Marking Criteria

All writing tasks are marked according to the 4 following marking criteria:

• Effective communication
• Lexical accuracy and range
• Grammatical accuracy and range
• Task completion

Each criterion awards 5 marks on a total of 20.

It is very important to prepare candidates and mark their writing tasks according to the marking criteria.

All oral examinations are assessed according to the 5 following marking criteria:

• Effective communication
• Interaction
• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Pronunciation

The London Tests of English are scenario-based English language assessments.

Below you can find the list of all the possible themes per level.

Level 2

• relations with other people
• travel and accommodation arrangements
• eating out
• entertainment
• visiting public places
• social events
• sports, health and fitness
• people and relationships, feelings and emotions
• functioning in public services such as banks, post offices, hotels, doctors, dentists
• functioning with officials such as customs officers or police
• language, education and work services

Level 3

• relationships and problems and concerns
• museums and other places of historic and educational interest
• the media including television
• the arts
• fashion and peer pressure
• the press
• youth culture
• topical issues

Level 4

• higher education
• commercial contexts
• employment
• science and technology
• social issues such as unemployment, drug abuse, homelessness
• political issues
• literature
• local, national and global issues

Level 5

• the changing world
• studying or working abroad
• cultural and linguistic diversity
• economic and social systems
• the world of business
• topical international issues
• discrimination and equal opportunities

Tips for writing tasks

A recording and organizing language

Each LTE paper tests competence in communicative tasks, themes and vocabulary, and language content appropriate to candidates’ expected level. So it is a very good idea to look at the items listed in these areas for each level in the LTE Handbook, to give your students as good a chance as possible to deal with whatever they might encounter in the exam.

When recording language in their notebooks, it is useful for students to organize it around themes or communicative functions. This will help them in the exam to recall language in batches of relevant vocabulary and expressions.

Synonyms and paraphrases

LTE tasks often invite candidates to write about their own experiences and to discuss topics in the context of their own background and local situation. Many candidates find this difficult, as they are used to thinking of English as an abstract system, unrelated to their lives or localities. It is important to help students to overcome this personal detachment from the language. The more that students relate language to their own lives, the more likely they are to remember it and to be ready to use it in an exam. This is one reason why it is useful for students to write example sentences that have personal relevance and express the students’ own opinions. At higher levels candidates need to read texts and to use material from their own writing.

Use your own words as much as possible

It is essential that candidates take these instructions seriously. If they needlessly copy from the test, they will lose marks. For this reason it is useful to get students used to paraphrasing language and to be familiar with synonyms. This will also help them in all the other sections of the exam.