• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Get into English

Learn English | English From Melbourne

  • Home
  • Welcome!
  • English Courses
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Cambridge Exam Preparation / “That’s When He Walked Out The Door” – Cambridge English: First Story Writing

“That’s When He Walked Out The Door” – Cambridge English: First Story Writing

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Del
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Flattr
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • ManageWP.org
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • Yummly

See the lovers in the faded photograph
She’s making funny faces.
He’s trying not to laugh
Do you remember the way we used to be
When love lifted us up, made us feel so free?

– from ‘Have a little faith in us’ by John Farnham

FCE Story Writing

If you’re taking the Cambridge English: First exam (also known as the First Certicate in English), you may need to write a story in the Writing paper. Here’s an example question below, with a sample answer and some tips:

You have been asked to submit a story for your college magazine (180 words). The story should end with the following sentence:

“That’s when he walked out the door.”

The winning entry will be published in the next month’s edition of ‘The College Chronicle.’

… … …

Antonio and I

It’s amazing how small steps in time can lead to decisions that affect your whole life. I’m reminded of this whenever I look back at my university trip to England one summer.

I’d only just met Antonio, but I felt so alive with him. We were out on the lake that day, making funny faces at each other. I’d challenged him to a race from one side of the lake to the other. And I won! He wasn’t so happy, but he couldn’t help but laugh when I showed him my muscles afterwards.

“C’mon, knock it off!” he shouted, with a small smile, before pretending to tip my canoe over. Unfortunately I reacted so quickly that I actually stood up and fell into the water!

Back at our hostel, my ex-boyfriend – who was in my class – came into my room. I froze. It had taken me a very long time to get over him, and now there he was, standing right in front of me.

“Jude, what is it?”

He had what looked like a ring in his hand. He tried to say something but he also froze.

That’s when he walked out the door.

…

Word Bank

to make funny faces – to put a silly expression on your face. Usually you do this when you’re playing around with someone else.
he couldn’t help but laugh – he couldn’t stop himself from laughing, he couldn’t control himself and so he laughed.
knock it off! – phrase for telling someone to stop doing something
pretend – in this context he acted like he was going to tip the canoe over, but it was just acting for a short moment (he wasn’t going to do it in reality)
I froze – I stood still, I couldn’t move
it had taken me some time to get over him – it took me some time to recover from when our relationship ended

Tips and feedback

This is very well written and could in fact be CAE level. So please don’t be worried if you feel your writing is not yet like the example above – this is just an example.

This story shows some features of a story that will get a good mark. These features include:

  • a very good range of grammar (ie a variety of different grammatical constructions)
  • a very good range of vocabulary (including some phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions)
  • the story has good organisation of ideas and use of paragraphs
  • some dialogue is included to make the story more interesting
  • the story was slightly over the word limit, but not in a way to take away from the overall mark (be careful not to go too much over the limit of 180 words for the FCE exam)
  • most importantly, this example answers the question using the right genre of writing  (‘Task Achievement‘)

How can you write better?

  • practise!  If you write just one story a term or semester, then you won’t make as much progress compared to doing 2-3 stories each month. So make it a goal to write more regularly.
  • make it interesting! Who are the characters? What will happen to them? Will there be any hurdle or problem for them to solve? How will it end?
  • take note of your teacher’s feedback. Your teacher will give you feedback on what mistakes you’re making, and give you some suggestions on how you can improve your story writing. Try to consider their feedback when you write a new story – while also taking note of the good things you’re doing too!
  • plan your story and check your writing at the end. Planning will help you a story which is easier to read, and get you thinking about how the story will develop. Check your writing at the end for any missing prepositions, articles, spelling, and any other mistakes you sometimes make etc.

Read more!

FCE story writing – “Even the most beautiful places can be irresistible, but only from a distance.”
“She smiled and walked away” – FCE story writing

Photo credits

Image: Mahalie

Licence: CC by 2.0

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Welcome to Brno — Get into English says:
    October 17, 2013 at 22:19

    […] You can find some articles on the Cambridge exams throughout this blog, and here is one example of a Cambridge First (FCE) story: That’s when he walked out the door […]

    Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Welcome to Get Into English. I’m David, an English teacher, traveller & language enthusiast from Melbourne. I write articles on learning English especially for people wishing to live in or travel to Australia, and for those who are interested in business and all kinds of issues!

Older posts were written while I was in Europe, newer ones are from Australia.

Feel free to leave a comment!

Load More…Follow on Instagram

Subscribe

Get the latest stories in English and articles on idioms, phrasal verbs, grammar and exam tips! No spam.

Trending

  • The Difference Between 'Catch Up' And 'Meet Up' - Reader Question
  • "Let's CATCH UP" - And 8 Other Phrasal Verbs You Can Use Today
  • Short Phrases You Can Use In Conversation With Your Friends
  • "It'll Be Good To Catch Up With You" - Meeting Up With A Friend
  • The Present Simple In Everyday Conversation
  • "She Smiled And Walked Away" - Cambridge English: First For Schools Story Writing
  • Small talk phrases - download
  • 'If' And 'Will' *Can* Go Together
  • 7 Present Perfect Phrases You Can Use In Conversation
  • Expressing Future Time: Plans & Arrangements

Aussie Vocab

Business

Finance

Patterns

Phrasal Verbs

Footer

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Featured

Transform Your English In 2019!

New! You can download this article to your phone or tablet by clicking here or the image on the right. You know how a snowball gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down a mountain? Or how a train you catch goes faster and faster as it pulls out of the station? That’s the momentum […]

Learn English

© 2009–2019 · David Sweetnam Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.