CELPIP Speaking sample answers: one band-9+ response for each of the 8 tasks

A CELPIP Speaking answer is judged on what you say in 60 or 90 seconds, so a sample is only useful if it is the right length and sounds spoken. The eight transcripts below are each written to the official time for the task — roughly 140 words for a 60-second task and 200 for a 90-second one — in the natural, slightly informal register the raters expect. Read each with the timer in mind, then record your own answer to the same prompt.

Task 1 — Giving Advice (30 s prep · 90 s speak)

Prompt: Your friend has been offered a job in another city and is nervous about moving there alone. Give her some advice.

Okay, so first of all, congratulations, because getting the offer is the hard part, and I really think you should take it. I know moving alone sounds scary, but let me give you three things that helped me when I moved to Calgary. First, sort out a place to live before you go, even if it’s temporary. Book a month somewhere central, then look for a proper apartment once you’re there and know the neighbourhoods. Choosing an apartment online from another city is how people end up in the wrong area. Second, don’t wait to build a routine. Join one thing in the first week — a gym class, a language exchange, a volunteer shift, anything with the same people every week. Friends come from repetition, not from big events. Third, keep the connection with home light but regular. A quick call to your parents every Sunday means you won’t feel guilty, and you won’t feel homesick either. Honestly, six months from now you’ll be the one giving this advice. Take the job.

• Three pieces of advice, each with a reason — the shape that fills 90 seconds without repeating.
• Spoken to the friend (“you should”, “let me give you”), not about the topic. Task Fulfillment is about the listener named in the prompt.
• A warm opening and closing line frame the answer; raters hear the structure.

Task 2 — Talking about a Personal Experience (30 s · 60 s)

Prompt: Talk about a time you learned a skill from someone older than you.

I’d like to talk about learning to drive a manual car from my grandfather, when I was about seventeen. He had an old pickup on his farm outside Ludhiana, and every Sunday that summer he took me out on the dirt road behind the fields. He was incredibly patient. The first two weeks I stalled the truck maybe fifty times, and he never raised his voice once — he just said, ‘Again,’ and I tried again. What he actually taught me wasn’t the clutch. It was that you learn by doing the boring part over and over until your body remembers it. By the end of August I could drive that truck up the hill without thinking. I still use his approach for anything new, including preparing for this test.

• Who, where, when in the first two sentences; then one scene with a detail (fifty stalls, “Again”); then what it meant. That is a complete story in a minute.
• Past tenses are consistent, and the reflection at the end is what lifts Content from 8 to 9.

Task 3 — Describing a Scene (30 s · 60 s)

Prompt: Describe the picture to someone who cannot see it — a busy outdoor farmers’ market on a summer morning.

This picture shows an outdoor farmers’ market on what looks like a sunny summer morning. In the foreground, on the left, there’s a stall piled with vegetables — tomatoes, corn and some leafy greens — and a woman in a green apron is weighing something on a scale for a customer. Next to her, a young man is holding a cloth bag and counting coins. In the middle of the picture there’s a wide walkway with maybe twenty people. A father is pushing a stroller, and a little girl beside him is eating a peach. To the right, under a striped canopy, a musician is playing a guitar, and a few people have stopped to listen. In the background you can see more white tents, a row of trees and part of a red-brick building, so the market is probably in a town square.

• Foreground → middle → background, left to right: one pass through the picture, so nothing is repeated and nothing is missed.
• Present continuous for actions (“is weighing”, “is pushing”) and location phrases (“to the right”, “under a striped canopy”) — the grammar of this task.
• Colours, objects and one inference (“probably in a town square”) — detail plus a guess is exactly the mix raters reward.

Task 4 — Making Predictions (30 s · 60 s)

Prompt: Using the same picture, say what you think will happen next.

I think a few things are about to happen here. First, the woman at the vegetable stall is going to hand the bag to the customer and take his coins, and he’ll probably move on to the next stall, because he seems to be shopping for several things. The little girl eating the peach will most likely finish it in a minute and ask her father for something else — maybe from the bakery stand behind them, since she’s looking in that direction. The musician will probably finish his song soon, and the people watching might put some money in his guitar case before they walk on. And because the sky is clear and it’s still early, I’d expect the market to get busier over the next hour, so the walkway will fill up and the lines at each stall will get longer.

• Every prediction has a reason from the picture (“because he seems to be…”, “since she’s looking…”). Predictions without evidence cap Content.
• A range of future forms — “is going to”, “will probably”, “might”, “I’d expect” — is the Vocabulary signal for this task.

Task 5 — Comparing and Persuading (60 s prep · 60 s speak)

Prompt: Your family is choosing between a beach holiday and a mountain cabin. Persuade them to choose your option.

I really think we should choose the mountain cabin this year, and I want to explain why, especially to you, Dad, because I know you were leaning towards the beach. First, the cost. The cabin is about six hundred dollars for the week, with a kitchen, so we’d cook most meals. The beach resort is nearly twice that before we’ve bought a single dinner out. Second, what we’d actually do. At the beach, we sit, we swim, we sit again — and by day three the kids are on their phones. At the cabin there’s hiking, the lake for swimming, canoes to rent, and evenings around a fire, which is exactly the kind of time together we said we wanted. And the weather is more reliable in the mountains in August; the coast had rain for four days last year. So — the cabin. Can we book it tonight?

• The choice is the first sentence. The 60 seconds of prep were used to decide, not the 60 seconds of speaking.
• Each reason compares both options directly (cabin cost vs. resort cost; cabin activities vs. beach activities) — comparing, not just praising.
• Addressing one person by name and ending with a request is what makes it persuasion rather than an opinion.

Task 6 — Dealing with a Difficult Situation (60 s · 60 s)

Prompt: You borrowed a friend’s car and got a parking ticket. Explain the situation to your friend.

Hey Sam, I need to tell you something and I want to be straight with you. When I borrowed your car on Saturday, I got a parking ticket outside the clinic. I honestly thought the sign said two hours, but it was a one-hour zone, and the ticket is for sixty dollars. I know this is on me, not you, so I’m going to pay it — I’ve already set up the payment online, and I’ll send you the confirmation tonight so nothing shows up against your plate. I also want to say sorry, because you did me a real favour lending me the car, and this isn’t how I wanted to repay it. If it helps, I’d like to fill the tank this weekend as well. And next time, I promise to check the sign twice and set a timer on my phone. Thanks for being understanding.

• Spoken to Sam, in the second person, from the first word — Task 6 is a conversation, not a report.
• What happened, what I will do, an apology, a gesture, a promise: five moves in a minute, and the tone stays calm and responsible throughout.
• Concrete amounts and actions (“sixty dollars”, “the confirmation tonight”) make it credible.

Task 7 — Expressing Opinions (30 s prep · 90 s speak)

Prompt: Should cities make public transit free for everyone? Give your opinion and reasons.

In my opinion, cities should not make public transit completely free, although I do think fares should be much lower for the people who need it most. My first reason is that free transit doesn’t fix the problem most riders complain about, which is service. In my city, the buses are crowded and late, not expensive. If the fare money disappears, the city has to cut service or raise taxes, and the crowded bus gets worse. The places that tried free transit, like some European towns, mostly found that ridership went up a little but the quality went down. My second reason is fairness. A flat free fare gives the same benefit to a lawyer downtown as to a student or a senior. Targeted discounts — free passes for seniors, low-income riders and students — cost far less and go where they matter. Now, I understand the argument for free transit: it’s simpler, it encourages people to leave the car at home, and it helps the environment. Those are real benefits. But you can get most of them with cheap, reliable service rather than free, unreliable service. So overall, I’d keep a small fare and put the money into buses that actually arrive.

• Opinion in the first sentence, with a qualification that shows nuance.
• Two reasons with examples, then the other side taken seriously and answered — the four-part shape that fills 90 seconds.
• Signposts (“My first reason”, “Now, I understand”, “So overall”) make the structure audible, which is half of Listenability.

Task 8 — Describing an Unusual Situation (30 s · 60 s)

Prompt: You see a bicycle with a sail attached to the back. Describe it to a friend over the phone.

You won’t believe what I just saw outside the library. It’s a bicycle — a normal-looking blue bicycle — but it has a sail attached to the back. Picture a small windsurfing sail, maybe a metre and a half tall, triangular, white with a red stripe, mounted on a metal pole behind the seat. There’s a rope running from the corner of the sail to the handlebars, so I think the rider can pull it in or let it out. The whole thing is about the size of a regular bike, but with the sail up it looks twice as wide. I guess it’s for riding along the seawall when the wind is behind you, so you don’t have to pedal. It looks homemade, honestly — the pole is held on with tape. I’d love to see someone actually ride it.

• Shape, size, colour, material, parts, then a guess at the purpose — the checklist for this task, in order.
• Comparisons (“picture a small windsurfing sail”, “about the size of a regular bike”) are what let a listener see it; they are the vocabulary raters reward here.
• Spoken register throughout (“you won’t believe”, “honestly”), because the prompt says it is a phone call.

How to use these samples

Do not memorise them; the prompts on your test will be different, and a rater can hear a prepared paragraph stop fitting the question. Instead, take the prompt above each sample, cover the transcript, and record your own answer with the official timer. Then listen back against the sample for three things: did you fill the time, did you follow the same shape (choice first, reasons with specifics, a close), and did you speak to the person named in the prompt? Submit one recording per session for scoring, and work on the criterion the notes name.