Speaking - Paired Discussion Tips
Essential strategies and common pitfalls to help you ace your Cambridge English exam.
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What to do
You get an image and a few suggestions to discuss together with the other candidate.
If you don’t understand the instructions, ask the examiner to repeat them e.g. ‘Sorry, could you say that again, please?’.
Think of what to say next: you will have only a minute, so any time not used to produce language is time wasted.
If you stop, fill that space with language, if possible, e.g. ‘Now, what else can I say about this photo?’, ‘Now, what else can I say about the people in this photo?’
If you run out of ideas you can refer to the absence of things, as long as it is relevant:
“I can see forks on the table but I can’t see any knives.”
“I can see some plants in the garden but there aren’t any flowers.”
You can also speculate using ‘may’, or ‘I think’:
“The man looks tired. Maybe he has too much work.”
“The sun is shining. It may be lunch time.”
If you don’t know anything about a topic in the Speaking paper, do not talk about anything else. You need to show your language skills, not your knowledge about a specific subject.