EXAM PREP 25 May - THE SPEAKING BIT

THE SPEAKING PART:
WHICH QUESTIONS COULD YOU EXPECT [and prepare for]

Typical questions about your hometown, your home, your job, your hobbies, and your personality. Plus one or two slightly more advanced ones. Here are a few you could prepare for:

• Where are you from?
• Do you have a job or are you still a student?
• How long have you been studying English?
• What do you enjoy most about learning English?
• How do you like to spend your free time?

And . . .

1. What would your ideal job be?
2. Are you the kind of person who can do two things at once?
3. Are you planning to do any courses in the near future?
4. Do you use social networking sites a lot?
5. Would you enjoy preparing food for a large number of people?
6. Do you like to give yourself targets or goals?
7. If you won the lottery what would you do?

GIVING THE RIGHT LENGTH OF ANSWER

TOO SHORT

Q - Do you like your job? Had a good week?

A - Yes. Of course

FAIL!! Hey, come on! This is the C1 Speaking Test! That means advanced.

IN THE LOWER MIDDLE - AND JUST A BIT BETTER [BUT NOT MUCH]

E - What do you think of your job?

Y - [pause] Its nice.[another pause] Having a job is nice and my job is a nice one and I think the people I work with are nice.

Wellll... How about three sentences? and use some C1 vocabulary?

Top end - more, and it Could work against you

E - Do you like your job?

Y - I do and then again I don't! I mean, it's well paid and there are good career prospects. I get free professional development courses and the work is varied. But sometimes the demands are just too much, excessive even, and I feel overwhelmed. Going home on-time is not what you do and my work-life balance can suffer some weeks. [quit while you are ahead]

(This is a good length and the vocabulary is dead-on. A longer answer might start to irritate the other candidate and the examiners. Let the other candidate have time to answer questions. Being selfish is not a good strategy in the pairs speaking test.)

TYPICAL TOPICS

Well, it would be incredible if the topics to choose from were not from the CAE Expert type books. Pearson / Oxford University Press / Express Publishing to name but three all reference the same suite of study areas. So you should have been watching You Tube material in english about those topics "n'est ce pas"?

And - you can expect to be asked about your opinion or to compare and contrast some positive or negative comment about some aspect of the topic.

!!!!BUT!!!!

You are not being marked on your opinion about whatever the topic is - you are being marked on the english you use to talk about the topic or your job or what you want to do in the future or your past . .

Compare, contrast, speculate and above all keep going till the bell!!!!

An answer: "They're both young students, girls, and both in a traditional school setting. This picture shows a student on her own, whereas this student is in her whole class. She has the support of a teacher, but this student doesn't have that. She has to learn to study on her own, and that's not bad. I think she might be studying for a test or - oh! Probably she's just doing her homework. Both are useful skills for her future. I'm sure she has a lot of tests and homework still ahead of her! While the first student is doing her homework for tomorrow, this one has already done her homework and now she's presenting it to the whole class. That's useful - she'll have to do presentations when she gets a job or give a speech when she gets married! What else? Well, it's beneficial for the second girl to practice this - but I think doing the research will have more benefit in the future, because you have to prepare before you can give a good presentation."

PICK OUT THE COMPARE WORDS / THE CONTRAST WORDS / THE SPECULATION / THE "WHEREAS" BITS / THE "ON THE OTHER HAND" BITS. . . .

Have a listen -LISTEN TO A CLASS A STUDENT [click the link]