Dominating the interactive task: repair, turn-taking and notes
Speaking Part 3 is a four-minute interactive discussion with the examiner on the theme of food waste. You prepared seven points and, in the first two minutes, delivered all seven in one long turn with almost no pauses. The examiner has twice tried to ask 'What about restaurants?' You answered each in one sentence and returned to your list. You also repaired yourself mid-sentence three times - 'it's more... more cheaper... I mean cheaper' - and each repair cost about four seconds. Your notes are full sentences, partly in your first language. With 2 minutes 40 seconds used, one examiner question remains and you have one point left, which you have already half-made. You are worried that pausing to think will look like weakness.
1. Which of the three repairs were worth making? Give the test you apply in real time.
Read the worked answer
The test: does the listener mishear me, or does the examiner downgrade my grammar if I leave it?
- 'more cheaper' - fix it, once, briefly: 'cheaper'. A double comparative is a B2 accuracy error an examiner will notice, and four seconds is cheaper than the damage.
- A slip such as 'he don't' - recast it naturally in your next sentence ('he doesn't, and that's why...'); do not stop and restart the clause.
- A wrong article or a slightly mispronounced word that does not block meaning - let it go. Every restart costs fluency and buys you nothing. Rule of thumb: repair errors that change meaning or that sit in your key vocabulary; cover everything else with a fluent rephrase. Three repairs in three minutes is already the limit - the fourth should be a rephrase, not a halt.
2. The examiner asks 'What about restaurants?' with one point still unused. Script the next 30 seconds.
Read the worked answer
'Yes - restaurants are where a lot of it actually happens, because portions are fixed and plates come back half-eaten. That's the same problem as the supermarket dates I mentioned, just at the other end of the chain. What do you think works better there - smaller portions or boxes to take food home?' Why this works: it answers within the first two seconds, so the turn-taking damage is repaired; it links their question to something you have already said, so your preparation is not wasted; it uses the spare point as a bridge rather than a lecture; and it ends with a question, which is what 'interactive' rewards and which gives the examiner a reason to speak again. Avoid 'as I said before' and avoid finishing your list first - once the examiner asks, their question is the task.
3. What should be on the paper for the remaining time, and why?
Read the worked answer
Notes should be triggers, not a script. Keep five or six nouns or short prompts per theme ('portions', 'supermarket dates', 'school canteens'), one phrase you would otherwise lose ('the real cost is...'), and nothing in full sentences. Full sentences get read aloud, which flattens intonation and makes you sound like you are delivering a report instead of discussing; bilingual notes slow the switch into English at exactly the moment you need to sound fluent. For the remaining time, add a column headed 'questions I could ask' - the interaction mark rewards giving the examiner openings, and questions are the cheapest way to create them.