Ready for Advanced (3rd Edition) by Roy Norris and Amanda French
As a teacher of Cambridge Advanced exam preparation courses, I would say that this coursebook is by far one of the best ones out there in terms of effectiveness, clarity and ease-of-use for both teachers and students. It is rich in vocabulary essential for the exam and the layout is well presented.
Here are some of the reasons I would recommend it:
- Students can find an informative section at the front of the book, giving details about the exam structure.
- Each unit teaches a lot of useful collocations and other vocabulary relevant to the exam, all the time focusing on a communicative approach to learning.
- The topics and exercises are interesting, and there are a number of humorous cartoons throughout, which can provide a dose of comic relief in the classroom.
- The back of the book contains a compact list of significant vocabulary covered in each unit, which is extremely helpful for student revision purposes.
- There is a detailed grammar reference for each unit, full of relevant examples.
- The writing reference section is particularly helpful in providing students with models and chunks of language for each exam writing task, which they can easily make use of in their own writing.
- The teacher’s book provides some interactive, engaging activities to supplement each unit.
- Throughout the book, students are given exam tips and useful exam information in sections called “What to expect in the exam”, constantly reminding them of exam conditions.
Each unit of this book is so dense that one can be spread out over a whole week of lessons, if not longer. However, if I was to make one criticism of the book, the only thing I could say is that the reading texts can sometimes seem a bit on the easy side in comparison to CAE practice tests. Therefore, it is important that lessons are supplemented with more challenging practice tests too, so as to avoid any unpleasant surprises on the exam day.
All in all, this book would be an ideal choice for anyone teaching this class, and students are bound to enjoy using it too.