Universidad CEU San Pablo

Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
TIP
(TEST DE INGLÉS PRELIMINAR)
A Detailed Specification
INTRODUCTION
The TIP exam has been scaled in accordance with the levelling specifications of the Council of Europe Common
European Framework (CEF) http://www.culture.coe.int/lang . In order to pass TIP, students need to demonstrate that
they have a language resource which would enable them to operate at a low-intermediate level, that is, at Level B1 on
the CEF scale.
Students at this level are able to satisfy their own communicative needs, in a range of everyday situations with both
native and non-native speakers of English (in Spain or in a foreign country), which require largely predictable use of
language. This corresponds to approximately 375 hours of study, although required study time will vary between
individuals (depending on previous learning experiences, learning styles, exposure to language outside the classroom
etc.).
The examination is administered twice a year, in December and May, and the paper will differ for each administration.
Students may attend successive administrations until they pass the exam. There are 100 questions and these are graded
at Level B1. In accordance with standard language testing procedures, students are required to demonstrate overall
mastery on at least 60% of the paper. The examination lasts for two hours, and students may leave the examination
room when they have completed the paper. The time allocation is generous, providing students with ample opportunity
to think and produce a sample of linguistic competence without having to operate under impeding and stressful time
constraints. Students at Level B1 will complete the exam between 60 – 90 minutes.
There are nine sections to the exam which together test students in the following areas: listening, use of social English
and interaction skills, vocabulary, structural accuracy, proof-reading, use of linking devices, and reading. The
examination indirectly tests some speaking and writing sub-skills. The breath of the syllabus from which the questions
are drawn, however, requires that the students have a language competence level equivalent to that expected of students
at the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (Cambridge ESOL) Preliminary English Test (PET). All
UCLES English examinations have been recognised by the Council of Europe as meeting the necessary requirements
for validation and are calibrated according to the Common European Frame of Reference for Languages.
Like the Cambridge ESOL examinations, the TIP qualification remains a valid statement of a student’s level in English
provided the date on which the student passed the examination is clearly stated. It is a statement of a level of linguistic
competence at a point in time and which is subject to change.
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad
Pablo
Paseo Juan
XXIII, 6 – CEU
28040 San
Madrid
20idiomas@ceu.es
- 28003 Madrid (Spain)
Tel:C/Julián
91 456 42 Romea,
00 / e-mail:
1
REFERENCES:
The description of the TIP exam and syllabus (themes, skills, language, and vocabulary) is based on the following
documentation:
Cambridge Handbooks (KET, PET, FCE), University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate – now
Cambridge TESOL, (downloadable on www.cambridge-efl.org)
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching and assessment. 2001,
Council of Europe, Modern Languages Division, CUP
Threshold 1990, J A van Ek & J L M Trim, (Revised Edition), 1998, Council of Europe, CUP
Waystage 1990, J A van Ek & J L M Trim, (Revised Edition), 1998, Council of Europe, CUP
http://www.culture.coe.int/lang (Council of Europe )
http://www.culture.coe.int/portfolio (Council of Europe, portfolio and self-assessment) European Language
Portfolio: Guide for Developers by Gúnter Schneider and Peter Lenz, and The European Language Portfolio: a
guide for teachers and teacher trainers by David Little and Radka Perclová
http://www.alte.org (Association of Language Testers in Europe)
http://www.dialang.org/english/ProfInt/Icanall_En
http://www.dialang.org/ProfInt/Icanall_Es
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad CEU San Pablo
C/Julián Romea, 20 - 28003 Madrid (Spain)
2
1.- THEMES
Language use at this level falls largely within the areas of the personal and public domains, with limited inclusion of language for vocational and
professional purposes. Students at this level are able to use language relating to the following general themes:
Personal identification
People
Personal feelings
Opinions and experiences
Relations with other people
Social interaction
Clothes
House and home
Daily life
Shopping
Food and drink
Hobbies and leisure
Entertainment and media
Sport
Medicine and exercise
Health
Education
Places and buildings
Environment
Transport
Services
The natural world
Travel and holidays
Weather
Language
Work and jobs
2.- SKILLS
Successful candidates will demonstrate competence in a selection of the following abilities, on several of the above themes in different sections of the
exam.
a)
LISTENING (Q 1): The listening texts include public announcements and instructions, readings (from literature), radio news broadcasts,
discussions, inter-personal dialogues, conversation and telephone conversations on everyday topics.
At this level a student can:
* Understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar
matters regularly encountered in everyday situations, including short
narratives;
* Understand the main points of a discussion between two standard
dialect native speakers;
* Understand the outline of short talks on everyday topics;
* Understand a short narrative and form a hypothesis about what will
happen next;
* Understand announcements and operating instructions for everyday
equipment;
b)
* Understand the main points of radio news bulletins and recorded
material about everyday topics delivered relatively slowly and
clearly;
* Extract information of a factual nature (times, dates, etc.) from
speech which will contain redundancies and language outside the
defined limits of TIP;
* Understand the sense of a dialogue and show appreciation of the
attitudes and intentions of the speakers.
INTERACTING (Q 2): Students are required to demonstrate an ability to produce common expressions used in everyday situations and
expressions which enable conversation to run smoothly.
At this level a student can:
* Produce conversational exchanges using a standard range of
expressions in everyday conversational situations (eg. likely to arise
whilst staying or travelling in an area where the language is spoken)
to: greet people and respond to greetings; ask for and give details;
ask and answer questions; ask for and give information; talk about
how to operate things; express purpose, cause and result, and give
reasons; draw simple conclusions and make recommendations; make
and grant/refuse simple requests; make and respond to offers and
suggestions; express and respond to thanks; give and respond to
invitations; give advice; give warnings and prohibitions; persuade
and ask/tell people to do something; express obligation and lack of
obligation; ask and give/refuse permission to do something; make
and respond to apologies and excuses; pay compliments; criticise and
complain; sympathise; express preferences, likes and dislikes
(especially about hobbies and leisure activities); talk about physical
and emotional feelings; express opinions and make choices; express
needs and wants; express (in)ability in the present and in the past;
talk about (im)probability and (im)possibility; express degrees of
certainty and doubt.
(The above list will include the use of the following modals: can
(ability; requests; permission); could (ability; possibility; polite
requests); would (polite requests); will (offer) shall (suggestion;
offer); should (advice); may (possibility); might (possibility); have
(got) to (obligation); ought to (obligation); must (obligation); mustn’t
(prohibition); need (necessity); needn’t (lack of necessity); used to +
infinitive (past habits)).
* Formulate expressions in everyday conversational situations to: ask
for repetition and clarification; reformulation or elaboration; initiate
conversation; invite others into a conversation; re-state what has
been said; check on meaning and intention; help others to express
their ideas; interrupt a conversation; start a new topic: change the
topic; resume or continue the topic; ask for and give the spelling and
meaning of words; express agreement and disagreement, contradict
people, use circumlocution phrases to signal a lack of understanding;
close a conversation.
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Paseo Juan XXIII, 6 – 28040 Madrid
Universidad CEU San Pablo
Tel: 91 456 42 00 / e-mail: idiomas@ceu.es
C/Julián Romea, 20 - 28003 Madrid (Spain)
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c)
READING including writing sub-skills (Q 5, 6, 7, 8): The texts for reading questions include extract from magazines, newspapers,
leaflets, advertising material, packaging and labelling on goods, notes and messages, brochures, personal letters, brief reports or notes
asking for or conveying simple information. and short official documents.
At this level a student can:
* Understand significant points and ideas in reading texts on concrete
everyday topics containing reference, conjunction and simple lexical
substitution;
* Follow a line of argument;
* Scan texts and locate relevant facts and information
* Identify unfamiliar words and deduce phrase and sentence meaning
from context in texts about everyday concerns;
* Understand the plot of a clearly structured story and recognise the
most important events and their significance;
* Understand the opinion of writer to the material and the effect it is
intended to have on the reader
* Proof-read and make form corrections in written texts on everyday
life topics (eg. personal details, education, qualifications and skills,
family, hobbies, travel, routines and habits, past and current events,
future plans and intentions etc.) which: contain straightforward,
detailed descriptions, describe experiences and events, feelings and
reactions, express thoughts and personal opinions, pass on routine
factual information, give reasons and explanations for opinions,
plans and actions, describe basic details of unpredictable occurrences
(eg. an accident) or describe the plot of a book or film and describe
reactions;
* Use appropriate linking devices to signal the relationship between
clauses where the relationship is: Conjunction (and, also, too,
either...or, not.....either); Opposition (but, or, however); Sequence
(first, second, next, then, finally); Temporal (when, while, until,
before, after, as soon as, for, since, until, still, yet); Spatial (where, in
which); Reason (because, so that, in order to); Condition (if, unless)
3.- LANGUAGE
At this level students should have enough language to express themselves on topics such as family, hobbies and interests, work, study,
travel and current events.
a)
VOCABULARY (Questions 3, 9). TIP vocabulary is that which occurs in everyday native speaker communication using
English today.
Students at this level can:
* Produce exponents to perform the language functions listed above
* Produce compound nouns and, multi-word verbs in themes listed
above
b)
* Select appropriate vocabulary from close synonyms commonly
used in the themes listed above
* Demonstrate an awareness of collocation in terms used in everyday
native speaker communication in the themes listed above
STRUCTURE (Q 4) Within the domains and themes specified above students should be able to use the following grammatical forms (in
simple and compound sentences):
Verbs: Regular and irregular forms
Tenses: Present simple for states, habits, systems and processes (and verbs not used in the continuous form); Present continuous for future plans and
activities, and present actions; Present perfect simple for recent past with just; indefinite past with yet, already, never, ever; unfinished past with for
and since; Past simple for past events; Past continuous for parallel past actions and continuous actions interrupted by the past simple tense; Past
perfect simple for narrative, reported speech; Future with going to; Future with present continuous and present simple; Future with will and shall:
offers, promises, predictions, etc..
Verb Forms: Affirmative, interrogative, negative; Imperatives; Infinitives (with and without to) after verbs and adjectives; Gerunds (-ing form) after
verbs and prepositions; Gerunds as subjects and objects; Passive forms: present and past simple; Verb + object + infinitive give/take/send/bring/show
+ direct/indirect object; Causative have/get; So/nor with auxiliaries
Compound Verb Patterns: Phrasal verbs and verbs with prepositions
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad CEU San Pablo
42 00 / e-mail:
idiomas@ceu.es
Tel: 91 456Romea,
C/Julián
20 - 28003
Madrid (Spain)
4
Conditional Sentences: Type 0: An iron bar expands if/when you heat it. Type 1: If you do that again, I’ll scream. Type 2: I’d lend you the money if I
had it., If I were you I wouldn’t do that again.
Simple Reported Speech: Statements, questions and commands: say, ask, tell, eg. He said he felt ill. I asked her if I could leave. No one told me what
to do. Indirect and embedded questions: know, wonder, Do you know what he said? I wondered what he would do next.
Interrogatives: What, What (+ noun); Where; When; Who; Whose; Which; How; How much; How many; How often; How long; etc.; Why (including
the interrogative forms of all tenses and modals listed in the Social English/Interactive skills section)
Adverbs: Regular and irregular forms. Manner: quickly, carefully, etc.; Frequency: often, never, twice a day, etc.; Definite time: now, last week, etc.;
Indefinite time: already, just, yet, etc.; Degree: very, too, rather, etc.; Place: here, there, etc.; Direction: left, right, along, etc.; Sequence: first, next,
etc.; Sentence adverbs: too, either, etc.; Pre-verbal, post-verbal and end-position adverbs; Comparative and superlative forms (regular and irregular)
Nouns: Singular and plural (regular and irregular forms); Countable and uncountable nouns with some and any; Abstract nouns; Compound nouns;
Complex noun phrases; Genitive: ‘s & s’; Double genitive: a friend of theirs.
Pronouns: Personal (subject, object, possessive); Reflexive and emphatic: myself, etc.; Impersonal: it, there; Demonstrative: this, that, these, those;
Quantitative: one, something, everybody, etc.; Indefinite: some, any, something, one, etc.; Relative: who, which, that, whom, whose
Determiners: a + countable nouns; the + countable / uncountable nouns
Adjectives: Colour, size, shape, quality, nationality; Predicative: alive, ill, well etc. ; Attributive: daily, weekly etc. ; Cardinal and ordinal numbers;
Possessive: my, your, his, her, etc.; Demonstrative: this, that, these, those; Quantitative: some, any, many, much, a few, a lot of, all, other, every, etc.;
Comparative and superlative forms (regular and irregular): (not) as . . . as, not . . . enough to, too . . . to; like, the same as, Order of adjectives;
Participles as adjectives; Compound adjectives (eg. first class, fair-haired)
Prepositions: Location: to, on, inside, next to, at (home), etc.; Time: at, on, in, during, etc.; Direction: to, into, out of, from, etc.; Instrument: by, with;
Miscellaneous: like, as, due to, owing to, etc.; Prepositional phrases: at the beginning of, by means of, etc.; Prepositions preceding nouns and
adjectives: by car, for sale, at last, etc.; Prepositions following (i) nouns and adjectives: advice on, afraid of, etc. (ii) verbs: laugh at, ask for, etc.
Note: In the TIP exam students will meet other forms and structures in texts, but they will only be tested on those above.
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad CEU San Pablo
C/Julián
Romea,
28003
Madrid (Spain)
Paseo Juan
XXIII,20
6 –- 28040
Madrid
Tel: 91 456 42 00 / e-mail: idiomas@ceu.es
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STUDY MATERIALS
In order to prepare for the TIP examination, students could use any of the standard coursebooks (with teachers), grammar and vocabulary
references and dictionaries intended for adults and which take learners up to a pre-intermediate level. Here are some examples:
a)
COURSEBOOKs (not designed for self-study)
English File (Books 1 and 2), Clive Oxenden, Cristina Latham-Koenig, Paul Seligson, Oxford University Press or
New Headway English Course (Beginner, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate), John and Liz Soares, Oxford University Press or
International Express (Elementary and Pre-intermediate), Liz Taylor, Oxford University Press
b)
SOFTWARE (designed for self-study and available at the university Language Laboratories
NetLanguages
English Express
Tense Buster
TIP-type exercises
c)
GRAMMAR / VOCABULARY REFERENCES (designed for self-study)
* The Good Grammar Book (Elementary to lower-intermediate, with answers), Michael Swan, Catherine Walter, Oxford University Press
* Essential Grammar in Use (Elementary and Lower Intermediate) Raymond Murphy, Cambridge University Press
* English Vocabulary in Use (Elementary and Pre-Intermediate), Stuart Redman, Cambridge University Press
d)
DICTIONARIES
* Oxford Basic English Dictionary
* Collins Pocket Plus (Español - Inglés)
* Diccionario Cambridge Klett Pocket
etc...................
Centro de Idiomas
Vicerrectorado de Relaciones Internacionales
Universidad CEU San Pablo
C/Julián
Romea,
206 -–28003
Madrid (Spain)
Paseo Juan
XXIII,
28040 Madrid
Madrid
(Spain)
Tel: 91 456 42 00 / e-mail: idiomas@ceu.es
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