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Exam guide & reading text

C2 Paper 03 — Essay: Read the two texts about algorithmic recommendations and cultural choice — Writing

"C2 Paper 03 — Essay: Read the two texts about algorithmic recommendations and cultural choice" is a C2 Proficiency Writing practice task (Essay). Cambridge assesses content, communicative achievement, organisation and language on a scale from 0 to 5 per criterion. Plan before you write: identify the target reader, the required register and the number of points you must address. At C2, examiners expect sophisticated vocabulary used accurately, varied sentence structures and clear paragraphing.

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How should I approach this C2 writing task?

Plan the Essay before writing, address every prompt point, keep the expected register, respect the word limit, and use feedback to improve content, organisation, grammar range, and vocabulary precision.

Task prompt

Write an essay summarising and evaluating the key points in both texts. Integrate the arguments rather than discussing the texts separately, and use your own ideas to consider how recommendation systems can support discovery without determining cultural taste.

Word limit: 280 words

Input texts

Discovery Without Effort

Recommendation systems are often criticised for narrowing taste, yet they can expose people to films, music and writing that conventional publicity would never bring to their attention. By learning from patterns across millions of choices, these systems connect specialised work with audiences too dispersed for traditional marketing. The problem is not personalisation itself but a lack of transparency about why particular items are promoted. Users should be able to adjust the assumptions guiding recommendations and deliberately request surprise. Properly designed, algorithms can reduce the power of established gatekeepers while preserving an active role for curiosity and chance.

When Preference Becomes Prediction

Cultural choice changes when every previous action is treated as evidence of what a person will want next. Recommendations may feel convenient, but they reward immediate engagement and therefore favour familiar styles, strong reactions and easily classified content. Less predictable work is disadvantaged before audiences can decide whether it deserves attention. More importantly, people may begin to confuse a commercially useful prediction with an authentic account of their identity. Cultural development depends partly on encounters we would not have selected in advance, so institutions and individuals must protect spaces where judgement is not pre-empted by personalised systems.

Assessment criteria

  • Content: All points addressed with relevant detail and examples.
  • Communicative achievement: Appropriate register and tone for the target reader.
  • Organisation: Clear paragraphing with cohesive devices linking ideas.
  • Language: Wide range of vocabulary and structures used with control and accuracy.