What an article is — and who is reading it
The article appears among the Writing Part 2 choices, and the task always tells you where it will be “published”: a student magazine, an English-language website, a college newsletter. That imagined reader changes everything. Nobody flips through a magazine because they must — your job is to make a browsing reader stop, read to the end, and feel the read was worth it.
Choose the article when you write with personality: it is the one task where anecdotes, humour and direct opinions are not just allowed but rewarded under Communicative Achievement.
Structure: title, hook, two ideas, send-off
The shape is simple; the energy is what varies:
- Title. Required, and worth ten seconds of thought. A question or a twist beats a label: “Could You Live Without Your Phone?” beats “Mobile Phones”.
- Hook opening (2–3 sentences). A rhetorical question, a tiny story, a surprising claim — anything but “In this article I will discuss…”.
- Two body paragraphs. One idea each, kept concrete: an example from your life outweighs an abstract argument here.
- A send-off. Close with your opinion, a recommendation, or a question back to the reader — leave them something.
The engagement toolkit
Three devices do most of the work of sounding like an article, and all three double as Language-scale range:
| Device | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Rhetorical questions | Have you ever promised yourself just five more minutes of scrolling? |
| Direct address (“you”) | You know the feeling: the bus is late and your battery is at 3%. |
| A quick anecdote | Last summer I tried a whole weekend offline. I lasted six hours. |
Use each once or twice, not in every sentence — an article that is all questions and exclamation marks stops sounding confident and starts sounding nervous.
Register: the essay’s opposite
This is where candidates lose easy marks: they learn the essay’s formal voice, then apply it everywhere. The two tasks pull in opposite directions —
| Essay (Part 1) | Article (Part 2) | |
|---|---|---|
| Person | Impersonal, third person | First person, direct “you” |
| Tone | Formal, measured | Informal, warm, opinionated |
| Contractions | Avoid | Natural — don’t, it’s, you’ll |
| Opening | Rephrase the question | Hook the reader |
| Title | None | Required |
If you have just read the essay guide, read this table twice — switching register between Part 1 and Part 2 in the same sitting is a trained skill, not an obvious one.
C
Content
Did you do everything the task asked?
CA
Communicative Achievement
The right register and effect for the reader
O
Organisation
Paragraphs, linking, a logical shape
L
Language
Range and accuracy of vocabulary and grammar
A full worked example
Task: “Write an article for your college website: What is the best way to spend a free afternoon in your town?” A strong answer (172 words):
An Afternoon Off? Follow Me
What would you do with a whole free afternoon — no classes, no homework, no plans? Most people in my town say “the shopping centre”, and most people are wrong.
Start at the old market square. It doesn’t look special on a map, but on Friday afternoons a food market takes over, and you can eat your way across half of Europe for a few euros. I once spent two hours there and left with new friends and a terrible attempt at Spanish.
Then climb the castle hill — yes, all 212 steps. The view is the reward: the whole town below you, and if you time it right, the sunset behind it.
So next time you have an afternoon free, skip the shops. The best part of our town isn’t in them — it’s above them. Will you make the climb?
What the examiner sees: a title with a hook, a rhetorical question in the first line, first-person anecdote, contractions used naturally, concrete detail (212 steps!) instead of vague praise — and a closing question that hands the topic back to the reader. Informal, but never careless.
The pitfalls specific to articles
- Writing it like an essay. Formal linkers (“furthermore”, “in conclusion”) and an impersonal voice tell the examiner you did not adapt to the task.
- No title. Costs Content marks and first impressions in one stroke.
- A flat opening. “Nowadays, free time is very important” loses the browsing reader the task imagines.
- All opinion, no substance. Enthusiasm needs at least one concrete example or the article floats away.
These four — plus six more that plague every task type — are catalogued in 10 common FCE writing mistakes. And when the task menu offers you a choice, it helps to know the alternative: the report rewards exactly the formality the article punishes.
Write one — and hear how it reads
The article’s register is the hardest thing to judge from inside your own head — it is precisely what feedback is for. The B2 article practice tasks give you real prompts, and Felix, the AI examiner, marks your answer on the four Cambridge scales, quoting the sentences where the tone slips. Both come with the Exam Prep pass — €12 for three months, nothing renews.
New to the exam? Start from the complete B2 First preparation guide.