Linguaskill General cheat sheet

Linguaskill Speaking is computer-delivered and taken at a test centre; responses are recorded and scored by trained examiners, not by the local software.

Five task types in order: Interview (short personal questions), Reading Aloud, Long Turn (1 minute 30 seconds on a topic with two prompts), Two-way Discussion (three related questions), and Personal Statement (about 1 minute 30 seconds on a topic chosen from a list).

Interview questions are read aloud by the computer; there is no human interlocutor, so answers must be self-contained and explicit rather than relying on back-channelling.

Reading Aloud is scored on pronunciation, stress and intonation as well as fluency; a pause of a few seconds is allowed to read the text before speaking.

Long Turn allows about 40 seconds of preparation time; the two prompt points on screen should both be addressed to reach higher content scores.

Scoring criteria are task fulfilment, coherence, vocabulary range, grammatical accuracy and pronunciation; fluency alone does not compensate for limited range.

Answers that are one or two words long cannot demonstrate range; a practical target is two to four extended turns per answer with a reason or example attached.

The Personal Statement topic list appears on screen; choosing a topic with concrete personal experience makes it easier to sustain 90 seconds without repetition.

Two tasks: an email of at least 50 words (about 15 minutes recommended) and a longer piece of at least 180 words (about 30 minutes recommended) chosen from two options.

The email task specifies three bullet points that must all be covered; missing one bullet caps the content score regardless of language quality.

The longer task options are typically an essay giving an opinion on a statement and a report or article on a situation; the essay requires a clear position sustained throughout.

Register matters: an email to a friend uses informal language and contractions, while an email to a manager or a course tutor uses neutral-formal language without contractions.

Scoring covers task fulfilment, organisation, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics (spelling and punctuation); organisation includes paragraphing and linking devices.

Word limits are minimums, not targets to exceed greatly; a 180-word answer written as one block loses organisation marks, whereas four or five short paragraphs help.

A conclusion is expected in the long task: restate the position or recommendation without introducing a new argument.

Spelling errors are counted under mechanics; British and American spellings are both accepted provided usage is consistent within the answer.

Adaptive delivery: the Reading and Listening module adjusts item difficulty to the candidate's running performance, so early answers influence the difficulty and scoring band of later items.

Task types include multiple-choice, matching, gapped sentences, and short-answer or sentence-completion items drawn from notices, articles, adverts and longer texts.

Answers are keyed to the text: a correct option paraphrases the passage, while distractors repeat the passage's exact wording with a changed detail.

Gap-fill items test collocation and grammar as much as meaning; read the whole sentence to decide the word class needed before choosing.

Time is shared with Listening in one combined module, so spending too long on one Reading item reduces time available for Listening items.

Matching tasks (headings, sentences to paragraphs, people to statements) are best done by locating keywords in the text first and then confirming the full meaning.

There is no negative marking, so an unanswered item is always worth a guess rather than being left blank.

Questions generally follow the order of the text in sequential task types; the location of an answer can be narrowed by the position of the previous answer.

Audio is played once only; each recording is heard a single time, so notes must be taken during the first listening.

Recordings include short exchanges, monologues, announcements and longer conversations or talks, with British, American and other native accents represented.

Question types include multiple-choice, gap-fill or sentence completion, and matching; spelling of the completed word must be correct to score.

Answers appear in the recording in the same order as the questions for most task types, so a missed answer means moving immediately to the next question.

Distractors are common: a speaker may mention an option and then reject or correct it, so the final stated information is the one to record.

Numbers, dates, times and prices are frequent gap-fill targets; write them in the expected format and check for a repeated digit or a corrected figure.

Listening shares a single timed module with Reading, and the audio plays automatically, so no extra time can be reclaimed for a difficult item.

The number of words allowed in a gap-fill is specified (for example, one word or a number); exceeding it makes the answer incorrect.