CAE Use of English Part 4

Key Word Transformation

Use of English Part 4 is a sentence transformation exercise, meaning that you have a sentence and you have to rewrite it in different words, but it has the same meaning. The exercise is essentially a paraphrasing task. and paraphrasing is an important aspect overall in the exam. 

You have to use between three and six words to complete the answer.

Let's look at an example: 

 1. Some people think that alien life forms visited Earth in the distant past. 

It ______________ visited in the distant past by alien life forms.

Answer: It is thought // that Earth was visited in the distant past by alien life forms. 

There are two possible points for the answer. A fully-correct answer gets two points and a partially-correct answer gets one point. 

Extra tips. 

If you have done the FCE or if you have looked at our FCE resources here, you might already understand that the idea is to connect two items of vocabulary or grammar together, and for each of these items, there are two points. Let's look at the example again: 

It is thought // that Earth was visited in the distant past by alien life forms.

There is a double passive here, creating a structure often heard or read in the news, so journalists commonly use it. The Cambridge examiners who correct your exam paper divide the answer in two and award one point on each side of the divide if all of the correct words are written.