B2 and C1

If you are struggling to obtain a B2 certificate you shouldn’t be happy with simple expressions because you want to produce sentences like I wish you hadn’t brought up her name. That is B2. If you don't believe me, check our textbook.

Let’s suppose an English speaker addresses another person by shouting “get down!”. What does she mean by that? It all depends on the context. Is that person up on a fence? Is he standing? Does the English speaker want the other person to avoid being shot or seen? How does she expect the person to get down? All those doubts can be dispelled by her choice of words. There are multiple options, all of which mean “get down”. Here is a selection of them:  Duck down!  Crouch down! On your knees! Climb down! Do you notice the different meanings? Do you get different mental pictures? Of course that’s what the C1 level deals with. Similarly, a B2 student who says "he showed me his ID” doesn’t make it clear if he refers to someone who showed his identity card to a bouncer or if he’s trying to describe a police officer who flashed her badge.

So… What are the defining characteristics of the B2 level? Well, for starters, you get your verb patterns right (I suggest going to the movies). You can handle conditional sentences  without hesitation (If I were you I’d take it). You know your prepositions (the key to your success). You also know some collocations (I stick to my principles) and you are able to use a couple of phrasal verbs (he turned down the job). And that’s about it. Your vocabulary is pretty unspecific but it kind of does the trick.

Then there’s the C1 level, which is all about accuracy, idioms, lots of collocations and the ability to emphasize certain elements of your speech. In short, you are supposed to have range, i.e. a significant number of options whenever you decide to say something and, yes, you sound (sort of) natural.

As for the video below, I agree with 96% of what the speaker says. The C level (C1 and C2) consists of exactly everything she says. The only thing I must disagree with is her estimate regarding the number of hours that an average learn needs to study in order to transition from the B2 level to the C1 level. That, I’m afraid, depends on many, many factors which vary greatly from one student to another.