is a great addition to the B2 First learners’ and teachers’ community.
If you want more practice, you can buy the Upgrade. It costs €40, and you can pay using Credit Card or Paypal.
I think it is worth it! If you want to buy it WITH 50% DISCOUNT, you can access it through my link: http://englishswami.com/ref/examseekers
And add my coupon: EXAMSEEKERS
Another nice thing is that once you have an upgrade you can become an Affiliate. So if you are a teacher, you can share your link with students or colleagues. If you are a learner, you can also become an affiliate and help others getting €5 per signup using your code.
Well, it was very pleasurable to make this review. Make sure you guys check English Swami and take the practice tests over there. You can follow English Swami on:
- instagram.com/englishswami_b2first
- youtube.com/user/englishswami/videos
- twitter.com/englishswami
- facebook.com/EnglishSwamiB2First
- englishswami.com/blog
They offer not ony the free practice tests on the website, but there are some tips on the other platforms. Check it out! 🙂
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That’s it for today! Please like the post and follow the blog on:
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You can also listen to this post at Anchor!!!
Have a great week,
Patricia Moura
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Thanks for making this possible! 🙂
Thanks for making this possible! 🙂
Thanks for making this possible! 🙂
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Great review Patricia 🙂 We have many more features coming soon for B2 First so please stay tuned!
Hello dear,i wan to ask about tkt bands,if i got different band from 1-2-3 modules what would be my overall band?
E.g. module 1-band3
Modele 2-band 2
module 3-band 3
Overall—-?
Thanks beforehand
Hey Inomjon, how are you doing?
For the regular Cambridge Exams you do have an “overall score/mark”, however, for the TKT there is no overall mark because the TKT is a test. You can choose if you want to take only one TKT or all the TKTs. For EACH, you will receive one score. You don’t combine the scores, you don’t sum and divide. If you are putting the grades in your résumè, you put “TKT MODULE 1 – Band X” “TKT MODULE 2 – BAND Y” and so forth and so on. There is no “overall”. You can say that for most of the TKTs you took a BAND 3, for instance. Because it is a test, the scores are individual. Take a look at a text I wrote on exams and tests (https://exam-seekers.com/2018/09/25/exams-x-tests-whats-the-difference)