The first four CELPIP Speaking tasks test giving advice, telling a personal story, describing a scene, and making predictions. Task 1 records for 90 seconds; Tasks 2 to 4 record for 60 seconds each. All four give you 30 seconds of preparation.
Thirty seconds is not enough to write sentences. What works is jotting two or three keywords and deciding on an opening, the main content, and an ending — then developing it naturally while recording.
Task 1 — Giving Advice
Treat the person in the prompt as if they are listening. Address them directly and keep the tone supportive. Open by showing you understand their situation, then, following official preparation advice, offer at least three suggestions — each followed by a reason, a method, or an example.
If a friend needs help paying university tuition, do not stop at You should get a part-time job. Explain why an on-campus job helps, how many hours a week is realistic, and how to keep it from interfering with coursework. A short line of encouragement at the end makes the answer feel like real communication.
Note that “at least three” is a recommended answering strategy, not a separate mechanical scoring rule.
Task 1 mistakes
The two common failures are listing many suggestions without developing any of them, and spending too long restating the friend’s problem. One sentence of acknowledgement is enough.
Keep the advice practical and the tone matched to the relationship. If I were you, You might want to, and Another option would be are all useful — but you do not need to run every sentence through the same pattern.
Task 2 — Talking about a Personal Experience
The clearest structure is background, event, result, feeling. Say when it happened, where, and who was with you; narrate the key events; then explain the outcome and why the experience mattered.
The main tense is the past. You may need the past perfect when referring back to something earlier, and you can return to the present for a feeling that still holds today. Let tense changes serve meaning — do not add complexity for its own sake.
What if you have no such experience?
CELPIP official preparation material explicitly allows you to invent a story when you cannot think of a real one. It does not need to be dramatic — just plausible, easy to tell clearly, and responsive to the prompt.
During your 30 seconds, assemble it from familiar people, places, and events. Avoid designing many characters or a twisting plot. Raters are assessing your language, not conducting a fact check.
Task 3 — Describing a Scene
Open with the whole picture: This picture shows a busy outdoor market on a sunny afternoon. Then organise — left to right, foreground to background, or group by group.
For each focus point, add position, appearance, action, and possible feeling: Near the entrance, a man in a blue jacket is struggling to carry several boxes, and he looks worried. Official material states you do not have to describe every detail, so pick the clearest and most developable people first.
The noun-list trap
The most frequent Task 3 problem is listing nouns: There is a woman, a child, a dog and a bicycle. The content technically exists, but there is no relationship and no picture in the listener’s mind.
Use is carrying, appears to be waiting, next to, in the background, and while to connect people, actions, and positions. When you cannot know what someone is thinking, use seems, appears, or might rather than stating a guess as fact.
Task 4 — Making Predictions
Task 4 reuses the Task 3 picture and asks what will happen next — not what is happening now. Each prediction works best when it contains a visual clue, a future action, and a likely result.
Because a child is reaching for a ball that is about to fall, you can predict: The ball will probably roll into the street, and his father may rush over to stop him. That is far more complete than The boy will play.
Prediction language
Official advice is to be imaginative but realistic, and to stay connected to the people and objects in the picture. Use will, might, may, could, is likely to, and is probably going to to signal different degrees of probability.
Do not begin every sentence with I think, and do not tell a long story disconnected from the image. Choosing three or four visible people and predicting for each usually keeps the answer organised.
How to practise these four
- Take one everyday scene photo. Record 60 seconds describing what is happening, then 60 seconds predicting what comes next.
- Build a small library of personal stories — first day at work, a trip, resolving a conflict, learning a skill, helping someone — but reorganise them for each prompt rather than reciting.
- Drill expanding one piece of advice into three developed sentences.
When you replay a recording, check four things: did you complete the task, are there specific details, are the connections clear, and did you finish your final sentence before time ran out?
FAQs
Can I invent the Task 2 story? Yes — official material allows it. Keep it simple and plausible.
Do I describe everything in the picture? No. Overview first, then a few developed focus points.
How is Task 4 different from Task 3? Task 4 is about what happens next. If you are still using the present continuous throughout, you are describing, not predicting.
Next, read how to answer Tasks 5-8 and the full Speaking format.