Getting Started with AlphaGeorge: Your First Cambridge Practice Session
Hiro · Game Designer @ StudyXAlphaGeorgeHow-To
AlphaGeorge starts with a question: what is your level? Everything after that, the units you see, the exam the course is aiming at, the warm-up audio, follows from the answer. So the first fifteen minutes are a short diagnostic test and one lesson. This post walks through them, and then covers the parts of the app that are easy to miss on the first day.
What Is AlphaGeorge?
AlphaGeorge is a practice app for the Cambridge English exams, for iPhone. It has six levels from A1 to C2, 66 units and 18 exercise formats. A1 is a starter level. From A2 up, each level aims at one exam: A2 Key (KET), B1 Preliminary (PET), B2 First (FCE), C1 Advanced (CAE) and C2 Proficiency (CPE). You can start on the free plan, and there is no account to create. The app’s interface is in English or Japanese.
It is not the same app as ABC George. ABC George is a free reader for whole English books. AlphaGeorge is a structured exam course.
Step 1: The Four Opening Screens
The first launch shows four short screens: what the app is for, the six levels and 66 units, how the diagnostic test shapes your study plan, and the idea of practising in spare moments. You can skip them. The last button is Start diagnostic check.
Step 2: Take the Diagnostic Test
The test takes about five minutes and adapts to your answers. If you quit halfway, your progress in the test is lost, but you can retake it at any time.
At the end you see your level, for example B1 Pre-intermediate, and a recommendation for where to start. Tap Start Learning. My advice is to answer honestly and quickly, without looking things up. A level that is slightly too high makes every lesson a struggle, and a placement is only useful if it reflects what you can do on an ordinary day.
Step 3: Find Your Way Around the Home Screen
The home screen has a few cards. Warm-up is a five-minute daily session. Basic Course is the main course. Below them are four quick drills: Vocabulary, Conversation Phrases, Dictation and Shadowing. There is also a calendar where you stamp each day you practise, by tapping today’s date. Settings is at the top.
Step 4: Open Your First Unit
Basic Course opens the course map for your level. Tap the first unit. Each unit starts with its can-do goals, a short list of things you should be able to do by the end, and then the lessons:
- Lesson A: Grammar and Reading
- Lesson B: Vocabulary
- Lesson C: Everyday English
- Lesson D: Writing
- Lesson E: Speaking
- Review: Practice and Wordpower
- Progress Check: a short unit assessment
The lessons unlock step by step as you complete them. Review opens once all five lessons are done, and the Progress Check after that.
Step 5: Work Through a Lesson
Start with Lesson A. Each exercise tells you whether you were right and, where there is one, shows an explanation. At the end you can review your mistakes.
A few exercise types behave in ways worth knowing in advance. Listening exercises ask you to listen twice before the Continue button unlocks, and you can show the transcript afterwards. Speaking exercises ask you to tap and say a phrase, and the phone’s speech recognition checks it, with a few tries. If speech recognition is not available on your device, the exercise is skipped. Some exercises let you write the answer by hand.
The formats change with the level. At B2 and above you meet word formation and key word transformation, and at C1 and C2 open cloze as well, the same kinds of task the exams use.
Step 6: Understand Hearts
On the free plan you have five hearts. A wrong answer costs one. When they run out, you can wait for them to come back over time, watch an ad to get one back, or upgrade to Premium.
Premium is a monthly or yearly subscription. It gives unlimited hearts, lets you replay lessons you have completed, and lets you lower the course level to practise from an easier one. The current price is on the in-app purchase screen.
Step 7: Make the Warm-up a Daily Habit
The Warm-up card is a five-minute session, a short mix of dictation and shadowing. In dictation you hear a sentence and write the missing word by hand. In shadowing you hear a short sentence and say it back. The audio comes from one level below yours, so it is meant to feel manageable. If you are somewhere you cannot speak aloud, you can skip a shadowing item and get another dictation instead. Once it is done, the card shows Done for today.
In Settings you can turn on reminders, choosing the days and a time for each, and catch-up reminders later in the day if you have not practised yet.
Step 8: Know What the Level Tests Do
Each level has a mid-course test and an end-course test. They give a score, an estimated level, and a report that marks areas as strong, progressing or below the level. If you reach the target level, the app suggests you consider taking the official Cambridge exam.
If the course feels too easy, you can raise the course level, up to the level your diagnostic test gave you, or retake the diagnostic test.
What to Expect in the First Week
A realistic first week is the warm-up most days and one unit finished. The unit lessons are the core, and the warm-up is what keeps listening and speaking in the routine on days when there is no time for a full lesson.
Where to Go Next
To see how AlphaGeorge sits beside other ways to prepare, read AlphaGeorge vs other ways to prepare. For the kinds of learners it suits, see who AlphaGeorge is for. All related posts are under the AlphaGeorge tag.
Take the diagnostic test tonight. It is five minutes, and everything else starts from it.
