An article is one of the Part 2 options. You write for a magazine, a website or a newsletter, usually answering a question and covering one or two specific points. Your readers are educated but not specialists, and they read because they want to, so you have to hold their attention.
The register ranges from neutral to semi-formal, depending on the publication, but the article must always be engaging, original and well argued: a title, a hook, a line of argument that develops from paragraph to paragraph and an ending that stays with the reader.
Article tasks give you a topic question and a specific instruction: explore the advantages and challenges, consider the reasons, give examples. Both are compulsory; an entertaining article that ignores one of them will lose Content marks.
Decide early on your line of argument. The best articles take a position, or at least a clear angle, and develop it rather than listing random thoughts.
Your title should be short and intriguing, and your opening must make people want to read on: an anecdote, a surprising fact, a provocative question or a striking image. Avoid flat openings such as In this article I will discuss.
Keep the momentum with a personal voice: address the reader now and then, vary sentence length and place a rhetorical question where it counts. Then end memorably, perhaps by echoing your opening.
C2 articles reward stylistic control: figurative language, parallel structures, the occasional idiom used exactly right, and a mix of short, punchy sentences with longer, complex ones.
Style must never replace thinking. Every paragraph needs a clear topic sentence and genuine development: a reason, an example, a consequence, an objection answered.
Readers should follow your thinking without effort. Move from hook to context, through two or three developed points, to a conclusion that answers the question you were set.
Use cohesion subtly: rather than firstly, secondly, try reference (this paradox), contrast (and yet) and transitional sentences that pick up the previous idea before moving on.
Examiners look for natural sophistication: precise, often idiomatic vocabulary (a double-edged sword, to strike a balance, to fall by the wayside) and structures such as inversion, cleft sentences and nominalisation, chosen because they fit.
A single misused idiom undermines the effect. If you are unsure of a collocation or an expression, choose a simpler phrase you can control perfectly.
Content: the question and the specific points fully addressed. Communicative Achievement: engaging and right for the publication's readers. Organisation: a coherent, well-signposted argument. Language: wide range, used with precision and flair.
Common traps: an essay with a title stuck on top, no title at all, a clever opening followed by thin content, and an ending that simply fades away.
A magazine on modern living has asked for articles on the question "Is it still worth learning a foreign language when translation apps are so good?" Consider what apps can and cannot do, and whether learning a language brings benefits beyond communication.
Lost in Translation? Last summer, in a small café in Lisbon, I watched a tourist hold up his phone to order a coffee. The app worked perfectly: he got his coffee. What he did not get was the waiter's smile, the joke about the weather or the tip about a little restaurant around the corner. That exchange, I suspect, tells us most of what we need to know about whether learning languages still matters. There is no denying that translation technology has become astonishingly good. Menus, emails and street signs can now be deciphered in seconds, and for someone spending a week abroad, months of grammar drills may seem a poor investment of time. Anyone who dismisses these tools is ignoring how genuinely useful they have become. And yet, communication is about far more than exchanging information. Languages carry humour, hesitation and the unspoken rules of politeness, precisely the things software still struggles to capture. An app can tell you what a word means; it cannot tell you when to use it, or why a native speaker might wince at your choice. Relationships, whether personal or professional, are built on exactly these subtleties. What is more, the rewards of learning a language extend well beyond conversation. Research has repeatedly linked bilingualism to sharper concentration and even to a later onset of dementia. Perhaps more importantly, learning another language forces us to see the world through a different lens, and to accept that our own way of putting things is not the only one. So, is it still worth the effort? If all you want is a cup of coffee, perhaps not. But if you want to understand the person who serves it, no app will ever do the work for you. Some journeys, it seems, simply cannot be outsourced.
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