When it comes to Cambridge exams, a teacher usually bears in mind a candidate’s level of English, previous exam-taking experience and age. If you teach for Young Learners exams, for instance, you might have heard that they are aimed at children aged 7-12. 6 is risky, 13 is ‘too old’. If a candidate wants to take FCE being 14, you’ll probably try to talk them out or at least think: ‘I don’t even know…they are too young for this exam’. But does age really matter? Today’s article will tell you.

First things first – let’s go straight to the website of Cambridge Assessment English and take a look:

Is there an age restriction for any Cambridge English exams?

No. Cambridge Assessment welcomes candidates of any ability and age to take our exams.

Some exams are specifically designed with candidates of a certain age in mind, however, candidates of any age are welcome to take any exam. 

Exams with a suggested age range are:

  • Pre A1 Starters, A1 Movers and A2 Flyers – for students in primary or lower secondary school
  • A2 Key for Schools – for students in late primary or secondary school
  • B1 Preliminary for Schools – for students in secondary school (occasionally taken by students at the end of Primary school)
  • B2 First for Schools – for students in secondary school
  • International English Testing System (IELTS) – recommended for candidates aged 16+”

As we can see, any exam can be legally taken by a candidate of any age. However, there are some cases when age might be an issue. Sometimes candidates tend to rush with exams or, vice versa, prefer to play safe and opt for the easiest exam possible for their current level. With kids, it might have something to do with parents expectations or ambitions. With teens and adults – anything from lack of confidence to career-related pressure. Let’s have a look at some cases. And remember – all characters and names are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons is purely coincidental.

Natalie, just turned 6. Bright and ambitious young girl learning English as part of her pre-school programme. Excited about playing in English, listening to songs and stories, watching cartoons and drawing. Less excited about learning how to write and spell. Tries to read CVC words –  short consonant-vowel-consonant combinations like cat, pen, dog etc. Is registered for Pre A1 Cambridge Starters.

What’s the problem?

Even if a child knows the format and performs well in class, they might be disoriented or scared at a real exam. After all, while preparing, we do give extra time and a necessary number of attempts to little ones because we don’t want them to be stressed. For a child who’s just turned 6, Starters can be challenging enough to handle. It requires spelling, proper writing skills and an ability to listen to the information and write it down at the same time. It’s quite easy to lose track of the whole thing and feel discouraged. 

How to help?

If an exam is agreed and considered to be necessary, but the child still seems too young, here are some ideas to consider:

  • Practise spelling. Play spelling games like Hangman, make words out of letter tiles or blocks, fill in the missing letters. Ask a child to run a dictation for you: give them a list of pre-written words and invite to dictate them to you (hello, reading practice) and then check your answers. 
  • Watch a video about the speaking part with a child. Sometimes they stress out or start answering in their mother tongue because an examiner as a new person can seem intimidating.  A video will give an idea about the speaking part stages and procedures.
  • Be realistic about the time limits and a number of attempts. Constantly giving some extra time or playing the recording for listening part 3 or 4 times can play havoc with the child’s performance or disappoint them a great deal.

Antony, 12. Weak A2 level. An exam is seen as a way to challenge and motivate him. A2 Key is not an option judged by the results of numerous pre-tests. He took Starters at the age of 10, now the demand is to continue with Movers.

What’s the problem?

The first thing that comes to mind here is boredom. A teenager can easily get demotivated with childish pictures and colouring pages. They might also get distracted while reading or listening because it looks easy and make a number of occasional slips and mistakes. 

How to help?

If an older kid is taking a lower-level exam, it’s better to add some challenge to that. Let at least the preparation be up to their age.

  • Save the format but change the materials. For example, looking for differences in the pictures, discuss some taken from Instagram* or a popular website. 
  • Add extra tasks. After the colouring task, ask a student to make guesses about the picture or share their feelings. Ask them to add three things to the picture and then give you instructions about them without showing the drawing (e.g. ‘Now you draw a scooter next to the girl, please’. Or ‘There is a graffiti on the wall’).

Tina, 14. Is taking B1 Preliminary. There wasn’t a session for B1 Preliminary for Schools but the certificate is needed for the school portfolio, so it is decided to take a general exam. Tina is very good at writing, but has some difficulties with reading, especially when a text is not about something appealing to her. She is shy and attends individual classes, so speaking with a partner can be a real struggle for her.

What’s the problem?

There is a good chance that Tina can be paired with an adult person for the speaking part. It won’t add her confidence as the candidates’ interests and life experience will obviously be too different. Also, she might struggle with reading or listening as the texts in ‘for Schools’ are more teens-oriented and based on hobbies and interests of the young. 

How to help?

Just find a session of ‘for Schools’. Well, joking. We all know that sometimes it’s not just us, teachers, who choose an exam. 

  • Practise various speaking strategies. Act as an overly talkative and pushy candidate, then as a silent one. Tell that there might be absolutely different people and she should be ready for that. Practise interaction: in part 3, where candidates have to work towards some outcome together, try passing some object like a plushie to indicate the question or reaction (e.g. ‘And what do you think about that?’ *pass the toy* or ‘Oh really? Yes, I also think so!’ *pass again*). This way shy candidates learn to feel the flow of the conversation and to remember that they should play an active part in it.
  • Add some authentic materials on a variety of topics. Art, work, money, career can all be present in exam tasks, so it’s better if you try to include such topics into your preparation in advance. Try to personalize them and find some background reading and listening considering your student’s interests. Before reading a sample text about career, ask them to do research about some modern jobs or interview three adults they know about their job and career. After such context-setting tasks, the topics will not be that stressful at the exam.

John, 15. His ambition is CAE because ‘next two years the plan is to focus on another foreign language’. He is quite fluent and good at listening. He gets bored when it comes to longer readings, though, and is bad at working under pressure. Hates writing, for sure, but aces grammar tasks. 

What’s the problem?

Teenagers attention span is still not long enough. They can be distracted or just start daydreaming suddenly. Their exam performance can be unpredictably affected by anything: a skipped breakfast, a sleepless night, a disagreement with a friend. When the stakes are high – and at high levels they are such – it’s not always worth risking. Another thing to mention, not every teenager has enough background knowledge and life experience to write a well-balanced argumentative essay, an article or to speculate about work-life balance and career opportunities.

How to help?

As one of the common problems here is ‘I don’t know what to say, I’ve never thought about that’, we should provide them with some food for thought first.

  • Encourage more of authentic reading, listening and watching. Watch and discuss videos from TedEd covering a variety of topics, read articles on controversial issues, listen to podcasts. It will provide teens with ideas which are so necessary for higher-level exams.
  • Do research before every writing. Read and discuss question-related texts, work with samples, spot ideas rather than nice grammar structures.
  • Ban all ‘I don’t know’ types of answers for the speaking part. ‘Why do older people feel nostalgic about the past?’ Let your student ask a grandparent or an older relative. ‘How important is it for companies to be aware of environmental issues?’ Invite them to do brief research and find names of 2-3 green companies. A couple of questions can go with homework to be better prepared for at home.
  • Collect all speaking tasks on slips of paper or electronically. From time to time, revisit them and discuss it again.

All in all, sometimes we have to prepare candidates for exams that seem to be ‘too early’ or ‘too late’ for them to take. Even though we might know a better option, we can still try to fine-tune the preparation process to make everybody’s life a bit easier and the candidate’s exam performance a bit better.

What do you think of age limits for exams? Should there be any?

*Instagram belongs to Meta Platforms Inc., whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation.

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