Fifteen minutes, four parts, two candidates. Nothing here is scored, because a page cannot hear you. In this first mock the notes under each prompt are the coach at your shoulder — read them, record the part, play it back against the model, then record it again without reading anything. That second take is the one to listen to.
The interlocutor asks each of you a few questions in turn. Answers are short — two or three sentences — but never one word. This part is not assessed heavily; it is where the examiners tune their ear to your voice, so speak up and do not warm up slowly.
Question 3, at the top of the band — about 25 seconds.
“Less than I'd have expected, honestly, and in a direction I didn't see coming. I assumed I'd get more adventurous — food, music, all of that — and instead I've narrowed. I used to listen to anything; now there are about four albums I'd genuinely miss, and I'm not sure whether that's taste maturing or just getting lazy. Probably both.”
Why this scores. It answers with a degree in the first four words. It sets up an expectation and then reverses it, which gives the answer a shape rather than a list. The structures are doing work — I'd have expected, whether that's… or… — and it ends on a small honest judgement instead of trailing off. Three sentences. It does not go on.
You are each given three photographs and asked to talk about two of them for a minute. There are two questions printed above the pictures and you must answer both — this is not a description task. When your partner has finished, you are asked a short question about their pictures and you have about thirty seconds. The photographs are described in words here.
Candidate A — three photographs of people performing in front of others.
1 A young man playing a guitar in a shopping street, a case open at his feet with a few coins in it; most people walking past are looking at their phones.
2 A woman in a suit standing at a lectern in a conference hall, a slide behind her; the front rows are full and attentive, the back rows are empty.
3 A school hall: children in home-made costumes on a low stage, a boy at the front frozen mid-line, a teacher crouched at the side mouthing words.
Candidate B — three photographs of people making a decision.
1 A couple outside an estate agent's window at night, pointing at one of the cards; she is smiling, he is not.
2 An older man at a kitchen table with two letters open in front of him, a pen in his hand, not writing.
3 A teenager at a careers fair holding leaflets from three stands, looking at a fourth.
Candidate A's long turn, pictures 1 and 3, at the top of the band — about 60 seconds.
“I'll take the street musician and the school play, because they're both performing to an audience that didn't exactly choose to be there. The guitarist, I'd guess, is doing it for money in the first instance — there's a case open — but the case is nearly empty and nobody's looking, so I imagine what he's actually feeling is something closer to stubbornness than pleasure. He may well have decided that stopping would be worse than being ignored.
The boy in the school play is the opposite case. He didn't choose this at all; somebody put him there, and everyone in the room is on his side — the teacher's practically saying the line for him. So the audience is kinder but the feeling is presumably worse, because he's seven and he's just forgotten his words in front of every parent he knows. If I had to say which of them is under more pressure, it's the boy, oddly, precisely because everybody wants him to succeed.”
Why this scores. It answers both questions and it compares rather than describes. It speculates in every sentence — I'd guess, I imagine, may well have, presumably — which is precisely what the task asks for. It picks one detail in each picture (the empty case, the teacher's mouth) and builds the whole turn on them instead of inventorying the frame. And it ends with a judgement, which gives the examiner something to hear as a conclusion rather than as running out.
You are given a written prompt with a question in the middle and five options around it. You talk together for about two minutes about the options; then the interlocutor asks you to decide something, and you have one minute to reach agreement. It is a conversation, not two speeches — and the decision minute is assessed on whether you actually negotiate.
Here are some things that can help a person succeed in their first job.
· a manager who explains why, not just what
· being allowed to make mistakes
· colleagues of roughly the same age
· regular, honest feedback
· a clear description of what the job actually is
First (2 minutes): talk to each other about how much difference each of these might make to somebody in their first job.
Then (1 minute): decide which one of them an employer should make sure of before anything else.
Forty seconds from the middle of a strong collaborative turn.
A: “Being allowed to make mistakes is the one I keep coming back to, because it's the only thing on the list you can't fake. You can write a job description in an afternoon; you can't pretend to tolerate a mistake when one's just cost you a client. Although — it depends on the job, doesn't it? Does that hold for, say, a nurse?”
B: “That's exactly where I hesitate on it. In some jobs a mistake is a learning experience and in some it's a headline. I'd have thought the manager who explains why does a good deal of the same work and does it safely — if you understand the reason, you make fewer of the mistakes in the first place.”
A: “Go on — so you'd put the manager above the mistakes?”
B: “I think I would, actually, and I didn't at the start. A good manager is the permission to make mistakes, in a form you can afford.”
A: “No, that's persuaded me. Shall we take that as our first and argue about whether feedback is separate from it?”
Why this scores. Every turn is short. Each one does something to the other person's point — extends it, resists it, asks for more — rather than beginning a new topic. Both candidates hedge and then commit (I'd have thought · I think I would, actually), and B openly changes position, which is worth more than defending a first opinion. The last line moves the pair towards the decision without cutting the discussion off.
The interlocutor asks broader questions arising from Part 3. This is the longest part, it is the most abstract, and it is where C1 is genuinely tested: you are being asked to hold a position, qualify it, and defend it against a counter-argument — sometimes your partner's, sometimes the examiner's.
Question 2, at the top of the band — about 45 seconds.
“Being left to work it out, and I'd accept the cost, which is that it's slower and some people never do. If you're taught a job, you learn the job as it was on the day somebody wrote the instructions; if you're made to work it out, you learn how the job works, which is a different thing and lasts longer.
But I'd want to be honest about who that favours. It favours the confident, and it favours people who can afford to look incompetent for a month, and not everybody can. So I wouldn't leave somebody entirely alone — I'd give them the one thing they can't work out for themselves, which is what the mistakes will cost, and then get out of the way. What I wouldn't do is teach them the answers, because the answers are the part that goes out of date.”
Why this scores. It answers in the first five words and never wavers from that position. It states the cost of its own view honestly instead of arguing as though the trade-off were not real — which is what the question was testing. The language is doing work: a conditional pair, a cleft, a concession that narrows the claim without abandoning it. And it ends by naming what it would not do, which is the difference between an opinion and a position.
The one habit to take from this. At C1 you are not rewarded for balance. You are rewarded for a position that has been through the counter-argument and come out the other side. Say what you think, say what it costs, say why you'd pay it.
Play each part back once with the model in front of you, and listen for one thing only at a time. Listening for everything at once tells you nothing.
Pass 1 — did I answer the question that was asked? Pass 2 — did I develop, or did I stop? A C1 answer gives the point and then the reason, every time. Pass 3 — did I commit? Part 4 is marked on whether you can hold and defend a position, not on whether you can list both sides. Do the part again after each pass — and on the last take, cover the notes.