Topic task (8 minutes)
Topic presentation (4 minutes)
Before the exam you prepare to give a formal presentation on a topic. You can choose what you want to talk about. You must prepare a handout for the examiner. You may use brief notes to help you give your presentation, but you may not read from a script.
Topic discussion (4 minutes)
After your presentation, start the discussion by asking the examiner if he or she has any questions or comments on points you raised in your presentation. The examiner makes notes during your presentation and may ask you to expand upon points you made, clarify information, defend your opinions or consider alternatives. You can bring some notes with you to the exam. During the exam, you discuss your topic with the examiner. Remember to plan your topic both as a presentation and as a discussion, thinking of questions that you can ask the examiner and also questions that the examiner might ask you.
Before the test, you need to prepare a topic to talk to the examiner about.
You need to prepare a formal presentation and deliver it to the examiner. Afterwards, you will discuss your presentation with the examiner.
Choose a topic that you can talk about for up to 4 minutes. Your presentation needs to be discursive, eg arguments for and against space exploration, the benefits and drawbacks of solar energy, to what extent have we achieved gender equality and so on.
Prepare your topic. Write a mind map and think of different areas to talk about related to your topic.
The examiner wants to see you use a variety of language of the level (C1) — see the language functions on page 8. Be ready to develop and justify your arguments, summarise your points, stage your presentation (for example by using discourse markers such as ‘consequently’ and ‘as a result’) and so on.
You need to produce a handout for the examiner. This should have some brief notes about your presentation.
You can also bring notes for yourself to support your presentation, but these should not be a script.
The examiner will make notes during your presentation. This is so they can ask you questions later. They are not making notes on your performance for scoring purposes.
At the end of your presentation, ask the examiner if they have any questions and invite their comments.
The topic presentation will last up to 4 minutes.
The examiner will then ask you questions and have a discussion with you about your presentation. You may need to develop and justify your arguments, evaluate different options and standpoints and show your understanding of points they make.
The topic discussion will last up to 4 minutes.
Example of a topic
— Renewable energy — and areas to talk about:
First I will talk about why we need to use renewable energy, then I’ll compare different kinds of energy and to finish I’ll look at how governments are involved (staging)
Why it’s so important to use renewable energy sources (developing and justifying an argument)
Solar versus wind energy (evaluating options)
What if governments don’t support renewable energy? (hypothesising)
So, I believe that we should invest in solar and wind energy sources and that governments should help fund renewable energy... (summarising)