So weak that it is unlikely to survive examination
The formal adjective for a link or an argument too thin to carry the weight put on it, the measured way to dismiss a claim.
C2 Proficient
C2 is the top of the CEFR scale: abstract argument, irony and specialist writing handled without conscious effort, with only the kind of slips fluent speakers make too. Very few learners genuinely need it, and most people who claim it are somewhere in C1. This level is being written last and fills slowly, so if you find little or nothing here yet, that is why. C1 holds the most demanding material for now, and Native covers the idiom and register that C2 readers are usually really after.
A speaking exam: defending a view while the examiner tests it
An examiner probes a candidate's position on banning cars from city centres; the candidate concedes, corrects and holds the line.
Learned words whose spelling hides the way they are said
Ten educated words, most of them from Greek and French, that kept spellings the ordinary rules cannot read, each with a plain respelling.
Two-part verbs and their single-word formal twins
Two-part verbs paired with the single Latin-origin word that replaces each one in formal writing.
Reporting a claim without owning it
How formal written English lets you pass on what people are claiming while quietly making clear that you are not the one claiming it.
Grant the point first: complete each opening
Complete the fixed frames that grant the other side a point before taking it back.
Granting your opponent a point, then taking it back
A set of frozen openings that let you concede the other side's point in the first half of the sentence so that your own argument lands with full weight in the second.
Passing on a claim you do not vouch for
Supply the small grammatical word that lets a sentence pass on a claim without endorsing it.
Appearing to be the reason, though probably not the real one
An adverb that reports the official reason while signalling that the writer does not believe it.