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[Coburg]

Hey, I don't know if this is the right place to post this but a quick question.

In Part 2 of the Speaking Exam for CAE, the candidate is given a set of three pictures. Are they expected to speak about all three of them or compare and contrast two of them? If the latter, I suppose they should point out and say "I want to talk about picture A and B."

Thanks,
Coburg

[Dedicated]

Hello Coburg,

I'm a CAE examiner. In Part 2 :Talking about pictures, the candidate is given 3 pictures and then chooses two of them to talk about. The interlocutor asks the candidate to compare the chosen pictures and respond to two questions.

The questions are above the pictures. The candidate can say which two they are talking about but it is not essential. So they can say "Unlike the man in the first picture, the the boy looks much calmer". or " The man here seems to be rather anxious whereas the boy looks quite calm in comparison".

The candidate needs to be able to use grammatical structures and vocabulary that enables them to compare, express their opinions, describe and speculate.

[the_thinker]

(I'm an examiner too.) Often candidates end up describing all three, but it doesn't really matter. All that's important is that they give a good language sample. There's nowhere they can really be marked down for talking about all three, except maybe for relevance or the interlocutor score on global achievement. But I've seen it happen loads of times and I've never notice a co-examiner mark the candidate down.

[Coburg]

Thanks for the above advice. Actually, I know for the FCE that the spelling of Part 2 in the Listening is not important, as the students are being tested on their listening, not their writing skills. Is this the same for the CAE? Thanks in advance