Start wide
One sentence for the whole picture: what kind of place, what time of day, what's going on. The listener now has a frame to hang everything else on.
CELPIP GymSpeaking courseLesson 3 · Speaking Task 3, describing a scene
Describe it like a camera
Your listener can't see the picture. Start wide, sweep across it in one direction, zoom in on one small story, then pull back for the mood. Sixty seconds, and you never get lost.
5 minutes to read
Speaking Task 30:30
1
Wide, sweep, zoom, pull back
Use the thirty seconds of preparation to pick a direction and one small detail with a story in it. Then speak like a camera: one wide shot, a sweep from left to right, a close-up, and a last wide shot for the feeling. Scroll to film one answer.
Why it scores. A route through the picture gives the answer an order a listener can follow, and the close-up gives you something to say right to the end of the minute.
Content/CoherenceTask Fulfillment
Sweep in one direction
Pick left to right and don't jump around. Give each area a few seconds: who's there, and what they're doing.
Keep moving
Name people by something the listener could spot: the man at the front, the one with the basket. It saves you from "a person" over and over.
Finish the sweep
The edges hold the quiet details people skip. Say them: they're vocabulary the raters can hear.
Zoom in on a story
Pick one small thing with a reason behind it, and guess the reason out loud. A guess lets you use "probably" and "it looks as if".
Pull back for the mood
End on one sentence about the feeling of the place. If the clock cuts you off halfway through it, that's fine: you've already covered the picture.
This looks like a free bike repair day in a city park, on a sunny Saturday morning.
2
Name what you can't name
Every picture has something you have no word for. Don't stop to search. Say what kind of thing it is, what it's made of and what it does, and keep going.
Why it scores. A long silence costs more than a missing word. Talking around the gap keeps you fluent, and the listener still knows what's there.
ListenabilityVocabulary
What's this called?
"There's a, um… a…"4 seconds of silence
a kind ofwhat sortmetal standmade ofthat holds the bikewhat it doesup off the groundwhere
- some kind of…
- a sort of… for…
- what looks like a…
- something you use to…
3
Say what's happening, not what's there
"There is a dog. There is a bench." gives the listener a list. Put every person and animal into an -ing verb, and pin each one to a place.
Why it scores. Verbs in -ing and exact places are the language this task listens for, and they turn a list into a scene someone can follow.
VocabularyContent/Coherence
There is a dog. There is a bench. There is a boy.
WhoDoing whatWhere
A dogis lying in the shadeunder the bench on the right
A boyis pushing an inner tube into a tubat the very front
- in the foreground
- just behind her
- on the far left
- next to the cart
- in the background
4
Lines to borrow
One ready line for each shot, so you never start a sentence wondering how it ends. Select a line to copy it.
Start wide
Sweep across
Guess out loud
Pull back
The usual trap: running dry at forty seconds
You've named everything you can see, and twenty seconds are left. Silence gives the raters nothing to score. Go back in: zoom on another detail, guess why it's there, or say how the people seem to feel.
The clock, spent well
30 seconds to prepare, 60 to speak30 secondsPreparing: a direction, and one detail with a story in it.
About 8 secondsThe wide shot: what this is, and where.
About 40 secondsSweep across it, in one direction only.
About 8 secondsZoom in on your one small story.
The last 4Pull back for the mood.
Quick hacks for Task 3
Smaller than a move, and just as easy to forget on the day.
- ScreenYou'll see this picture again
The next task uses the same one. Anything you don't reach here, you can still use there.
- ClockLook before you plan
Give the first ten seconds of preparing to looking, from one side to the other. You can't describe what you haven't noticed.
- WordsCount things
Three stalls, a couple of children, a row of bikes. Numbers are easy words that make a description sound exact.
- Voice"I can see" once, and no more
After that, let the things be the subject: a woman is, two dogs are. It sounds less like a list and saves a second a sentence.
- If it slipsGot a detail wrong? Keep sweeping
A small slip about the picture costs less than stopping to repair it. Carry on to the next thing.
Take this into the test
- 1In the thirty seconds: a direction and one story detail. No sentences.
- 2Wide, sweep, zoom, pull back.
- 3Stuck on a word? What kind, what it's made of, what it does.