Part 1 — Introduction and interview (4–5 minutes)
Answer each question aloud in 2–4 natural sentences. Press 🔊 to hear the examiner ask it. Don't script — react.
Part 2 — Individual long turn (3–4 minutes)
You have one minute to prepare (make notes!) and should then speak for one to two minutes. Use the timers — the discipline is the practice.
Describe a news story you followed with real interest.
You should say:
- what the story was about
- how you first heard about it
- how you kept up with it as it developed
- who you discussed it with
and explain why this particular story held your attention when so many others didn't.
You will have one minute to prepare and should speak for one to two minutes.
Part 3 — Two-way discussion (4–5 minutes)
These get harder as they go. Build answers with: Answer → Explain → Example → Alternative view → Evaluation. Open the follow-ups only after you've answered — that's what the examiner asks when an answer is thin.
Examiner follow-ups
- Does the format change what people end up believing?
- Is either generation actually better informed, in your view?
Examiner follow-ups
- Can that responsibility realistically be enforced?
- Does the answer change when the false story causes real harm?
Examiner follow-ups
- What can a trained journalist do that a bystander with a phone can't?
- Has citizen reporting made the news better or worse overall?
Examiner follow-ups
- What does that do to trust over time?
- Have you noticed it changing your own clicking habits?
Examiner follow-ups
- What happens to the people who can't or won't pay?
- Is advertising-funded news really free?
Examiner follow-ups
- Is there a minimum amount of news a good citizen ought to follow?
- Why do you think 'news avoidance' seems to be growing?
Examiner follow-ups
- Is there a difference between being informed and merely being updated?
- How could news be delivered in a less exhausting way?
Examiner follow-ups
- Where would you draw that line?
- Who watches over the people making that decision?
Examiner follow-ups
- Does a society need some shared set of facts to function?
- Can anything realistically be done about this?
Examiner follow-ups
- Will verification become a skill schools have to teach?
- Are you optimistic or pessimistic about this?
What a Band 8–9 performance should demonstrate
Judge your recording against the four official criteria. An accent is not required — clarity is.
Fluency & Coherence
- Tells the Part 2 story as a story — how it broke, how it developed, how it ended — with a natural timeline rather than a list of disconnected facts.
- Uses time-sequencing language fluently ("at first", "as it unfolded", "by the end of that week") because the cue card is built around a developing story.
- In Part 3, extends answers about misinformation and trust unprompted — the follow-up prompts should rarely be needed.
- Recovers smoothly when a fact escapes them mid-story ("I forget the exact figure, but it was something like…") without the fluency collapsing.
- Answers respond to the actual question asked — nothing sounds like a rehearsed 'social media pros and cons' speech.
Lexical Resource
- Precise topic vocabulary: headline, coverage, source, breaking news, misinformation, biased, credible, paywall, press freedom.
- Natural collocations — "the story broke", "it made the front pages", "a reliable source", "round-the-clock coverage" — not invented pairings.
- Distinguishes near-synonyms accurately: misinformation vs propaganda vs rumour; a report vs an opinion piece.
- Paraphrases flexibly when a term is missing ("the people who check whether stories are true" for fact-checkers) rather than stalling.
- Shifts from personal listening habits to abstract Part 3 language — accountability, editorial judgement, public interest — without the register wobbling.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Narrative tenses interwoven in Part 2: "the story had been running for weeks before I realised…", "while everyone was arguing about X, Y was quietly happening".
- Reported speech handled accurately, since retelling news demands it: "the minister claimed that…", "early reports said it had been…".
- Conditionals for the regulation and paywall debates: "If quality journalism were free, someone would still be paying for it somewhere."
- Concessive structures for balanced answers: "Even though platforms profit from outrage, banning content outright would…".
- Passives used naturally for news language: "the story was picked up by", "the claim was later debunked".
Pronunciation
- Clearly intelligible throughout — an accent is fine; swallowed endings on words like "journalist" and "government" are not.
- Sentence stress lands on the contrast words the topic invites: "informed, not just updated"; "what they said versus what actually happened".
- Intonation distinguishes retelling (lively, paced like a story) from analysis (measured) across Parts 2 and 3.
- Multi-syllable topic words stressed correctly: JOURnalism, misinforMAtion, exAGGerate, unPREcedented.
- Connected speech sounds natural ("keep_up_with it", "turned_out to be") rather than word-by-word delivery.
How to develop a Band 9 answer for this test
- Opening / context — name the story and roughly when it happened in one sentence, so the listener knows immediately what world event or local saga they're following.
- How it reached you — the exact moment you first heard: a push notification at work, a relative's phone call; that first contact is a natural, vivid way in.
- The unfolding — trace two or three developments in order, using narrative tenses; a story that developed is what the cue card is really asking for, not a static summary.
- How you followed it — name the actual channels (a live blog, a nightly bulletin, a group chat) and how often you checked; this bullet is where habits and specificity earn marks.
- The conversations — who you discussed it with and where opinions differed; one line of reported disagreement ("my father was convinced it was exaggerated") lifts the whole story.
- Reflection — close by answering the explain line head-on: name the thing that hooked you — personal connection, suspense, disbelief — and say whether the ending satisfied it.
“When false information spreads online, who bears the most responsibility — the person who posts it, the platform, or the people who share it?”
- Answer: commit to a ranking — e.g. the platform carries the most responsibility, even though the poster carries the most blame.
- Explain: give the mechanism — one person's lie is limited; it's the recommendation system that decides whether ten people see it or ten million, and that amplification is a design choice made for profit.
- Example: one concrete illustration — health rumours during the pandemic travelled furthest where engagement-driven feeds rewarded outrage, while the same claims died quickly on platforms without algorithmic sharing.
- Alternative view: concede genuinely — platforms can't read minds, billions of posts make perfect moderation impossible, and treating sharers as innocent ignores that forwarding without checking is a choice too.
- Evaluate: land the judgement — blame should follow power: the poster answers for the lie, but only the platform controls the megaphone, so that's where regulation bites hardest.
Common mistakes for this specific test
Picking last year's biggest headline because it sounds impressive falls apart when you can't recall names, sequence or outcome. A smaller local story you genuinely followed gives you a timeline, details and real opinions — which is exactly what the card rewards.
The cue card says a story you followed — the examiner wants your experience of following it, not a Wikipedia summary. "I checked the live updates between lectures" is worth more than a perfectly accurate recap of the facts.
News topics pull candidates into passionate takes on parties and leaders. The examiner isn't judging your politics, but ranting costs coherence and register. Analyse how news works; don't campaign.
The explain line is the heart of the card. Candidates describe the story thoroughly and never say why this one gripped them when hundreds of others scrolled past — leaving the question technically unanswered.
"Do you listen to podcasts?" answered with "Sometimes" gives the examiner nothing to work with. Name the show, the situation you listen in, what you like about the presenter's voice — two to four sentences, naturally.
The phrase is vague and overused. Band 8–9 candidates differentiate: misinformation (wrong), disinformation (deliberately wrong), clickbait (exaggerated), bias (slanted). Precision here is a direct Lexical Resource win.
These questions are about news specifically — trust, payment, responsibility, shared facts. A generic "social media connects people but wastes time" paragraph doesn't answer any of them and examiners spot it instantly.
"All three are responsible in some way" and stopping there is a Band 6 pattern. Rank them — "mostly the platform, and here's why" — then concede what the other candidates for blame get right.
The final question needs a view about trust, not technical knowledge. "I honestly don't know how it works, but here's what I think people will start doing" is a perfectly strong Band 9 opening; half-understood jargon is not.
Questions about shared facts and press freedom push nervous candidates into a sprint, and pronunciation features collapse first. A deliberate pause before answering reads as thoughtfulness, not hesitation.