Quite a number of people willing to find useful information from countless websites or forums don't weigh the effectiveness of exploiting those DOC or PDF. What I really want to say is that if your objective is just pass that, say BEC HIGHER, the possibility of achieving that, without genuine efforts made and solid determination, is less than 10 per cent.
Almost 90 per cent of those documents are meaningless or useless because they are not relevant to the exact things we need. So I would like to make my first advice noticeable that do not track those kinds of documents or potentially want to do this because it's not only wasting your time and energy but also affect your process of improvements.

Secondly, learning from others' experience is highly recommended, like mine or other useful advice, except those which contain errors such as the level BEC HIGHER represents. (BEC HIGHER = CAE not CPE. CPE is the most difficult test of its kind.)

Thirdly, drawing up your own plan to facilitate the possibility of improvements. Do not decide to attend BEC HIGHER test without enough confidence and practice. It's common that someone can get a C easily, not because of their several-months practice, but because of the long time they spent in improving English along with their several-months practice and effective plans. If you feel that the plan is no longer fit for your purpose, try to change it immediately and rightly.

Apart from good planning, the selection of materials on different periods also matters. Find your weaknesses, and focus your attention on reading, collocations, listening, writing, speaking or understanding. Two textbooks are proven to be acceptable to those who want to attend BEC HIGHER test. But it is highly recommended that you should choose the new edition of the Cambridge BEC HIGHER Student Book which is better than the seemingly wonderful but old-fashioned books. Remember the new book was published in 2007 new enough really!

You must put more emphasis on PAST PAPERS.

Furthermore, nurturing your ability to read, listen, write and speak is difficult. You must find the right way of doing that. Which one do you like best: US English or UK English? Or both? If you choose the first, well, you'd better know more about British English. A good solution is that you keep your spelling, accent unchanged and are more familiar with articles or accent from major newspapers and radio station (like the Guardian or the BBC). Try to read and listen as much as possible every day on business, which you should start doing so a year earlier, including not only business but also politics, society, health, environment, education, etc. If you are confident of achieving your goal, like the successful realization of a BEC VANTAGE OR other certificates, you are bound to maintain your efforts in the long run.

The last thing is that you'd do better to stick to your plan, without any doubts.

首先是得找本好字典，我指的是英英字典，装一下，最好是英式英语字典。然后，一定要弄懂用法，搭配等，因为学英语不是为了考试。而是为了用。

听力问题就是多听，选新闻听比较好，我个人喜欢BBC RADIO FIVE LIVE BREAKFAST，这个节目3小时，不过你可以只听1小时。千万不要只听几分钟。每天都有，可以选择周一到周五听。当然，每天3小时更好，只要你有时间和耐心。WAKE UP TO MONEY也不错，主要是说BUSINESS，STOCK MARKET等，速度很快，正是好材料。我个人不推荐1，2分钟的BBC，因为太少了。这个节目30分钟。NEWSPOD也是推荐的33分钟每天。

阅读问题就是读什么呢？不要读中国日报什么的。读英国报纸最好。当然，纽约时报也是我喜欢的。每天希望多读点，读5000字以上。推荐是10000字。自己选择一期复制到WORD，或者就是在网页上读。打印出来不环保。放大到150%字就大了。一些书本，杂志如HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW可以选读，选择不太深奥的读，那像上课的一步一步的，还有图的，就可以不读。

读报纸干什么？一是练速度和理解力+熟练程度。二是积累COLLOCATIONS，VERBAL PHRASE，难的单词可以暂时不管。因为ENGLISH IN USE才是我们的重点。

还有，我上面说了买新教材比较好，真题集，最多买本ADVANCED CAMBRIDGE BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE，其他可以不用买了，买了没用而且最好的书其实就是FT, GUARDIAN或BBC等媒体。

写作重要的是练。自己在规定的时间内做完一套题，作文在自己批改的时候可以改写的完美些，这样会有30篇左右的作文，自己反复看，复习。有时可以借鉴一下范文，不过还得有自己的一套思路和用法。

做题之前问一下自己，我积累的足够多了吗？阅读足够多了吗？快吗？听的够吗？自学的课本掌握了吗？笔记整理了吗？

如果是NO, 请还是等等再做题吧，因为结果不会满意。

如果是YES，那么请想办法研究真题吧。同时，继续积累。

口语，很简单，真题的问题自己反复说，1分钟内。

3分钟讨论？自己说，不需要讨论。有人了自然会说了。

说了那么多，考试还得要讲时间，时间最重要，有时可以放弃几道题，抓分数多的题。

最后，考好试也不要停止提高，因为不断提高英语才有意义。说不定还有机会参加更高级的考试。或者，能真正熟练运用英语。