BYa002 exam – Intermediate level English

Dear students,

Do not underestimate the preparation needed for this exam. Typically, for a student starting as a complete beginner to successfully reach level B1 and pass an exam at that level requires approximately 350 – 400 hours of study and preparation. Within the ‘free semesters’ available to students at FCE BUT you are provided with approx. 130 hours of direct tuition i.e. 100 minutes per week over 78 weeks. For your further studies (i.e. approx. 3 more hours per week), you have Moodle at your disposal. You can visit the BYA1 – BYA6 Moodle courses as guests at any time to help yourself prepare for the BY51. Login name: host_bya6, password: host_bya6 (this is for BYA6; change the number of the course according to your needs).

The exam tests not only knowledge from the curriculum of the BYA5 and BYA6 courses but also and mainly the ability to manage oral communication in everyday situations. The level of English required for the BY51 exam corresponds to the Cambridge PET exam (level B1 according to the CEFR). Two credits are given for this exam.

The new version of the test is ORAL ONLY.

During the oral exam, apart from their general speaking skills the student will also be evaluated according to their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (see the topics below). The ability to understand short English texts will also be tested. The conversation covers the topics practiced in the subjects BYA5 and BYA6.

Students must obtain a mark of at least 50 per cent in order to pass the exam.

The exam lasts 25 to 30 minutes.

Students must sign up for the BY51 exam for a given academic year at the study department so that they may register for individual BY51 exams online via the faculty intranet. Students that have signed up for the BY51 in the winter semester may also sit the exam in the summer semester without having to sign up again.

You might also like to have a look at our old test – you can try it and see if you have reached B1 level in English. You can also find sample Cambridge PET tests in the MOODLE course for BYA6. Information about the international PET exam can be found here.

Grammar areas:

• present simple and continuous
• past simple and continuous
• present perfect simple and continuous
• past perfect simple
• expressing the future using will, going to and present continuous
• first and second conditionals
• comparatives and superlatives of adjectives and adverbs
• the passive
• reported speech
• gerund(-ing) and infinitive
• relative pronouns (who, where, which, that, whose)
• reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself..)
• modal verbs (can, be able to, must, have to, might, could ...)

Vocabulary areas:

family, food, clothes, sport, travel, education, personality, appearance, housing, films and cinema, shopping, work

 - based on New English File Intermediate Third Edition

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