CELPIP Speaking Task 7: Expressing Opinions
Can you take a clear position and defend it with developed reasons?
A typical prompt
Some people think students should take a year off to work or travel before starting university; others think they should go straight from school. Give your opinion and explain your reasons.
The one thing that scores 9+
Take a clear position, give two or three DEVELOPED reasons (explained with an example, not just listed), and briefly address the other side. Naming the counter-argument and answering it is the mark of a 9.
A Band-9 sample answer
Original — written to show the technique, not to memorise. Raters penalise memorised, off-topic answers, so use it as a model for structure, then say your own.
In my opinion, taking a year off before university can be a genuinely good idea for a lot of students. My main reason is maturity: eighteen-year-olds often don't really know what they want to study, and a year of working or travelling gives them perspective, so they choose a path they'll actually stick with instead of dropping out in second year. A second reason is money — a year of work can pay for textbooks and cut the debt they graduate with, which is no small thing today. Now, I do understand the worry that some students lose momentum and never go back, and that's fair. But that's usually the exception, and it happens when the year has no plan. If a student spends the time with a purpose — a job, a language, some volunteering — they almost always come back more focused. So on balance, I'm in favour of it.
What caps people at Level 7
- Fence-sitting — never actually committing to a position.
- Listing reasons without developing any of them.
- Ignoring the other side entirely, which makes the argument look thin.
Practise this task
Reading a sample only gets you so far — you improve by speaking under the clock. Take the prep time, record your own answer on your phone, and compare it to the sample above and the level descriptors in our CELPIP score decoder. All 8 speaking tasks run in thefree CELPIP full mock, and the whole format is in theCELPIP format guide.