There have been many occasions where my students have no time to learn the correct B2 essay structure for a Cambridge B2 First exam. Course books often do a great job of providing model answers, useful phrases and much more. However, sometimes people just want to be spoon-fed the correct way to write an essay. Well, are you hungry?
Contents
What is an essay skeleton?
An essay skeleton provides you with the base for an essay, without including any of the content. It includes all the necessary linkers, transitions and placeholders to emulate the ideal B2 essay structure. However, it is incomplete. In an ideal word, these skeletons can be memorised and adapted to any topic that you may find in the B2 First exam. Obviously, it isn’t likely to always be a perfect fit, so it can’t replace learning how to write an essay from scratch. However, if you are short on time or really struggling to produce a passing essay, this skeleton may be helpful.
B2 essay structure
A Cambridge B2 First essay has a reasonably set structure. This is because the tasks are always similar. Take a look at the task below:
When we analyse the task, the most obvious structure is to write 5 paragraphs. This allows us to keep a clear separation between our three points. It also gives us plenty of opportunities for lovely linking words. With a word limit of 190 words, these paragraphs will be quite short, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be clear and effective.
Our standard paragraph plan for a B2 essay structure is…
- Introduction – Including a thesis statement that mentions the 3 areas of focus
- Body paragraph 1 – In this case about pollution
- Body paragraph 2 – In this case about rubbish
- Body paragraph 3 – Our own idea (for example, endangered animals)
- Conclusion – Summarise the 3 areas and optionally choose the most important
The two proposed essay skeletons below follow this paragraph plan in order to produce the perfect B2 essay every time.
The materials
We’ve designed two essay skeletons. They are similar but have subtle differences. Either one of them can be used with any topic that may come up in the B2 First exam. If you want to practise using the essay skeletons, try it out with a B2 essay task.
EXAM PART: B2 First / B2 First for Schools Writing Part 1: essay
EXAM SKILLS: Planning paragraphs and using linking words to organise an essay
LEVEL: B2
TOPIC: Essay structure; adaptable to the chosen essay topic
TIME: 20–30 minutes
PREPARATION: One copy of the skeletons per student and an essay task to practise with
Download
Preview
First Writing Plus
Practise B2 First Writing with guided tasks, model answers and language work for essays, articles, reviews, letters, emails, reports and stories.
Digital PDF: €9.95 · Also available in paperback
