Part one of the C1, the Cambridge advanced, Speaking exam! Toby! That's the easiest part!
Yes it is the easiest part but even easy things become difficult
if you don't know what to do. Oh no, Toby! Please tell me! Please. Please. Please. Okay, okay
I will. My name is Toby, I'm a Cambridge speaking examiner. This is SMASH English and here is
everything you need to know about part one of the C1, the Cambridge Advanced, Speaking exam.
Part one of the C1 Speaking exam is two minutes long if you have one partner or three minutes
long if you have two partners. In part one of the C1 Speaking exam you do not need to talk to your
partner. You should only talk to the interlocutor who will ask you some questions so please remember
do not comment on what your partner says, it's not necessary. So don't do it! Okay? Yes!
First you will enter the examination room. Yes! You will move with your body into the room.
That's a very important step. If you don't do that then you will definitely fail, so... great advice.
This video is brilliant. You will then sit down with your partner opposite the interlocutor (the
person who speaks to you). Behind the interlocutor there will be an assessor and the assessor will be
writing things. Good afternoon. My name is Toby and this is my colleague Duke. Oh, hello! And
your names are? Hi I'm Monica. Bruce. Can I have your mark sheets please? Yeah totally. Thank you.
Yeah sure... mate! Oh! oh! Not yet. Nah! All right... Number two! Here we go! Oh!
oh! That was close, wasn't it mate? All right take it.
And this is the strange thing about part one. You will notice the assessor writing because they have
lots of dates to fill in and boxes to tick so in part one, the assessor (the person that gives you
the majority of your marks) won't be paying that much attention. So what's the point? Part one
is not where you show off your language ability. Think about it. If you have one partner the entire
speaking exam is 15 minutes long. Part one out of four parts is only two minutes long and that is...
a very small portion of the exam. Part one is more about getting you and your partner to relax. So
relax... with the examiners... who are judging you.
The interlocutor will then ask you one or two of the following questions: Where are you from? What
do you do there? How long have you been learning English? What do you enjoy most about learning
English? So what should your approach be to these four questions? Well one of them will definitely
appear in the exam right so the best advice is to prepare a brilliant answer for them, yes? NO!
The examiners know that you know that one of these questions will come up in the exam so if you give
a long scripted answer they will just stop you. Monica, where are you from? Um I'm from my house.
And what do you do there? Were I to answer that question I would say since moving into
my current domicile I have engaged in numerous activities. To provide a comprehensive but not
exhaustive list I... Okay thank you. Oh my god! You are so rude! I spent hours preparing that!
Us examiners do not care if you can memorize a script. We really don't.
So please don't prepare an answer. Your answers to these questions should be short and to the point.
Yes yes yes. Bruce, how long have you been learning English? To tell you the truth I've
been learning English since I was born and I don't want to show off but it's really easy for me. I
could speak English really well from a very young age. Monica, where are you from? Um. my house.
And what do you do there? Um I hang out with friends but to be honest sometimes I just want
to be alone so I record myself dancing and I watch that because it is so hot. Wow. Done.
And now the interlocutor will ask you questions about you. Oh my god I love talking about me!
Remember there is not a limit to the number of questions you could be asked in part one.
However there is a time limit. It's two minutes long remember and we need to get through "give
me your mark sheets please", "hello", "oh", "where are you from", "what do you do there" so you will
probably have about 30 seconds of talking time each for these questions. The number
of questions the interlocutor will ask you will probably depend on how long the answers are that
you give. If you give a very extended response for the first question then they likely will not
ask you a second question. On the other hand if you give a short response and they do not
feel they have heard enough from you they will probably ask you another question. So is it good
if you give a long and extended response? Well, maybe, kind of, perhaps. I'll be honest with you,
this part is so short that it doesn't really matter. If you hesitate a lot or you give an
answer that is incoherent or you answer the wrong question then yeah that's a problem but
if you don't do those things and you give an appropriate answer to the question then
you'll be fine. So that's my advice! Answer the questions the interlocutor asks you...
Yeah. Well yeah... That sounds like really bad advice doesn't it?
Let me explain... For part one of the B2 First speaking exam I advise all of my students to try
and use some complex grammar this includes things like "I wish and if only", conditional structures,
even inversion. This is because at the B2 First level in order to get a three in grammar and
vocabulary (that is a pass) the student must attempt to use some complex grammar.
As a result of this it's a good idea to use part one to get some grammar in there even if
you use it inappropriately or get it wrong. Just trying to use it basically guarantees a three
so why not do that in part one? It's a wasted opportunity if you don't. For the Cambridge
Advanced speaking exam though this is not enough. Seriously if you need to force yourself
to use complex grammar in part one then you're not ready for the C1 exam and i'm really sorry
about that. Watch my videos about the B2 exam. However if you can use complex grammar naturally
because you need to use that complex grammar to express what you want to say then my gosh that's
incredible! If you do that in the exam I will lick your face! No I won't. I won't do that. No. That's
disgusting. Why? Why would I say that? What do you like to do to relax in the evenings? If only I had
more time to relax! Like, barely do I have time to even cook and eat let alone relax because Toby
treats me like a slave! But if I did have more time I'd probably just like, I don't know, sleep
more or something. This is an amazing perfect and wonderful answer. Monica used inversion,
if only and a second conditional and she did not do this because she was thinking "oh my god I need
to use complex grammar what complex grammar can I use?" but instead she just needed to use that
grammar to express her ideas. And that's the point! The emphasis at the C1 level is not "hmm
can this candidate produce a third conditional?" But instead "can the candidate express all the
ideas they want to express without being limited by their grammatical ability?". Let's look at
another example. And Bruce is it better to share your problems with your friends or your family?
Not only do I share my problems with my friends but also my family...
And once I had a problem and if I hadn't shared it with my friends I would have
shared it with my family. Great! Yeah! Brilliant grammar that! Do you like that? Was that good
yeah? Grammar! Now Bruce's language here is okay but he does not sound natural. The problem is his
grammar is being prioritized over the ideas he wants to express and at the C1 level it should
be the opposite. For example: you have an idea that you want to share and you use the appropriate
grammar to express this idea that you want to share. It's not that you think of grammar and
you think "Wow I want to produce this grammar to show the examiner!". No. It's: "I want to express
a complicated idea and I can do that, that's not a problem because I have the grammar to do it".
So I'm sorry. For part one memorizing grammatical structures and producing them is not going to help
you. So with that in mind, what can you do? Well why not try using linking expressions? And let's
link this discussion of linking expressions to something very very important because I need to
say thank you to Kuba! Marcella! Mariachiara! And someone... I don't know who someone is but someone
thank you so much! And what do all of these people have in common? Well they donated to the channel!
They helped me live my life and my life is really important for me so please help me live my life.
Thank you. Bye. Let's go back. Let's link back to the linking expressions. Link.
Link. By linking expressions I mean things like "as well as" and "even though" and "despite",
"although", "however" things like that. This is important because it shows you are capable of
organizing your thoughts and it will provide some coherence to your language. This is important for
marks in "discourse management" and of course using linking expressions will become even more
important in parts two, three and four where you are expected to produce more extended stretches
of language. But of course obviously yes there will be videos about parts two, three and four
to come. So I'm excited about that! Are you? Yes! Yes you are! Also try using discourse markers.
Instead of pausing to think try and fill the pause with a little bit of language. Um to be honest.
Uh to be frank. Um well, like. Actually. Um now that I think about it. And I know these are not
complicated pieces of language. No one is gonna hear you say "like" and think "wow this person's
an English genius" however it is going to make your discourse sound more natural and that's what
we want. We want a natural, relaxed conversation. So trust me! Use discourse markers it will make
a difference. And yeah, I honestly have nothing else to say. Part one is an opportunity for you
to get to know your partner and for you to relax into the exam. It can be intimidating entering
an examination room and seeing two examiners and perhaps meeting a partner that you have never met
before so after two minutes you and your partner are gonna feel like best friends and you will
be ready to deal with parts two, three and four together. Wow. How beautiful. And with that we are
finished! Now you know everything you need to know about part one of the C1, the Cambridge Advanced,
Speaking exam. If you liked the video don't forget to SMASH that like button, subscribe if
you haven't already, leave a comment down below. My name is Toby and this was SMASH English...