What to do with the preparation minute
The minute is the whole of Part 2 preparation, and most candidates waste the first half of it deciding what to talk about. That decision should take ten seconds, and it should be made on one criterion only: which choice gives you the most to say? Not the most true, not the most interesting, not the most impressive. The most sayable.
What you write in the remaining fifty seconds matters more than people expect. Write sentences and you will read them aloud, and reading aloud is audible — it flattens intonation, kills the natural hesitation of real speech, and is penalised under Fluency and Coherence for exactly that reason. Write single words.
- 0–10 seconds — choose. Pick the subject with the most detail attached, and commit. Changing your mind at forty seconds is how people arrive at the long turn with nothing written down.
- 10–40 seconds — one word per bullet. The card’s points are a ready-made structure, in a sensible order. Put a single noun beside each one. Four words is a plan.
- 40–55 seconds — decide the ending. Write down how you will finish: why it mattered, what changed, what you would do differently. Trailing off is the most common way a good long turn ends badly, and it is entirely preventable.
- 55–60 seconds — fix the first sentence. Say it silently once. Having the opening ready removes the stall that otherwise eats the first ten seconds of the turn itself.
Twenty cue cards to practise on
Each of these follows the standard shape: a topic, three points to cover, and a final point that asks you to reflect or explain. Print them, or work through two a day. Time yourself at one minute of preparation and then talk for the full two — the discipline of not stopping early is half of what this part trains.
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Card 1
Describe a place you go to when you want to be alone.
You should say
- where it is
- how often you go there
- what you usually do there
and explain why you go there rather than somewhere else.
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Card 2
Describe a skill you learned from someone in your family.
You should say
- what the skill is
- who taught you
- how long it took to learn
and explain how useful it has been to you.
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Card 3
Describe a journey that did not go to plan.
You should say
- where you were going
- what went wrong
- what you did about it
and explain how you felt at the time.
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Card 4
Describe an object in your home that you would not sell.
You should say
- what it is
- where it came from
- how long you have had it
and explain why it matters to you.
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Card 5
Describe a piece of advice you were given that turned out to be wrong.
You should say
- who gave it to you
- what the advice was
- what you did
and explain what you learned from it.
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Card 6
Describe a time you had to be patient.
You should say
- what the situation was
- how long it lasted
- who else was involved
and explain how you managed it.
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Card 7
Describe a building in your town that people notice.
You should say
- where it is
- what it looks like
- what it is used for
and explain why people notice it.
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Card 8
Describe a meal you remember for a reason other than the food.
You should say
- where you were
- who you were with
- what was happening
and explain why you still remember it.
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Card 9
Describe something you own that you use almost every day.
You should say
- what it is
- how you got it
- what you use it for
and explain what you would do without it.
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Card 10
Describe a decision you took a long time to make.
You should say
- what the decision was
- what the options were
- how long you took
and explain whether you would decide the same way now.
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Card 11
Describe a person who changed your mind about something.
You should say
- who they are
- how you know them
- what you used to think
and explain how they changed it.
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Card 12
Describe a season or a time of year you look forward to.
You should say
- when it is
- what the weather is like
- what people do
and explain why you look forward to it.
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Card 13
Describe something you tried once and would not try again.
You should say
- what it was
- when you tried it
- who you were with
and explain why you would not repeat it.
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Card 14
Describe a website or an application you find genuinely useful.
You should say
- what it does
- how often you use it
- how you found it
and explain what makes it better than the alternatives.
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Card 15
Describe an occasion when you helped a stranger.
You should say
- where you were
- what they needed
- what you did
and explain how the situation ended.
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Card 16
Describe a subject you were bad at when you were younger.
You should say
- what the subject was
- how old you were
- why you found it difficult
and explain how you feel about it now.
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Card 17
Describe a small change you made that had a large effect.
You should say
- what you changed
- when you changed it
- why you did it
and explain what the effect was.
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Card 18
Describe a photograph you are glad someone took.
You should say
- what is in it
- who took it
- when it was taken
and explain why you are glad it exists.
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Card 19
Describe a rule at your school or workplace that you did not agree with.
You should say
- what the rule was
- who made it
- why it existed
and explain why you disagreed with it.
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Card 20
Describe a conversation you remember having with a stranger.
You should say
- where it happened
- what it was about
- how long it lasted
and explain why it stayed with you.
One long turn, worked through
Below is the third card in the list above, answered in full at roughly the length a good long turn runs to, and then annotated. Read the answer first, straight through, before you read the commentary — the point is to hear it as an examiner would, once, at speed.
Describe a journey that did not go to plan. You should say: where you were going; what went wrong; what you did about it; and explain how you felt at the time.
The long turn, in full
I’m going to talk about a trip I made two summers ago, from here up to a small town on the north coast, which should have taken about five hours and took closer to fourteen. I was going up for a friend’s wedding — not a close friend, actually, which becomes relevant — and I’d booked the cheapest possible combination of a coach and two trains, because at the time I was saving for something and being sensible about money. What went wrong was almost impressively ordinary. The coach was forty minutes late leaving, which meant I missed the first train, which meant the connection I’d built the whole plan around was gone. And because it was August and it was a Saturday, everything after that was full. I remember standing on the platform at about two in the afternoon, looking at a departure board where every single option was either sold out or three hours away, and having the very specific feeling of being stuck rather than delayed — which are quite different things. What I did about it in the end was give up on the plan entirely. I bought a ticket on a slow local service that went vaguely in the right direction, and then I did that twice more, changing at towns I’d never heard of, and eventually got in at about eleven at night. I missed the ceremony completely and arrived in time for the last hour of the reception, in the clothes I’d been travelling in since six that morning. As for how I felt — furious for the first few hours, honestly, and then somewhere around the second change it turned into something closer to amusement. I think that’s partly because it stopped being fixable. Once there was genuinely nothing left to decide, the whole thing got easier. And the odd part is that I remember the journey far more clearly than I remember the wedding, which was presumably lovely, and about which I can tell you almost nothing.
What this answer does
- It uses the bullets in order, and says soYou can hear the card underneath it: where I was going, what went wrong, what I did, how I felt. Signalling the last one explicitly (as for how I felt) is not inelegant — it tells the examiner you have covered the card, and it buys a second of thinking time.
- The opening sentence was decided in advanceI’m going to talk about… plus the fact and the twist. It is unglamorous and it removes the stall entirely. Every candidate should have one sentence of this shape ready before the minute ends.
- It narrates rather than reportsThe difference is detail: two in the afternoon, a departure board, six that morning, the last hour of the reception. Reporting fills forty seconds; narrating fills two minutes. If you run dry in Part 2, you are almost always reporting.
- The tenses do real workPast simple for the events, past perfect for what was already arranged (I’d booked, I’d built), past continuous for the background (I was saving), and a modal perfect at the top (should have taken). Four forms, none of them decorative.
- One aside is planted early and paid off laterNot a close friend, actually, which becomes relevant — and then the ending explains why. That is structure, and structure is what Coherence is.
- It ends deliberatelyThe last sentence is a reflection, not a fade. It was decided in the 40–55 second window and it is why the turn does not trail off.
Against the four criteria
- Fluency and CoherenceContinuous for roughly two minutes with no restarts, and the narrative is in an order a listener can follow without effort. The hesitations that are there (honestly, I think that’s partly because) are the natural kind.
- Lexical ResourceImpressively ordinary, stuck rather than delayed, vaguely in the right direction. Precision and a little wit; nothing rare, nothing reached for.
- Grammatical Range and AccuracyModal perfect, past perfect, three relative clauses, a cleft (What I did about it…), a concessive. Complexity carried without an error.
- PronunciationCannot be shown here. What the transcript does show is where the stress has to fall — on stuck and delayed in the contrast, and on journey rather than wedding in the last line. Read it aloud and the meaning changes if you put it elsewhere.
This is the behaviour typically assessed in the band 7 to 8 region for a long turn: sustained, developed, structurally deliberate, and accurate while doing several things at once. It is not band 9 — a genuinely expert answer would carry the same content with more idiomatic ease and less visible signposting.
What would raise it: The realistic next step is not more vocabulary. It is removing the two places where the answer explains its own structure (which becomes relevant, as for how I felt) and letting the narrative do that work by itself. Those two phrases are scaffolding, and scaffolding is what you take down last.
The two places it nearly went wrong
- The first thirty seconds are the most fragile. Notice how much setup this answer needs before anything happens — destination, purpose, booking, reason for booking. A candidate who has not decided the opening sentence spends that setup hesitating, and by the time the story starts, a third of the turn is gone.
- The middle can collapse into a list. Then I did this, then I did that, then I did the other. The answer above avoids it by stopping once, at the platform, to describe a moment rather than an action. One paused moment is usually enough to keep two minutes from becoming a timetable.
The follow-up questions, and why they are not a trap
The examiner closes Part 2 with one or two short questions about what you just said. They are not assessed separately, they are not designed to catch you out, and they are usually a way of tidying the transition into Part 3. One-sentence answers are entirely appropriate here — this is not the moment to start a second long turn.
- “Did you ever make that journey again?” — “I did, actually, but I flew.” That is a complete and correct answer.
- “Would you plan it differently now?” — “Definitely. I’d leave a proper gap between the connections rather than the twenty minutes I gave myself.”
Finishing early, running long, and the silence in between
Two anxieties dominate Part 2, and they pull in opposite directions.
| Situation | What the examiner does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| You stop at 40 seconds | Asks a follow-up question, then moves to Part 3. | A short turn gives too little language to assess and pulls every criterion down. This is the expensive end. |
| You are still going at 2 minutes | Stops you, politely, mid-sentence. | Nothing. Being stopped is the normal ending of a good long turn, and candidates who fear it usually finish too early instead. |
| You pause for three seconds mid-turn | Nothing. | Very little. A pause to think is normal speech. Repeatedly restarting the same sentence is the behaviour that costs fluency marks. |
What actually happens at each end of the long turn.