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B2 First (FCE) · Paper 2 · 58 tasks

B2 First Writing: the complete guide

Two tasks, 1 hour 20 minutes, 140–190 words each: a compulsory essay, then your choice of article, email or letter, report or review. What examiners look for, the marks you need for a B2, and an AI examiner that marks your writing in about a minute.

Try one now · Part 1

Essay title: “Should every town have a car-free centre?”

Which sentence works best as the opening of your essay?

  1. In this essay I am going to write about cars.
  2. Car-free centres sound attractive, but whether they suit every town is less clear.
  3. Cars are very bad and everybody knows it.

A good opening introduces the question and hints at your view.

Practise a full Part 1 →

Practise Part 1 free → · See all writing tasks

The two parts, and where students lose marks

Tap a part to practise it

  1. Part 1 · Essay: Your opinion on a topic, using two given notes and an idea of your own · 16 tasks. Length: 140–190 words, compulsory. Time: 40 min, suggested. B2 students score: 67%.
  2. Part 2 · Article, email or letter, report or review: Writing for a given reader and purpose, in the right style · 42 tasks. Length: 140–190 words, choose one task. Time: 40 min, suggested. B2 students score: 69%.

Language is where B2 students score lowest: 2.9 out of 5 on average. Keep a list of the mistakes you make most and check for them at the end. A wider range of structures, used accurately, also lifts this mark.

Average marks from 229 tasks marked by the AI examiner, for 95 B2 students on Cambridge Ready.

The marks you need for a B2

160 on the Cambridge English Scale

What the examiners mark

About 3 out of 5 on each scale (24 of 40 marks) gives 160, a B2.

Writing is one of five scores, and your overall result is their average, so every mark here counts towards the grade.

From Cambridge’s published conversion tables. The exact mark varies slightly from paper to paper.

The method

Six habits that hold under time pressure

  1. Spend about 5 minutes planning each task. A paragraph plan saves more time than it costs.
  2. In the essay, use both notes and add a clear idea of your own.
  3. Give your opinion in the introduction and keep it the same to the end.
  4. In Part 2, choose the task whose style you know best, not the topic you like most.
  5. Use paragraphs and linking words, but not a linker in every sentence.
  6. Leave 5 minutes to check for your usual mistakes: verb forms, articles, spelling.

The traps

The mistakes we see most

Write a Part 1 essay → Marked on the four Cambridge scales in about a minute. One free marked task a month.

Questions students ask

How long is the B2 First Writing paper?

1 hour 20 minutes for two tasks of 140–190 words each. Part 1 is a compulsory essay; in Part 2 you choose one task.

How many marks do you need to pass B2 First Writing?

About 24 out of 40 in Writing, which gives 160 on the Cambridge English Scale, the B2 level. That is about 3 out of 5 on each marking scale. You pass on your overall score, the average of all five skills.

What happens if you write more than 190 words in B2 First Writing?

The range is a guide, and nobody stops reading at 190. But a much longer answer often repeats itself or drifts from the task, and that lowers the marks. Aim for the range.

Can I get my B2 First writing marked online?

Yes. Write any task here and an AI examiner marks it on the four Cambridge scales in about a minute, with corrections quoted from your own text. One marked task a month is free.

All B2 First Writing tasks (58)

B2 First Handbook, Cambridge English

B2 First for Schools Handbook, Cambridge English

Cambridge B2 First 4, Cambridge University Press

Cambridge English First 2, Cambridge University Press

Cambridge English First 3, Cambridge University Press

Other levels