in this video we are going to have a look at everything you need to pass Cambridge B2 first speaking you are going to find out what the different parts look like the best strategies as well as some practical examples if you like the idea let's jump right into it don't I knew it oh God are you good poor thing um I'm sure after this video You're are not going to bomb your exam like this poor guy uh but yeah without further Ado let's get started hi and welcome to teacher Phil where I help people like you pass their Cambridge exams speaking is only one of the five exam papers in Cambridge B2 first the other ones being reading use of English writing and listening the test usually takes around 14 minutes if you are in a pair with one other candidate um but it takes a little bit longer if you happen to be in a group of three during the test you have to demonstrate that you can respond appropriately to a variety of rather simple and also more complex questions and also uh that you can have a discussion and also negotiate with a partner towards an outcome there are four different parts to the speaking paper in B2 first a conversation between the interlocutor who is one of the examiners and each candidate the interlocutor asks questions about the candidates preferences Hobbies likes dislikes and other person topics part two is an individual long turn by each candidate The Examiner gives you two photographs and a question to answer you also need to answer a question about the other candidates photos part three is a discussion and decision-making task in which the interlocutor gives you and your partner a scenario plus written prompts for you to talk about in part four you are faced with another discussion of different questions with your partner based on the topic in part three during the test there are always two examiners present in the room the first one is called the interlocutor uh that's the person who asks all the questions and is also responsible for the timing of the test the other examiner is called the assessor and that examiner does most of the marking but doesn't ask you any questions and last but not least as the speaking test is one of five parts in the exam it counts 20% towards your overall Mark speaking of marks uh in this test there are five different marking criteria the interlocutor and assessor use to assess your speaking grammar and vocabulary as well as pronunciation should be clear and I don't think I will need to explain them that much discourse management however is a little bit more complex here the examiners assess if you can produce extended stretches of language also you need to show that the things you say are relevant to the questions and that you can structure your answers in a logical way interactive communication looks at how you respond to the interlocutor as well as your partner or partners and also how you maintain and manage the interaction with your partner last but not least Global achievement as the name suggests is a global mark and it looks at how you handle the exam in general that means how well you respond to different questions and uh how you structure your answers in general the inter locutor gives you the global achievement Mark while the assessor marks all the other criteria as these marking criteria are quite complex it would uh take us too much time to talk about all the details but I've left a link in the description box below where you can get a little bit more information if you are interested uh we however are going to move on and look at the different parts of the speaking exam so now we are going to see how the different parts work you are going to learn um what you need to be careful with yeah how uh you can do these different parts in the best possible way and I will also show you uh some real life examples so you know exactly what to do part one of the speaking test uh can be considered a little warm-up for you and your partner the interlocutor asks you different short questions about you and your life the topics could include things like your friends and family Hobbies likes and dislikes past experiences future plans and things like that this part takes only around 2 minutes and you have to demonstrate your ability to use social as well as interactional English to do well in this first part of the exam there is a little rule that I always tell my students it is not an official rule from Cambridge but from my experience it has helped many people do well from the beginning I would always try to give answers that are around 20 to 25 seconds long this way you don't just answer the question and then stop but you always answer the question and then give a little bit more information things like reasons examples or personal experience this way you can already make a really good impression from the beginning many candidates especially the unprepared ones go into the exam and they give very short responses for example the answer in this case is completely unsupported and therefore too short instead the candidate could have given more information by detailing where she's from this is a lot better uh there are much more details so the examiner is fully informed always remember reasons examples personal anecdotes and other details give you the extra information to make your answers just a little bit longer and to impress the interlocutor and assessor okay so after all my explanations and these written examples I'm sure you want to see the exam in action so that's why we are going to have a look at an example let's let's move to my office and let's see what happens in a real exam so here we are welcome to my office and let's get started immediately with our speaking exam the two candidates are called Florine and Maria and uh let's get started with part one and how they do I'm going to stop after each answer give you my thoughts so you get a better idea of uh how to start a speaking exam successfully so without further Ado let's jump right into it good afternoon my name is Jenny Cook and this is my colleague Jenny tenant and your name sir my name is Florine and my name is Maria can I have your Mark Sheets please yes of course thank you okay I'll stop real quick at this point so you can see how the exam always starts you can see both examiners here as well uh the interlocutor who's going to ask all the questions and also as you can see uh keeps the time and then the assessor in the background uh who does the majority of the marking uh they collect the marksheets for the assessor to fill out and with that the exam really starts so let's get going where are you from Florine I'm from Holland from the Netherlands and you Maria I'm from Argentina well first we'd like to know something about you Florine tell us about a film you really like I really like the movie Titanic I actually have seen it last night and um I like it because it's uh the story actually happened and um I like the the love Rel love relationship between the two main characters okay so here I think uh Florine starts quite well uh she names the film that she's watched and that she likes and she also gives reasons why yeah she likes the love relationship in the film she says when she watched it so I think that was a pretty good start so let's uh let's uh watch Maria's first attempt here Maria are you going to do anything special this weekend uh yes this weekend I'm going with my best friends to the cinema to see a comedy field mhm okay so this is Maria's first answer and I think you can see the difference immediately that Florine gave a little bit more information while Maria just answers the question and that's pretty much much it yeah she just says I'm going to go to the cinema with friends to watch a comedy film she could talk about the film she could talk about her friends a little bit more um or possibly some other activities so she could definitely give a little bit more information but let's move on and Florine how much television do you watch in a week actually quite a lot my mom doesn't always really like it uh but I L watch uh kind of different uh things I watch the regular news and also just like the lazy entertainment programs and uh also I watch a lot of movies so yeah quite a lot actually okay and again Florine tries to give examples she talks about different kinds of programs she watches on TV she also admits that she probably watches a little bit too much and that her mom is not that happy about it so again I think she does a good job here giving an extend answer Maria do you ever listen to the radio not often but some Sundays I switch on the radio to listen music thank you okay and that is already the end of part one so again Maria could uh in my opinion could give a little bit more information here she just says sometimes on Sunday she listens to music uh she could for examp example say what kind of music she enjoys listening to or um even if it's not true she could possibly invent a little bit more information just give her answer um a little bit more length and a little bit more uh structure uh so I think in the first part the contrast becomes uh quite obvious here that you can give very good answers by just adding a little bit of extra information like reasons examples your opinion uh which makes a good first impression on the examiners and that's what we want but it's only the beginning we still have three more parts to go and uh I will see you again very soon in part two you need to speak about a pair of photographs on your own for about a minute you need to compare the photos as well as answer a question about them in addition you also have to answer a short question about the other candidates photographs the total time for pairs is around 4 minutes or if you are in a group of three the time goes to 6 minutes you need to demonstrate that you can speak spontaneously for an extended period of time with the focus on comparing as well as giving your opinion the most important aspects of this task are number one your time management as well as your choice of language as I said earlier you need to compare the two photos and answer a question about them try to spend about equal time on either task and try to use some good language to impress The Examiner here's an example this is probably worth one minute of speaking if you read it out at a natural speed I've highlighted all the useful language for you so you get a better idea of how to deal with speaking part two after looking at my written example let's go back to Victoria and Edward and let's see how they deal with part two so welcome back uh so here we are for the second part of the speaking exam with Florine and Maria as we saw in the first part there are some slight differences between the candidates and let's see if those differences continue in the second part and let's have a look at what the candidates do well and what they could improve on so yeah let's jump right into it and again I will stop after the first candidate um and give my opinion and then we'll move on to the second one in this part of the test I'm going to give each of you two photographs I'd like you to talk about your photographs on your own for about a minute and also to answer a question about your partner's photographs Florine it's your turn first here are your photographs they show people who are helping other people in different situations I'd like you to compare the photographs and say how important it is to help people in these situations all right yeah uh I think in the first picture it's um someone helping uh soccer player because he's obviously hurt um and in the second photo uh the police officer officer is helping I think it must be a tourist because uh there is a map in the photo and I think it's really important to help people in those situations because um they're both uh in they're both needed help and uh in the first picture the person is probably in pain cuz mostly when you you play uh a sports you can get injur injuries and in the second photo I think it's also very important that the police officer is willing to help the tourist because um it's just uh I think police officers are uh are there because they have to serve the the people thank you okay so that as you see goes very quickly uh it's just a minute that you have but I think uh Florine has a very strong uh long turn here um she starts very well by comparing the photos she speculates a lot she gives reasons for her opinion uses good language um to do that so if you watch it back you can see that she does a very good job there and really that's what a teacher can hope for uh makes me very happy to see this um um she also doesn't spend too much time on comparing the photos there she moves to the question quite quickly um and she also uses some nice Expressions there there's a good vocabulary for example uh when she talks about the police she says they are there to serve people uh which is a great expression there um and I think overall it's a very good turn uh if I had to nitpick here and criticize something I find that some sometimes she hesitates a little bit uh to find the right words even though I don't think that that's a language problem uh she really just looks for ideas and what to say so again think that's a very good one minute turn by Florine and so let's see what Maria uh says about the question that the examiner asks about florine's pictures Maria do you find it easy to ask for help when you have a problem it depends what problem I have because sometimes when you are in different places you are shy so you don't ask to help okay so I think Maria does a good job here the answer to the question is not too long yeah it's almost like a question in part one or an answer in part one you answer the question she gives a little bit of extra information yeah she says it depends on the situation and I think she does a good job here um and so yeah let's move on right to Maria's long turn thank you can I have a book lip pleas yes of course thank you now Maria here are your photographs they show people spending time in different Gardens I'd like you to compare the photographs and say what do you think the people are enjoying about spending time in these Gardens okay I can see in the first picture a woman doing gardening in maybe his house and and the second one I can see in a beautiful Park maybe in near London and we are spending time with his family and well the the first one uh the girl is planting h a nice plant and I think both AR showing a lot H these Hobbies [Music] thank you okay and there we have uh Maria's turn so I think what Maria does well at the beginning of her turn is that she uses some language to speculate about the pictures uh she says that it's maybe her house or that the people are maybe near London uh the ones that are in a garden um but she doesn't really compare the photos instead she speculates about each picture individually and kind of describes them more so make sure that you compare the photos and that you use language that shows that like comparative structures um or similar language um I think another problem in this turn is that she doesn't really answer the question that the examiner asks uh she doesn't say why the people might be enjoying these activities uh she only says that she thinks that they in that they are enjoying it but uh that is all she says about the question so answering the question should be the main part of your long turn so make sure that you reserve time for that and that you use that time because also Maria doesn't use the whole 60c time period as we see after uh some time she stops and the uh interlocutor has to stop the turn uh eventually so always make sure that you use the full 60 uh seconds that uh that you have available to you to compare the photos and to answer the question so there is room for improvement um and I'm sure that in the future Maria is going to practice this more and work on that uh so let's see as well what Florine says about her extra question about Maria's pictures Florine which Garden would you prefer to spend time in I think I would prefer the garden in the first picture because I think it's her own garden and I like working in the garden with my mom and dad so I think I would enjoy spending uh time in my own garden most yeah thank you can I okay so again Florine gives a good answer she answers the question and she explains why she would prefer the first Garden um just like in part one a nice 15 to 20 second answer and that's all you have to do so this is the end of part two and uh in a couple of minutes I'll see you guys back for part three part three is where finally you and your partner or Partners have to work together the interlocutor gives you a scenario plus some written prompts and a question for you to discuss if you work in a pair you have about 2 minutes to complete this task while groups of three get an extra minute and with that 3 minutes once you finish that discussion phase you get about another minute to make a decision based on the interlocutor's instructions in this task the focus is definitely on interacting well with your partner that includes things like agreeing and disagreeing giving your opinion discussing topics negotiating as well as trying to reach a decision as with all the other parts in the speaking exam there's tons of useful language that you could use in speaking part three and this video here would probably uh not be enough to cover all of this or we could talk for a whole day so that's why I wrote an article specifically talking about uh part three of the speaking exam uh I've put a link to this article in the descript description box so if you want to find out more about good language to use in this part jump over and then come back and watch the rest but with all that being said again let's go back to Victoria and Edward and let's have a look at a real example of speaking part three and here we are once again this time for the third part of Florine and Maria speaking exam the first part where they have to interact uh we are going to watch the whole part and I will give you my thoughts afterwards yeah to give them the opportunity and to give you the opportunity to watch the whole part let's have a look now I'd like you to talk about something together for about 2 minutes I'd like you to imagine that a town wants more tourists to visit here are some IDE they're thinking about and a question for you to discuss first you have some time to look at the task okay so the candidates they always get some time around 15 seconds to look at the task the question and the different ideas uh before they have to start the discussion okay now talk to each other about why these ideas would attract more tourists to the town well I think all the ideas on the uh on the booklet are quite good actually I think holiday Flats will attract more tourists because there is just more space uh for the tourists to live in while they're on holiday and what do you think about that well uh I agree with you but maybe providing Parks is much better m why do you think that actually because I think to spend time in parks are good with the family yeah I think you have can have a lot of fun in Parks though just having a nice picnic picnic with your friends or stuff yeah that would be nice but um more shops yeah that I think it would be nice because I think a lot of uh people mostly women like shopping and I think having a lot of shops in your town uh would would be nice for uh the shopolics yes or I don't know maybe the tourist like to spend more time in Parks than go shopping no maybe if you're kind of a nature person if you like nature a lot then parks are probably much better than a lot of shops ni putting up security cameras yeah I think that's a really good idea because then the town is safe and tourists will feel safe yeah with the with the cameras are good idea because H the people are more safe mhm than without cameras yeah of the people that want to stole yeah building a large no I don't think building a large nightclub is really a good idea to attract tourists I don't know it depends the age of the tourist now yeah definitely but I don't think uh it will attract a lot of tourists because of one Club I think it's a combination of several things that attract tourist thank you okay so I will stop it at this point so this is the end of the first phase of part three and you can see that uh Maria and Florine work together quite well yeah they try to involve each other um they ask questions like what do you think about that or why do you think that they also show agreement when they say I agree with you yes so that is really good and that is definitely something you should do with your partner in the exam um I also think they could use maybe a little bit more variety of Expressions yeah if you go uh to my website and look at the useful language uh there uh in the article about part three uh the link of course is in the description box below uh to this video you will see some useful language uh that can help you involve your partner a little bit more and uh use a more varied uh arsenal of Expressions um I also think one thing that is important to point out here is that Florine and Maria uh start comparing the options to each other a little bit which is not really what you should be doing in the first phase of part three instead you should simply answer question for these different ideas uh but you don't have to compare them the comparison comes in the second phase as we will see in a second so keep the ideas separate in the first phase and don't compare them just answer the question for each point and see what your partner thinks about each point um but overall I think they did this phase quite well but we have a second one to look at as well so let's do that too now you have about a minute to decide which idea would be best for the town okay so what do you think is the best idea for the town to do I think building holiday Flats maybe yes why do you think that because all the tourist like to have flats to stay yeah but maybe the parks are just is are a better idea to provide because they uh they're really nice to just uh have a walk in and enjoy the nature with your friends and family yes so if you like uh providing Parks I think is a good idea yeah I do think that's a good idea yeah and but also the holiday Flats I think is a good idea because um you have to you have to have space for the tourist to live in so if there's no space there probably won't be a lot of tourists M yeah thank you can I have the booklet please thank you all right and so that's the second phase of part three um I would say that the two candidates do a much better job here than in the first phase I think their conversation feels more natural um and part of that is uh that they actually disagree with each other at the beginning I think that is a really good strategy uh to use so one candidate can uh suggest one of the ideas and the second candidate can then politely disagree so there is a little bit of a need for discussion and need for negotiation and I think both of them do this really well there's a good flow to their conversation and I think they do better than in the first phase of part three so we only have one part left part four and I will see you for that again in a few minutes so see you later in the last part of the test part four you need to discuss different questions with your partner or Partners these ones are always based on the topic in part three but they are not written down like the prompts that the interlocutor gives you in part three instead the interlocutor simply asks those questions verbally and you have to respond to them appropriately this part takes around 4 minute for Pairs and 6 minutes for groups of three depending on how much time is left and the examiner or interlocutor just keeps asking you questions until the time is up similarly to part three in part four the language focus is on giving your opinion agreeing and disagreeing and having a discussion with your partner the useful language overlaps a lot with part three so again have a look at my article that I wrote about speaking part three if you want to find out a little bit more about useful language unlike part three part four has no time limit on the specific questions so you need to be a little bit careful to limit yourself in order not to speak too much because you always want to give your partner the opportunity to talk as well so here I would go with 20 to 30 seconds per answer if you go a little bit over that that's no problem but you shouldn't talk for 2 minutes uh without without a break and yeah so make sure that you limit yourself so you don't dominate the discussion too much also always make sure that you listen very carefully to your partner and try to refer to what they say when you give your own opinion say if you agree or disagree with what your partner said but also say why which part of their answer do you agree or disagree with and then add your own ideas so simply be smart and do the right thing but of course we have one more example to watch so for the last time let's jump back to my office and let's see what Victoria and Edward do okay and just like that we are already at the last part uh of Maria and florine's speaking exam only part four is left you've just heard my explanation uh from before so the questions The Examiner asks them are all related to part three in their example it's all about uh tourism and traveling and so yeah let's see how they do and um yeah let's have a look Florine do you think you have to spend a lot of money to have a good holiday I don't think you have to spend a lot of money because uh I think you can also have uh have well you can also uh have a good holiday when you're with just your friends or people you like to spend time with and I don't think that should be in a nice fancy hotel or something where you have to spend a lot of money just you have to be with people you like and enjoy being with what do you think Maria well it depends which place you want to go because maybe if you want to go to an nice an iand you I think you are going to spend a lot of money than if you go to a campsite mhm with friends M okay first question I think both candidates do quite well uh one thing Florine does uh which I really like is that she corrects her self yeah she uh Falls over her words a little bit she stops and she uh tries to repeat the sentence which is something that you should do as well so instead of just pretending that it didn't happen just acknowledge your mistake yeah and correct yourself yeah um that is really a good thing that's something the examiners want to see um apart from that I think both candidates do a very good job here uh giving their answers justifying their answers and and uh even as we see they have uh different opinions here uh both justify their opinions quite well with reasons so I believe they get a good start here uh in part four uh the only thing that I would recommend uh doing is that you always refer to what your partner says so Maria here just gives her own opinion without acknowledging florine's point of view so I would always say address something your partner said first and then add your own opinion to that but we'll see if they do this in the following questions Maria some people say we travel too much these days and shouldn't go on so many holidays what do you think yes I think now nowadays A lot of people H travel more than few years years ago because I think the the world is increasing so the people likes to travel do you agree Florine I think we travel a lot these days but I think uh that's also because every everybody has got a lot uh more money to spend so I think uh they spend it on traveling because they want to see a lot of the world so okay so once again pretty good turn I guess here perhaps the two candidates could have expanded a little bit more on the answers but once again they um they give their opinion they justify their ansers so there's nothing wrong with that um again Florine could have referred a little bit more to what Maria says yes or again Maria gives her opinion and then Florine just gives her opinion Without Really addressing what Maria said first so again that's something uh Florine could improve as well Florine do you think people have enough time for holidays these days no I don't think so I I think if you're uh in school like I am uh you have got a lot of long breaks especially the summer break uh is a long break but I think when you're done with school and you have to start your uh professional life then there's there isn't a lot time for holidays so yeah do you Mar yes I agree with Florine but some people works not a lot so maybe can take more holidays than other people MH okay so here for the first time yeah Maria actually says that she somewhat agrees with uh Florine and then she contrasts a little bit which which is already better but again I think both candidates could expand a little bit more on their answers yeah their answers they become a little bit too short for my liking and here in part four it's your last opportunity to really show that you can produce these extended stretches of language and um perhaps this is a little bit of a mised opportunity here but let's see there's still a couple of minutes left and they still have um a few more questions why do you think people like to go away on holiday well I think because they um would like to see a lot of different parts of the world so they can just like develop their knowledge of it yes and it's a good idea to spend time doing this H traveling around the world yeah I think it's a good idea as well okay so here for the first time uh the interlocutor doesn't direct the question uh just like towards one candidate and then the other but she invites them to have a conversation and once again I think Florina and Maria could make more of this opportunity uh because normally if you have a conversation with somebody about a topic you don't just say one sentence and then the other person says a sentence but instead it's more of a back and forth yeah so uh if The Examiner or the interlocutor invites you to have this discussion yeah feel free to talk about the topic for a minute or even two there are not really any time constraints and the worst thing that could happen is that the interlocutor stops you and ends the test but yet take this opportunity to have longer uh conversations with the other candidate what do you think is the biggest advantage of living in a place where there are a lot of tourists I actually don't really think that there are a lot of advantages do you think that no because maybe the city or the town is going to be so crowd so you can't H do a lot of activities because all the places are full yeah I think it's mostly uh uh the only big Advantage is that you get a lot of money from the tourist so it's good for the local economy but the econom M yeah I don't think for the city itself it's a big advantage to have a lot of foreign people so yeah okay so here we have the first time where they actually get into a little bit of a conversation yeah there's a little bit of a back and forth both of them agree but they still give reasons for their opinions yeah they um they actually help each other here a little bit with their opinions and with the things they say so I think this was up until now the best answer that they give together and um there is probably time for one more question here and what can people do to have a good holiday in Holland I think they should go to Amsterdam because uh it's the uh the main city of of the Netherlands and I think they um can spend a lot of uh time in uh the nature we have got mostly in the north of the ne that's pretty it's very pretty and I think yeah most cities are pretty nice to visit CU everyone is everyone is really nice um yeah and they're willing to help you if you need something and in Argentina well in Argentina if you like to do some nature activities you can go to the iwu falls um and then in the South you can do in the snow such as a skiing a snow or or walking when friends M thank you that is the end of the test okay thank you very much okay and just like that Maria and Florine have finished their speaking exam so I think for the last question as well they do a good job here um giving uh good answers and I hope that I was able to give you a better idea of how the different parts of the test work and what the candidates did well and also things they could improve so you can use that for your own speaking so one last time we'll go back to the living room and um so I say bye here from my office and let's go back to the living room if you want to rewatch the whole test um that we've just watched together uh you can follow the link in the description box below you will also find a link to Victorian Edwards marks as well as some of the examiners comments as to why they received the marks they received uh so again follow the links in the description if you want to find out more about that thank you for watching the video Until the End I hope that it helps you get a little bit more comfortable with the speaking exam in Cambridge B2 first now you know how the different parts work what kind of language you should use and what things you should and shouldn't do in each of the sections of this part of the exam now of course it's it's time for you to practice you can try to find a partner online or you can take classes uh to improve your speaking and to practice however I can also be your teacher I offer online classes as well as writing feedback um exam practice and also some general classes if you're interested follow the links in the description box below and I see you in the next video