User s manual First-certificate.com Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter First-Certificate.com User s manual 1
Chapters Chapter 1: Welcome to First-Certificate... 3 Chapter 2: Methodology... 5 Zero Errors... 6 Word Association... 7 Chapter 3: Structure and Content... 9 Start...12 How to progress in the course... 17 My Stats... 18 My Account...20 Account Renewal... 21 Downloads...23 Manage Emails...24 Other options...26 Dictionary... 26 Language... 27 Chapter 4: Frequently Asked Questions... 28 First-Certificate.com User s manual 2
Chapter 1: Welcome to First-Certificate First-Certificate.com User s manual 3
1. Welcome to First-Certificate Congratulations! You have taken the first step towards passing the First-Certificate test. We would like to formally welcome you to your LP First-Certificate course. At this point, you have already successfully registered yourself and you are ready to begin the course. This is the user s manual where you will find detailed information about how the online course works and the best way to use it. It will help you to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs and allow you to move through the course without any problems If you have any questions after reading the LP First-Certificate manual, don t hesitate to contact us using our web page www.en.first-certificate.com First-Certificate.com User s manual 4
Chapter 2: Methodology First-Certificate.com User s manual 5
2. Methodology Zero Errors It s not much use speaking English that is filled with grammatical errors. Our primary objective is to commit Zero Errors. We want to program your mind in such a way so that you can answer every question that appears in the game. There is a variety of interactive exercises to keep you motivated and make sure that learning English is more entertainment than chore. It has been proven that if you repeat the same sentence over and over, even if you don t say it well at first, you will end up saying it correctly. First-Certificate puts you through a constant bombardment of short questions that take on the form of a game, and as a result you improve with each subsequent session. Repetition, therefore, is the name of the game. Repeat until you re full. With the exception of going and living in an English-speaking country, it is the only way to reach the point of communication where errors are a thing of the past. At that point, you will have finally broken the mental barrier. Instant Correction As soon as you choose an answer, you will immediately see the correct answer on the screen. If you have answered correctly, it will appear in green. However, it will appear in red if you have not given the correct answer. If you are indecisive and do not answer the question, the words Time Up will appear in orange. In order to help us achieve our goal of Zero Errors, once you have finished a set, you will see a list of questions, answers and your mistakes. This should help you to correct your mistakes so that you do not end up making the same mistake again. First-Certificate.com User s manual 6
2. Methodology Word Association In First-Certificate we use the formation of complete sentences based on the realm of structures that you should be able to use. Different from other traditional systems, this means that you do not have to memorize entire sentences in order to be able to form your own phrases and instead can rely on familiarity with appropriate structures and the mechanics of the English language. First-Certificate is the first course of its kind to focus on this facet of the language. This focuses on the deconstruction of the sentence and analyzing it in order to later have the ability to reconstruct it. The format of First-Certificate allows you to learn step by step and build confidence in your own language abilities, improving and enriching your command of the language. We hope to end once and for all the bad habit of translating directly from your primary language (according with, apart of y depend of, etc.) an in stead learn to string together English words and phrases without the need to rely (often erroneously) on your first language. First-Certificate.com User s manual 7
2. Methodology Solving the puzzle It is a popular belief that if someone learns a minimum number of words then they know English. This couldn t be further from the truth. This is like saying that once you have 1000 pieces of a puzzle spread out in front of you, you re finished. It s obvious that you ve only reached the halfway point. Now you have to fit the pieces together in order to complete the puzzle. Knowing 1,000 words isn t worth anything if you don t have a solid educational foundation to support it. The First-Certificate course will show you the solution by means of our interactive and fun exercises. First-Certificate.com User s manual 8
Chapter 3: Structure and Content First-Certificate.com User s manual 9
To start enjoying your first LP First-Certificate course, you first need to log in via the web page, choosing login in the top-right corner of your screen, placing your username and password in the correct spaces, and clicking the button reading log in. You are now on the main page of the online course. There you will find: 1. Course Menu 2. Course Units 3. Name of the section you re in or a message from the Start section 4. Option to change the background color of the course 5. Log out 1 3 6 2 5 6. Dictionary 4 First-Certificate.com User s manual 10
When you have less than 30 days left on your account, you will be able to see this information on the main START page as a link to be able to extend the amount of time you have access to the course if you should need it. First-Certificate.com User s manual 11
Start On the start page you can access the different units that contain the lessons and exercises from the course. The course is broken up into 7 units each one containing 4 grammar topics. These units are set up to make learning the course material continuous and progressive. We suggest, therefore, that you begin with the first unit and that you continue on to the next unit once you can complete the exercises with zero errors. Click on Unit 1 to see its content, which appears in grey boxes. The unit that they belong to will be shown in orange. First-Certificate.com User s manual 12
Select the topic to begin with. We recommend that you begin with the first: Prepositions. When you click on Prepositions, a dialogue box will appear from which you can access the lesson or the exercises for that topic. If you click LESSON you will see the explanation for that lesson. You can download this in PDF format so that you can take it with you on your mobile, ipad, ebook reader, etc. When you ve finished studying the lesson, you will see that there are two links at the bottom of the page, one to return to the main menu and another to continue on to the exercises for the lesson. First-Certificate.com User s manual 13
In the EXERCISE section, a screen will appear before the exercise begins. The screen will look as follows: On the right you have three options: Instructions, Grammar and Objective. By choosing these options you can read the instructions of the exercise, review the grammar pertinent to the exercises with a summary of the most important parts of the lesson and see the objective of what you are learning respectively. First-Certificate.com User s manual 14
Now you re ready to do the exercises! But wait just a minute; you still have to set the time limit (max. 60 seconds) to give a response for each question and the number of sets that you would like to complete in the exercise. Each set has 25 questions related to what was covered in the lesson, in each exercise you can do 1 to 3 sets. Once you ve set the time limit, click Start. For each exercise you can see the time remaining, the question you re doing and the set that you re working on at that moment, not to mention the errors you ve already made on that exercise. But there s more! When you ve finished the set you ll be able to see a list of the errors you ve made along with the correct response. If you ve chosen more than one set, to start the next set, click Next Set. If you want to return to the main menu click Start. This way you can practice in whichever section you d like. First-Certificate.com User s manual 15
When you ve finished every set in the exercise, you can see your score from the exercise and the overall score. Naturally, the number of correct answers you need to pass the exercise increases with the total number of questions. Therefore you need a minimum number of correct answers to pass the exercise. The grading system is explained in the following table: Your grade Minimum % of correct answers Minimum number of correct answers 0-199 50% 13 200-399 60% 15 400-599 70% 18 600-799 80% 20 800-899 90% 23 900-1000 96% 24 For example, if your current score is 143 you wouldn t get a point if you don t correctly answer at least 13 of the 25 questions from the exercise. Once you reach 1000 points, by doing 3 sets without any errors or by accumulating points from doing the exercises over again, you will pass the exercise and you ll be ready to move on. Once you ve seen your score, you can Try again to try to get a better score or if you think that you need to look over the grammar again click on Grammar Reminder. Click Back to menu to return to the main menu: First-Certificate.com User s manual 16
How to progress in the course As you already know, each grammar unit is divided into 4 sections, and there couldn t be a better way to know that you re progressing than seeing the points you ve earned in each section. Don t forget that we suggest you complete the 4 sections in order starting with the first lesson from unit one and once you ve gotten 1000 points continuing on to the next section. To pass you have to make less errors every time (see the descriptive table), but if you do very well in the topic we ll give you 1000 point for completing 3 sets in a row without an error (it doesn t matter if you do them in the same session, but if you make an error on the second or third set, the counter goes back to 0...). What s more, at the end, in Unit 7, you ll find a very interesting lesson, FCE Grammar: a summary of the most important aspects of the previous lessons. It will help you review what you ve already learned and once you ve completed that lesson your understanding of the grammar will be good enough to pass the First. First-Certificate.com User s manual 17
My Stats You can see your statistics to check your progress in the course at any time. Select the STATISTICS tab on the side menu A list will appear on the screen with a percentage that shows your progress for every lesson in the course. Would you like to know more? Select Details, located to the right of each lesson, to see all of the information about your exercises. First-Certificate.com User s manual 18
You know have the detailed statistics for Prepositions. You can see the number of times that you ve done each exercise: session 1, 2... You can see all the numbers for work you ve done up to that point: number of correct responses and its percentage, number of sets, questions per session, points earned in the session and your total points that you ve gotten from all the sessions combined. Click Back to return to the main unit list to see the results in other areas. First-Certificate.com User s manual 19
My Account In the tab MY ACCOUNT you can see and edit your user information. You can also extend the duration of the course, in the purchase option. Accessible information: Username, email and the expiration date of your course. Information that you can update/change: Full name, gender, country and how you came upon us. To change your password, put your current password. Write a new password in the corresponding area. Rewrite the new password and click on Change password First-Certificate.com User s manual 20
Account Renewal You can extend your subscription at any time from MY ACCOUNT: You can renew your account via the link that appears at the top of the screen when you have less than 30 days before your account expires: First-Certificate.com User s manual 21
The link will take you to the page on which you can renew your course. Course renewals function through PayPal and you will be able to pay either through PayPal or simply using your credit card (a PayPal account is not required) Once you have completed the payment process, your course access period updates automatically and the additional time is added to the time you already had. Both your user account and your statistics remain active for your convenience, so you will not have to change or reconfigure anything. First-Certificate.com User s manual 22
Downloads DOWNLOADS, in this section you will find the manual and other materials. Click on Download to save the document to your computer. First-Certificate.com User s manual 23
Manage Emails Our course contains 28 lessons that deal with all the English grammar you need to pass the First on your first try. You can get a summary of the lessons sent to you by email with varying frequency: Once a week: Receive a lesson every Monday. 3 times a week: Receive a lesson every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Daily: Receive a lesson every day Monday through Friday. Never: You will not receive any emails. This option can also be used to temporarily stop receiving emails. The frequency is automatically set to weekly as a default, but this can be changed anytime so that you receive emails with whatever frequency best suits your study habits and necessities. To change the frequency of email notifications: Choose the option MANAGE EMAILS that appears in the side menu. You will now find yourself on the manage emails page, where you can see a section that reads: I would like to receive a lesson: [frequency] First-Certificate.com User s manual 24
Choose your preferred frequency and you re done! A pop-up notification will tell you that the email frequency has been successfully changed. NOTE: if you don t receive the lesson summaries, please check the email address you provided and your spam folder. On this page you can review all the summaries that you ve received up to that point, open documents online or download them in PDF format. You will also be able to see what the next lesson will be ahead of time. First-Certificate.com User s manual 25
Other options Dictionary What does advertise mean? And to dig, what s that? With First-Certificate finding out is two clicks away. With the LP Dictionary you can look up words you don t know very easily and without leaving the course page. Click on DICTIONARY at the top of the page. A window will appear with a dialogue box to look up the word. In this pull-down menu you can choose the language in which you would like to see the definition. Take hello, for instance. If the word is correct, the translation will appear below. First-Certificate.com User s manual 26
Language The settings of our course allow you to choose the available languages. To choose the language: We suggest that you choose the language that you prefer for the web page before beginning your session. You will be accessing the course with this language. Click on the appropriate flag to set this language. If you have to change the language at any point in the course, you have the option at the bottom of the window. Select the flag that corresponds to the correct language, then access your account again by entering your username and password. First-Certificate.com User s manual 27
Chapter 4: Frequently Asked Questions First-Certificate.com User s manual 28
4. Frequently Asked Questions 1. How long does this course last? You can check the expiration date in your account; the length depends on purchase options, which you can always extend by buying more access time from MY ACCOUNT. The purchased time will be added to the time that you already have so that you don t have to wait until the last day to add more time to your account. 2. I want to change the frequency of or cancel the emailed lesson summaries. To change the frequency with which you receive emails select MANAGE EMAILS that appears on the side menu on the screen at the start of the session. You can activate or deactivate your email notifications based on your own needs and demands. Keep in mind that once your time on the course has expired, you will no longer receive email lesson summaries so set your email notification frequency to whatever works best for you at that moment. Don t forget that you can access completed lessons by navigating to START UNIT LESSON. First-Certificate.com User s manual 29
4. Frequently Asked Questions 3. I forgot my password. You can reset your password through the Login link. Beneath the password section, you will see a Have you forgotten your password? link. Enter your email address and you will receive an email from the course. Just follow the instructions to reset your password. 4. What happened? I can t access the course. It could be that the page is loading and the connection you are using isn t fast enough to run the application. To fix this problem: a. Refresh the page. b. If the problem persists, make sure that your web browser is up to date or use a different browser like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Chrome. c. Try again using a different computer and / or a faster internet connection. d. If you are still having problems, contact us by writing to support@linguapuncture.com First-Certificate.com User s manual 30
4. Frequently Asked Questions 5. What can I find in the Download section? In this section you ll find this manual as well as material that we believe will be helpful or interesting for you whether it be didactic, informative, campaigns 6. I m not getting my lessons by email Make sure that your lessons are not in your spam folder (to fix this problem, add our email address to your contacts), or check that your email address is written correctly in the appropriate MY ACCOUNT section. 7. What is an ebook? During the course we may suggest an ebook (digital book) to complement your studies. We use this term to refer to a digitalized book so that it can be viewed directly from the computer. This is for a number of LP books such as: Grammar Cry, First Aids, Second Aids... First-Certificate.com User s manual 31
4. Frequently Asked Questions Be sure not to confuse ebook with an ebook reader (sometimes incorrectly called an electronic book ), as the latter is a machine used to store electronic books and purchased seperately. One characteristic of ebooks is that you have to get them over the Internet. Fortunately, most ebooks can be downloaded in PDF format. 8. What happens if I extend my subscription? Your username and password will stay the same. You will also keep all of your statistics to continue progressing in the easiest and simplest way possible. Additionally, if you still have days left on the course, you don t lose them! These days are added to the time that you ve just purchased. First-Certificate.com User s manual 32
Enjoy your First-Certificate Course! First-Certificate.com User s manual 33