Chapter 5 — Speaking

The five recorded sections, the Listen / Think / Speak phases and the three assessment criteria

Chapter 05 · Linguaskill General

Speaking

Five recorded sections with timed Listen / Think / Speak phases. No examiner sitting opposite you.

~16 min5 sections · 4 parts3 assessment criteria

The Speaking module lasts about 16 minutes. Unlike IELTS, there is no interview with an examiner: you speak alone at a computer, wearing a headset, and your voice is recorded automatically during the speaking phases. The module is not adaptive: the tasks are fixed, in a set order — so you can prepare it very precisely.

The test opens with three unmarked warm-up questions, then runs five marked sections across four parts: Presentation, Summary, Discussion, Recommendation and Argumentation.

No read-aloud, no graph description

Some online resources describe an older format including a read-aloud task or a graph description. That is not the current official format. The five sections are: Presentation / Summary / Discussion / Recommendation / Argumentation.

The Listen / Think / Speak phases

Every task displays a named phase with a progress bar: "Listen" (hearing the instruction or the audio), "Think" (preparation, with a countdown) then "Speak" (speaking, with a countdown). Recording starts automatically during "Speak".

The test opens with an instructions screen and then a sound and microphone check screen: "Put on your headphones and click on Play Sound", then "Click on Start Recording then speak into the microphone", with this warning — "Do NOT start the test unless you can hear yourself clearly. If there is a problem, raise it with your invigilator now." Then comes the unmarked practice section: three questions, 10 seconds to answer each after a tone.

The structure is identical for General and Business; only the context of the topics changes (study and everyday life in General, business in Business).

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