Cambridge 16 review: How to effectively practice Cam 16 exercises?

The Cambridge collection is considered one of the test papers that are very close to the real exam, ensuring authenticity when practicing questions. Cambridge 16 is regarded as a book of average difficulty and is one of the indispensable books for students to practice at home. In the following article, Prep reviews details about the book and provides experience to break through the IELTS score band quickly.

I. Introduction to Cambridge 16 book

1. General information

2. Targeted learners

The book mostly consists of sample tests, of course, you need an IELTS foundation to be able to learn this set of books. Prep encourages IELTS band 3.5 or above to learn this set of books. The book is suitable for beginners because of its average difficulty, without too many hard questions like some other Cambridge books.

Moreover, if you are in the accelerated stage of IELTS learning (2-3 months before the real test), this book is an extremely suitable source of materials for you. The book provides the closest test papers to the real exam for you to practice questions effectively.

II. Cambridge 16 review

1. What is included in Cambridge 16?

• The Cambridge 16 (Cam 16) book includes sample test papers that accurately follow the real test formats written by actual IELTS examiners.
• In each Test, you will practice under conditions similar to the actual exam to ensure the utmost authenticity.
• You can do practice tests independently or with teacher assistance to familiarize yourself with the exam format, scoring system and help you practice test-taking techniques.
• The book includes 4 sets of tests, including tests in each skill: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. The book comes with answer keys and Audio Files to allow you to self-check at home.

2. The difficulty level of Cambridge 16

For Cambridge 16: The Reading and Listening tests are all at a Medium level, without too many difficult questions, and suitable for beginner students.

III. The study methods for Cambridge 16 to break through the band scores

1. Reading & Listening

You should not focus too much on scores and the number of test taken but rather on quality and knowledge gained each time you practice test questions. Apply the Test - Teach - Test method to understand how to make tests, traps, and how to use academic vocabulary and grammar. The steps you can apply when doing a Test are as follows:

Do the Test ⏩ see the answers, look up new words, structures ⏩ Do the test one more time

Broaden your range of topics and vocabulary. This prevents the situation where you are entirely unfamiliar with a topic, significantly impacting both your test performance and psychological outlook.

1.1. Reading

• It is necessary to balance the time spent on passages from easy to difficult at 15/20/25 minutes. You should not spend too much time on one passage.
• Pacing yourself for each reading section will help you avoid silly mistakes on easy questions and especially avoid running out of time to finish the test.

1.2. Listening

• Practice active listening by taking notes while listening, and following along the keywords as you listen. This will help you avoid passive listening, losing focus, and missing keywords. 
• Learn to understand transcripts when reviewing explanations. It is necessary to see how questions paraphrase answer choices and distractors to avoid similar mistakes when taking a test.
• Mark wrong answer choices to more easily eliminate them. 

2. Speaking & Writing

It is important to avoid being overconfident and neglecting the basic topics. You need to diligently practice the basic topics before moving on to unfamiliar ones. The likelihood of basic, familiar topics appearing on the test is very high.

2.1. Speaking

Beyond just learning from sample tests in Cambridge IELTS 16, you should create a natural environment for approaching English through movies, television shows, and social media.

For example, when needing to describe a movie or book, instead of just finding sample answers, you can search for reviews of that book on Google using the search term "Review + name of movie/book" in English. This allows you to see comments, opinions, or descriptions of that book from native speakers, and even highly detailed video reviews in English. This expands your vocabulary naturally and accurately.

You can also find partners to practice speaking with, to improve spontaneity and naturalness. Finding a study buddy can be difficult for some. Luckily, Prep provides virtual Speaking rooms using artificial intelligence. Virtual Speaking rooms are known to provide an experience similar to speaking with a real person.

2.2. Writing

It is important to practice rare question types to expand vocabulary and ideas. Avoid memorizing answers and make unfamiliar question types even more difficult. In addition to sample tests from Cambridge 16, reliable references for writing academic essays and having diverse topics include:

• The New York Times
• National Geographic
• The Guardian

In summary, Prep has done a detailed review of the Cambridge 16 and effective learning methods for each skill to maximize your IELTS band score. Prep has also included links to download the Cambridge 16 PDF and audio files so you can study from these materials.

This article covers everything about the Cambridge 16 book. Hurry up and download this book to effectively review for the exam during the sprint phase! Hope this article is helpful to you, wish you all the best in your effective practice!