C1 Advanced Review Writing Made Easy

Writing a C1 Advanced review is one of the options in C1 Advanced writing Part 2. They are tricky if you don’t know what is expected of you, so here is an article to show you how to plan structure and write any review for that test.

As with any writing test, you have to know what the test expects you to do. If you get this wrong, it will seriously affect your score.

So, when you read a C1 Advanced Review question, you have to underline three things.
what you need to describe
what you need to discuss
who is the target reader

Note – For the best students, this is the most common error because they assume they know the question without reading it carefully. Their structure, grammar, vocabulary and so on is near perfect, but they answer the wrong question.

Let’s write a review together using this question

facts / background – underlined
what you need to describe – in red
what you need to discuss – in blue
who is the target reader – in green

As usual, first, you need to plan what you are going to write. If you do this, then it is easier and quicker to write, so saving you time.

You need to think of the tone you will use. This is for a travel website, so it will be read by other people like you who are thinking of renting an apartment from that company for a week. As a result, you should be informal and chatty, which means you write in the same tone as you speak. If you want, you can use contractions, phrasal verbs and idioms. Speak to your readers.

Now, let’s look at the structure for a review

an interesting title
a catchy introduction
a description of the circumstances
a description of arranging your accommodation
discuss why you enjoyed your stay
your recommendation

Title –

A catchy fun title is great, but if you find it difficult to think of one, use one of these ways.
book name by author
Company – a review
restaurant name in place – a review
….. performance of play name
film name – a review
Campsite name – a review

In this case, if the company I rented the flat from is called Barcelona Holiday Apartments, then the title should be:

Barcelona Holiday Apartments – a review

Remember in titles, the main words have capital letters.

Introduction
The introduction should identify what is being reviewed and provide details such as genre, location … and engage the reader.

To engage the reader, you can ask a question. For this example, you could questions, such as:
Have you ever wanted to really relax with your friends on holiday?
Do you have a favourite place you like to go on vacation?
Have you ever rented an apartment for a holiday?
There are more examples below

So, the introduction could look like this:

Do you have a favourite place you go on vacation? I do, and I have just come back from an incredibly relaxing time in Barcelona, where my girlfriend and I rented an apartment. It was wonderful!

Body Paragraph 1
This is where you describe the facts about the circumstances. How were you feeling? Where did you want to go? What did you want to do? How long did you want to go for? and so on.

So what would we talk about in this case?
I was feeling really low, and my girlfriend suggested we go on vacation for a week.
I had always wanted to visit Barcelona.
We didn’t want to go sightseeing really, just wanted to recharge our batteries and really relax.
We would have loved to have gone for longer, but a week fitted in with our schedules.

So Body paragraph 1 could look something like this:

We decided to go on vacation because the two of us were feeling so run down, and a week fitted in with both our schedules. Neither of us had been to Barcelona before, so we decided to give it a try. We didn’t really want to go and see the sights, but just kick back and recharge our batteries, so we decided to rent an apartment rather than book a hotel.

Body Paragraph 2
This is where you should describe arranging the accommodation.

What are these points?
Arranging the accommodation
The service
The range of apartments on offer
The price

Body paragraph 2 could look something like this:

I decided to try Barcelona Holiday Apartments because they were first in the search results and seemed to have good reviews. Their website looks great and is really easy to register and search for exactly what you want. Within minutes, we had two or three apartments that seemed like just what we were looking for but chose the cheapest one. It had one bedroom, a living room with a balcony overlooking the beach and came with a cleaning service and fully stocked fridge.

Body Paragraph 3
This is where you should discuss why you enjoyed the stay at the apartment.

What are these points?
The apartment
Convenience
The company’s customer service
The price

Body paragraph 3 could look something like this:

When we arrived at the apartment, it was even better than we had expected. It was spacious and everything worked. The food in the fridge lasted until we managed to buy some more, and the customer service was incredible and went above and beyond their duty when we misplace our keys one evening at a club. The location of the apartment was absolutely perfect: well within reach of all the amenities and a stone’s throw from the beach. We didn’t have any itinerary, so we could just chill out at home (oops, I mean in the apartment). We even had a small party with another few couples we met. They were so jealous of our place!

Conclusion
This should include:
a recommendation
a sentence to round off the review.

So in this example, you should make a recommendation and add a final sentence, maybe with a question.

Like this:
All in all it was a wonderful week away from our usual drudge with the only problem being, I don’t know which to recommend more. Firstly, Barcelona Holiday Apartments have easy booking, exceed expectations and offer excellent customer service. If all the apartments they offer as as good as the one we had, (remember it was the cheapest)you will have a problem free experience. The place,the people and the food were all fantastic, but the apartment really made our holiday. Book soon, because I’m going to recommend them to everyone everywhere!

Now write your review.

The full edited example is below. It is 254 words, which is near the upper limit. Practicing writing these reviews is important so you know the length of paragraphs you are expected to write. As usual, I wrote too much in each paragraph, so I needed to edit each of them to be within the word range of 220 to 260 words.

Barcelona Holiday Apartments – a review

Do you have a favourite place you go on vacation? I do, and I have just come back from an incredibly relaxing time in Barcelona, where my girlfriend and I rented an apartment. It was wonderful!

I decided to try Barcelona Holiday Apartments because they were first in the search results and seemed to have good reviews. Their website looks great and is really easy to register and search for exactly what you want. Within minutes, we had two or three apartments that seemed like just what we were looking for but chose the cheapest one. It had one bedroom, a living room with a balcony overlooking the beach and came with a cleaning service and fully stocked fridge.

When we arrived at the apartment, it was even better than we had expected. It was spacious and everything worked. The customer service was incredible and their man went above and beyond their duty when we misplace our keys one evening at a club. The location was absolutely perfect: well within reach of all the amenities and a stone’s throw from the beach.

All in all it was a wonderful week away. Firstly, Barcelona Holiday Apartments have easy booking, exceed expectations and offer excellent customer service. If all the apartments they offer are as good as the one we had, (remember it was the cheapest) you will have a problem free experience. The place, the people and the food were all fantastic, but the apartment really made our holiday.

Proofreading
If you have practiced, after writing, you should still have several minutes to check your writing for errors. If you have practiced with a teacher, you will know which errors you make often and be able to check for them specifically. Doing this is good practice and can tip your score into a better band.

Body paragraph 1 –
include description n relevant details about main aspect of point 1
Stick to the question and don’t talk about unrelated things.
Give some support to your answer (related details)
Use adjectives and adverbs to make it more interesting to read.

Body paragraph 2 –
describe n give your opinion
Again, don’t write about things that are not in the task.
Use specific language to give your opinion
In my opinion/view, …
For me, …
I think/believe/feel that …
I would say that …
It seems to me that …

Conclusion –
include a recommendation and a final sentence to round off the review
Don’t mix up the recommendation with the other parts of your review.
Use specific language to give recommendations:
I recommend/suggest [title/name] to + person
I recommend/suggest + -ing
I recommend/suggest that …
You should + base verb
You might want to + base verb
Write a final sentence to conclude the review

Do not be afraid – don’t be afraid to give something a bad review.

If you don’t know –
If you don’t like books or plays – change a TV series or a film you like into a book.

If you don’t know anything about restaurants – think about a TV cooking show or even what your mum or grandma make and pretend your house is a restaurant.

If you don’t know anything about camping – think about when you were in the countryside and imagine what it would be like. Alternatively, think about a cheap hotel you have slept in and imagine it was a campsite.

Try not to use adjectives like – good or bad. It’s much more exciting to say ‘amazing’ and ‘disappointing’ or ‘terrific’ and ‘terrible’.

Linking phrases such as

Overall if you like…
I was pleasantly surprised by…
In fact…
What I disliked the most was…
The book contains…
As well as…
This well-written book…
Unbelievably…

Involving the reader:

Have you ever thought about…?
How would you feel if …?
What would you think of…?
Are you one of those people who …?
If the answer is …, you should….
What do you reckon to …?
What would live be like if…
Just think for a moment…
Just imagine…

Expressing enthusiasm

It is so exciting (that)…
It is really great (that)…
Wow, it is awesome (that)…
I am delighted (that)…
It is thrilling (that)…
I am over the moon about (gerund)
It is awesome (that)…
What I liked most was …..
The thing I liked most was ….
I was pleasantly surprised by …..
 ….. would appeal to …..
 If you get a chance to ….

Expressing dislike

What I disliked most was …..
I was disappointed by ……
I was disappointed with …..
I was very disappointed by …..
I was very disappointed with ….

Making recommendations and suggestions:

It would be a good idea to…
Would it not be better to…
Why do we not…
What about… ?
How about… ?
Should we not… ?
Let us consider…
Why not… ?