At the Bus Station Alone
You are on a three-week exchange in Valencia. On Saturday you need to travel alone by bus from Valencia to Alicante to visit your exchange partner's grandmother, then return the same day. Your host mother has written the address on a piece of paper but has already left for work. At the Estación de Autobuses the clerk is an adult you have never met and speaks quickly. You have €25 in cash and a student card. The timetable board shows buses at 10:20 and 11:05; you must be in Alicante by 12:30 and back in Valencia before 21:00. The clerk asks: '¿Ida y vuelta o solo ida? ¿Y tienes carné de estudiante?' Then she says the price: 'Dieciséis con cincuenta.' The 11:05 bus is the last one that gets you there in time.
1. Write what you say in your first two turns: a greeting, a request for the next bus to Alicante, and a question about the price. Justify your choice of *tú* or *usted*.
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What you say:
- 'Buenos días. ¿Me puede decir a qué hora sale el próximo autobús a Alicante, por favor?'
- 'Gracias. ¿Cuánto cuesta el billete de ida y vuelta?'
Why usted: the clerk is an adult stranger in an official service situation, so usted is the safe default in Spain. That means puede, not puedes, and no tú imperatives. Using tú with an older stranger can come across as disrespectful, and in an assessment it is marked as a register error even when every other word is correct.
Why these phrases: me puede decir is a polite indirect question; quisiera would be even softer than quiero. Ida y vuelta is a fixed phrase for a return ticket, and using it shows you understood her earlier question rather than just repeating it back.
Judgement: at Level 1, accurate register inside a formulaic polite frame earns more than an ambitious sentence with the wrong pronoun.
2. The clerk says 'dieciséis con cincuenta'. You are not sure whether that is €16.50 or €60. What do you say, and why is checking important in this particular situation?
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What you say: 'Perdón, ¿puede repetir, por favor? ¿Son dieciséis euros con cincuenta?'
Why not just nod: dieciséis (16) and sesenta (60) are the classic minimal pair - the stress and vowel quality are close and easily lost in a noisy bus station at speed. Repeating the amount back as a question is the standard repair move: it confirms the number without accusing the clerk of anything and makes her say it again more slowly.
Why it matters here: you have €25. If you hold out a note expecting change from €16.50 and the fare is actually €60, you have a problem you cannot solve in Spanish. Confirming also checks the cents: con cincuenta is 50 cents, and you need to count the change.
Judgement: a candidate who asks for repetition loses nothing; one who guesses loses the transaction. Repair phrases (¿Cómo?, más despacio, por favor, ¿puede repetir?) are assessed content, not failure.
3. You still need the platform, the return time and one more detail that decides which bus you take. Write the questions you would ask and explain what you must write down.
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Questions: '¿De qué andén sale el autobús?', '¿A qué hora sale el último autobús de vuelta a Valencia?' and '¿Cuánto tarda el viaje?'
What you must record: the platform number, the return departure time and the journey length. The journey length is the detail that decides which bus you catch: you must be in Alicante by 12:30, and the scenario says 11:05 is the last bus that gets you there in time - so the 10:20 departure only works if the trip takes under about two hours. Writing down '10:20, platform X, two hours' lets you check the arithmetic instead of trusting the board.
Judgement: in an interaction task, ask for the information you need to complete the real-world job - platform, return time, duration - not just the price. A return trip with no return time is an incomplete plan, and examiners reward the candidate who manages the whole transaction.