Choose a moment, true or not
If nothing real comes, take a friend's story or invent one: what happened, one person in it, and one thing you could see. This one is made up.
CELPIP GymSpeaking courseLesson 2 · Speaking Task 2, personal experience
Tell one moment, not a summary
Most answers cover a whole week in a minute, so nothing in them ever happens. Choose one moment, build up to it, and slow down when you get there. The sixty seconds fill themselves.
6 minutes to read
March
“And there it was.”
1
It doesn't have to be true
The test scores how you tell it, not whether it happened. If nothing real comes to mind in your thirty seconds, borrow a friend's story or make one up. Choose the one with a single clear moment in it and one thing you can see. Scroll to watch one story climb.
Why it scores. A story you can picture comes out in full sentences, and one you're still hunting for comes out in pauses. Choosing quickly gives you all thirty seconds to find the words.
Content/CoherenceListenability
One line to set it up
When, where and who in a single sentence, and the listener is already standing there with you.
Let it climb
Give the problem, then one thing that makes it worse. From here the story only goes up.
Slow down at the top
A third of your time for less than a minute of real life. Short sentences, one thing you can see, and a real pause before it happens.
Come down quickly
The exciting part is over, so don't explain it. One reaction, and maybe one thing somebody said.
Say what's different now
End in the present tense. If the clock stops you here, the story is already told.
Talk about a time you lost something that mattered to you.
One lineThe climbThe momentSlow down: a third of your timeWhat it changed
What changed
Now the ring stays at home in a box, and when someone's kind to me, I ask their name. I never got hers.
2
When, where and who in one line
Get the setting out of the way in your first sentence, so that every second after it goes on the story. "Last March, at the ferry terminal in Halifax, with my sister" takes about eight seconds, and the listener is already there.
Why it scores. One opening line gives the listener the frame all at once. Without it, the background leaks into the story and keeps interrupting it.
Content/CoherenceListenability
WhenLast March
WhereThe ferry terminal in Halifax
WhoMy sister and me
“Last March, at the ferry terminal in Halifax, I was waiting in line with my sister.”
So, it was a few years after I came to Canada, and I had this ring, and we were going on a trip, and…
Twenty seconds in, and nothing has happened yet.3
Slow down at the turning point
Spend a third of your minute on a few seconds of what happened. Drop to short sentences, say what you could see and hear, and leave a real pause right before it happens. Everyone speeds up here, which is why most stories go flat where they should be best.
Why it scores. A change of pace is what makes a story easy to follow, and small details are where your best vocabulary goes. It also means you need fewer events to fill the minute.
ListenabilityVocabulary
What happened: a whole morningWhat you say: one moment
She didn't say a word.She just held out her hand,and opened her fingers,one by one.And there it was.
A cleaner found it and gave it back.Same moment, in three seconds
4
What it changed for you
Your last ten seconds answer one question: so what? Say what you do differently now, in the present tense, and name one concrete thing. "I learned a lot" isn't a change. Something you could point at is.
Why it scores. It finishes the story and answers the part of the prompt that asks how it turned out or what it meant. Moving from past to present also gives the ending its own grammar.
Task FulfillmentContent/Coherence
ThenNow
“I learned a lot from that experience.”
“Now the ring stays at home in a box, and when someone's kind to me, I ask their name.”
The usual trap: starting at the beginning
The year you arrived, the job you had, why you were there at all. Thirty seconds later, nothing has happened yet. Start as close to the moment as you can, and let the listener fill in the rest.
The clock, spent well
30 seconds to prepare, 60 to speak30 secondsPreparing: one moment, one person, one thing you could see.
The first 20 secondsThe setting in one line, then climb.
About 20 secondsSlow down at the moment itself.
The last 20Come down quickly, then say what's different now.
Quick hacks for Task 2
Smaller than a move, and just as easy to forget on the day.
- ClockTake the first example that works
The prompt suggests a few kinds of experience. Don't weigh them: three seconds to choose leaves twenty-seven to plan.
- WordsKeep one story that bends
A time you were lost, late, helped or surprised fits most topics with a small turn. Have one ready, and practise turning it.
- WordsThe past, right up to the last line
Stories slip into the present when you speed up. Hold the past tense until the ending, the one place the present belongs.
- VoiceSay what was said
One line of speech, in the person's own words, does more than a sentence about how you felt.
- If it slipsLost your place? "And then"
Two words buy you a breath and sound like part of the story. A silence sounds like its end.
Take this into the test
- 1In the thirty seconds: one moment, one person, one thing you could see.
- 2When, where and who in one line, then climb.
- 3Slow down at the top. End on what's different now.