1.8 Section F - Speak on a Topic (2 Topics, About a Minute Each)
What is tested. You receive an open topic - technology, education, teamwork, a person who influenced you - and speak on it for about a minute. This is the ceiling of the spoken assessment: it measures organisation (can you structure a minute of speech), sustained fluency (can you keep going without collapsing), and lexical range (can you vary your words while you do it).
How it is scored. Coherence - does the talk have a visible beginning, middle and end; continuity - how much of the minute is filled with speech rather than silence; and vocabulary - the variety and precision of the words you use under pressure. Raw idea quality barely registers: a well-organised minute on a plain idea outscores a brilliant idea delivered in fragments.
The PREP frame
PREP stands for Point, Reason, Example, Point. It is the most reliable one-minute structure in spoken English because every step tells you the next sentence. State your position in one sentence. Give two reasons, one sentence each. Tell one concrete example for about fifteen seconds. Restate your position as a conclusion. That is roughly sixty seconds of structured speech, every time, on any topic.
| Time | Step | What it sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 0-10 s | Point | "I genuinely believe that technology has improved daily life in three ways." |
| 10-30 s | Reasons | "First, communication is instant now. Second, ordinary tasks like banking take minutes instead of hours." |
| 30-50 s | Example | "For instance, my grandmother learned to video-call our family last year, and it completely changed her week." |
| 50-60 s | Point again | "So overall, I would say technology has made everyday life faster and more connected." |
Technique 1 - Signpost every step
Signposts - "The main reason is", "For instance", "On the other hand", "So overall" - are audible structure. They tell the engine your talk is organised, and they tell you what sentence comes next, which halves the cognitive load of improvising. Build the habit of attaching a signpost to every paragraph of your minute.
Technique 2 - Upgrade words naturally
Vocabulary range is scored, but forced synonyms are audible and worse than plain words. Upgrade only along pairs you have drilled: good to beneficial, big to significant, important to crucial, think to believe, get better to improve. A handful of natural upgrades per minute is the target; a thesaurus parade is not.
Technique 3 - Bank three personal stories
Most topics accept a personal example, and personal examples are the easiest speech there is. Prepare three flexible ones now: a project or internship experience, a teamwork or sports moment, and a family or friendship moment. Each should survive being told in fifteen seconds. Nearly every topic you can be given - technology, learning, teamwork, influence, change - can absorb at least one of them.
Technique 4 - Have a plan for running dry
If your content runs out at forty seconds, do not stop and do not repeat yourself verbatim. Extend with a contrast ("On the other hand, some people feel that...") or a second small example. Both are structured, both are signposted, and either comfortably fills the remaining window.
Part 2 gives you six topics, each with a full 60-second script marked with pause points, plus a bullet skeleton of the same talk for your second attempt. Read the script aloud, then rebuild the talk from the skeleton - that combination is how the structure becomes yours.