Integrated Language Use and Communication
What integrated communication tests
This domain combines reading, listening, and speaking conventions. You may complete a dialogue, match a reply to a line, choose the right expression for a situation, or transfer information from a notice into a message. The focus is appropriateness: does the response fit the speaker, the relationship, and the function?
Core rules
- Identify the function of the first line: invitation, request, apology, offer, permission, opinion.
- Answer the function, not the grammar. "Could you...?" asks for an action, so "Sure" should be followed by the action or a reason you cannot.
- Match register: "Would you like...?" is polite; "Do you want...?" is casual but acceptable with friends.
- Keep pronouns and tense consistent with the previous line.
- In matching tasks, eliminate replies that answer a different function before choosing between close options.
- In information-transfer tasks, copy only what the receiver needs: time, place, price, deadline.
Worked example
A: "Could you show me how to get to the station?" B: (a) "Yes, I could." (b) "Sure. Go straight and turn left at the bank." (c) "No, I don't." Answer: (b). "Could you" is a request for help, not a question about ability. (a) answers ability literally but does not help; (c) uses the wrong auxiliary and refuses without explanation.
Traps
- Replying "Yes, I can" to "Could you help me?" and stopping there.
- Using "Thank you" when the line was an apology.
- Mixing formal and casual forms in one reply.
- Choosing a true fact that the receiver does not need.
- Ignoring the line after the blank, which often contains the clue.