It's all about highlights

Be alert, my beloved learners, for the exam season is nigh!

Indeed. So, what are you expected to do in the dreaded oral exam? For starters make "the right mistakes". By that I mean that some blunders are unacceptable. For instance, at the B2 level you cannot afford any singular/plural mix-ups. Even if you are nervous you should have no problem saying "men and women". A B2 student who still produces atrocities like mens and womans or childrens or childs, etc. shows unresolved issues that do not belong in the upper-intermediate level. Conversely, a mistake like the key to pass the exam is a good mistake. Just do not abuse extremely broad terms (people, place, go, do, have) and, every now and then, drop a simple collocation and prove that you know how to use two verbs (I remember swimming in that lake) and prepositions (Rebecca dreamed of Manderlay again). It's all in the highlights.

The same applies to my C1 class. I wouldn't want you to pack 23 idioms into your monolog. That would be insane, wouldn't it? Your job is to show that you can handle some specific terms and, if need be, some "C1 stuff". What is C1 stuff? Well, the ability to hesitate, to interact, to emphasize and the use of obviously accurate vocabulary. Not all the time. I repeat: not all the time. A B2 sentence with one C1 word is a C1 sentence.  The sequence a lot of people are coming from Syria because there is a war is not complex enough. Sounds a lot like B1, right? In contrast, this alternative is a tad more sophisticated: due to the civil war in Syria large numbers of refugees are coming to Europe. You can, of course, improve on that sentence, make it more "fancy"... but the fact that you mention who those people are (refugees) and specify that it is a civil war they flee from shows your command of the necessary vocabulary. And let's not forget: the sentence does not have that quintessentially intermediate mistake: a big amount of people. In short, do not make horrible mistakes and give the examiners some hints that you know what your target level is all about.

N.B. 1. Homework. B2: movie review. C1: discuss the statement "art is fundamentally elitist".

N.B. 2. Yes. The expression is "if need be".