The C1 Advanced Speaking test in one paragraph
The C1 Advanced (CAE) Speaking test lasts 15 minutes for a pair of candidates, 23 minutes for a group of three, and has four parts, per the official C1 Advanced exam-format page. Two examiners are present: the interlocutor, who asks the questions and "could be online, examining remotely", and the assessor, who listens and marks. Part 1 is a 2-minute interview. Part 2 gives you three pictures and asks you to talk about two of them for 1 minute, after which your partner answers a 30-second question. Part 3 is a 2-minute discussion with your partner around written prompts, then 1 minute to reach a decision. Part 4 is a 5-minute discussion with the interlocutor on the Part 3 theme. The assessor marks Grammatical Resource, Lexical Resource, Discourse Management, Pronunciation and Interactive Communication; the interlocutor marks Global Achievement; and, per the handbook, you are "assessed on your own individual performance and not in relation to each other". What separates a Grade C (180) from a Grade A (200) is rarely vocabulary. It is whether you can speculate on an unfamiliar topic in coherent, varied paragraphs while still making room for the other person, which is why the longest part, Part 4, deserves more of your practice time than Part 2.
- 15 minutes per pair; 23 minutes per group of three. Same format for paper and digital.
- Two examiners; one may be examining remotely. Examiners "may use their mobile phones for entering marks using an app".
- Part 1 interview 2 minutes; Part 2 three pictures, talk about two, 1 minute each plus a 30-second response (4 minutes in total); Part 3 15 seconds to read, 2-minute discussion, 1-minute decision (4 minutes in total); Part 4 discussion 5 minutes.
- Five analytical criteria at C1 (grammar and vocabulary are marked separately) plus Global Achievement, each on a 0 to 5 band.
- Overall result is the average of five skill scores: 180 to 192 Grade C, 193 to 199 Grade B, 200 to 210 Grade A with a C2 certificate (results page).
What changes from B2 First
Many C1 candidates have already sat B2 First, and the shape is familiar, so the table isolates what is different. Timings are from the two official format pages; the topic and criteria rows are from the two handbooks.
| B2 First | C1 Advanced | |
|---|---|---|
| Total (pair / three) | 14 / 20 minutes | 15 / 23 minutes |
| Part 2 material | Two photographs, compare both | Three pictures, compare any two; the printed task adds speculation ("how difficult the events might be to organise") |
| Part 3 prompts | Five prompts around a question | Written prompts around a question, 15 seconds to read, same 2 plus 1 timing |
| Part 4 | 4 minutes | 5 minutes |
| Topics (handbook glossary) | "Familiar topics": holidays, jobs, things candidates have experience of | "Unfamiliar topics": ones candidates "would not be expected to have much personal experience of" |
| Analytical criteria | Grammar and Vocabulary as one criterion, plus three others | Grammatical Resource and Lexical Resource as two criteria, plus three others |
| Band 3 standard | "Good control of simple forms, attempts some complex forms" | "Good control of a range of simple and some complex forms"; the B2 Band 5 wording |
The last row is the one to remember. A performance that was Band 5 at B2 First is Band 3 at C1 Advanced. Everything you did to get a Grade A in FCE is now the floor, not the ceiling. If you are still deciding between the two levels, the B2 First Speaking page shows the same four parts at the lower standard.
Part 1: the interview (2 minutes)
The frame printed in the C1 Advanced handbook opens the same way as at every level ("My name is ... and this is my colleague ... Can I have your mark sheets, please?") and then says "First of all, we'd like to know something about you." The interlocutor asks one or two settling questions in turn (the handbook examples are "What do you do here/there?", "How long have you been studying English?", "What do you enjoy most about learning English?") and then one or more from a longer list, each with a "Why?" follow-up. The handbook examples include "What sort of work would you like to do in the future?", "If you could travel to one country in the world, where would you go?" and "Who do you think has had the greatest influence on your life?". So even Part 1 at C1 wants a reason and a small reflection, not a fact.
Ten Part 1 questions in the official style (written by TalkDrill)
- What do you enjoy most about the place where you live? (Why?)
- How do you prefer to spend time when you are not working or studying? (Why?)
- Is there a skill you would like to learn in the next few years? (Why that one?)
- Do you think you spend too much time on screens? (Why? / Why not?)
- What kind of work do you think you will be doing in ten years' time? (Why?)
- Who has influenced the way you think about your career? (How?)
- Do you prefer to plan your holidays carefully or decide as you go? (Why?)
- How important is it to you to keep in touch with old friends? (Why?)
- Have you taken part in anything recently that you found challenging? (What was it?)
- If you could change one thing about your daily routine, what would it be? (Why?)
What a Grade C answer and a Grade A answer sound like
Both answers are written by TalkDrill. The labels are our reading of the C1 Advanced Speaking scales (Band 3 is the C1 standard, Band 5 the top); they are not Cambridge marks, and Cambridge publishes no table from Speaking bands to Scale points.
Question: Who has influenced the way you think about your career?
Grade C territory (Band 3 features): "I think my first manager influenced me a lot. I worked in a small marketing company when I was twenty, and she taught me to be organised and to ask questions when I didn't understand something. Because of her I decided to stay in marketing." Accurate, a past narrative, a reason. Fully adequate.
Grade A territory (Band 5 features): "Probably my first manager, although I didn't realise it at the time. I was twenty, working in a tiny marketing agency, and what struck me wasn't so much what she taught me as how she handled uncertainty; she'd say 'I don't know yet' in front of clients without any embarrassment. It took me years to see that as a strength rather than a weakness, and it's shaped the kind of workplace I look for now." Cleft structure, a contrast between what was taught and what was noticed, reported speech, a shift from past to present, and an evaluation of her own change of mind. Twenty-five seconds.
Where Part 1 marks go
- Answering at B2. Accurate but plain: "My manager. She was very good. I learnt a lot." At C1 that is closer to the Band 1 Lexical Resource descriptor, appropriate vocabulary "but only when talking about familiar topics" (our reading, not a Cambridge mark).
- The prepared speech. The handbook: "Rehearsed speeches should be avoided." At C1 the interlocutor's questions are too varied for a script to fit.
- Over-formality. Strong candidates who learnt much of their English from reading can sound like a written essay. Part 1 is social language; contractions and a little humour are appropriate.
Part 2: three pictures, talk about two (1 minute plus 30 seconds)
The handbook frame: "In this part of the test, I'm going to give each of you three pictures. I'd like you to talk about two of them on your own for about a minute, and also to answer a question briefly about your partner's pictures." Then: "Here are your pictures. They show people attending special events. I'd like you to compare two of the pictures, and say what the people might find interesting about these events, and how difficult the events might be to organise." The two questions are printed above the pictures. When you finish, the interlocutor asks your partner a question such as "Which of these events do you think would attract the largest audience? Why?", for about 30 seconds. The format page lists the skills: "comparing, describing, expressing opinions, speculating". Speculating is the C1 addition.
Two picture sets in the official style (TalkDrill)
| Set | Pictures (choose two) | Printed questions | 30-second question to the partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Working under pressure | A surgeon mid-operation; an air-traffic controller at a radar screen; a chef during a dinner rush | Why might the people have chosen this kind of work? How might the pressure affect them over time? | Which of these jobs would you find the most stressful? (Why?) |
| 2 Sharing knowledge | A grandmother teaching a child to cook; a lecturer in a packed hall; a woman recording a tutorial on her phone | What might the people find rewarding about sharing what they know? How effective might each way of sharing be? | Which of these ways of learning something do you prefer? (Why?) |
A Grade A minute, set 1 (TalkDrill, about 160 words)
"I'll take the surgeon and the chef, because they strike me as the most similar on the surface and the most different underneath. Both are working in highly pressured, time-critical environments where a mistake has immediate consequences, and both have clearly trained for years to be there. As for why they chose it, I suspect the surgeon was drawn by a sense of purpose, perhaps even of responsibility, whereas the chef may have been drawn by the creative side, the craft, and possibly by the adrenaline of service itself. Over time, though, I'd imagine the pressure takes a different toll. For the surgeon it's probably emotional, the weight of outcomes, which can lead to burnout even when nothing goes wrong. For the chef it's more likely to be physical, long shifts in heat, and the risk is that the enjoyment drains away. So similar pressure, but with quite different long-term effects."
The choice is made in the first sentence and justified. Half the minute goes to the two printed questions. The speculation is hedged with a range of forms ("I suspect", "may have been drawn", "I'd imagine", "more likely to be") rather than one "maybe" repeated. A Grade C minute makes the same points with "I think" four times and "because" as its only linker; it is relevant and clear, and Band 3 is the right mark. The phrase bank, grouped by move and with the C1 upgrades marked, is on the Part 2 phrases page.
Where Part 2 marks go
- Talking about all three pictures. The task says two. Three thin comparisons score lower than two developed ones on Discourse Management.
- Describing. "In the first picture I can see a man wearing a green uniform" is B1 language. Name the picture in half a sentence and move to the questions.
- Answering one printed question, not both. There are two at C1. Our suggestion, not an official split: roughly 15 seconds comparison, 20 seconds on each question, 5 seconds to close.
- A 30-second response of five words. "The surgeon, because it's dangerous." Give the reason and a contrast: "The surgeon, without question, because the consequences are irreversible; a bad dinner service is forgotten by Monday."
Part 3: the collaborative task (2 minutes plus 1 minute)
The handbook frame: "Now, I'd like you to talk about something together for about two minutes. Here are some different ways in which people communicate and a question for you to discuss. First you have some time to look at the task." You get 15 seconds. Then: "Now, talk to each other about the advantages and disadvantages of communicating in these different ways." After two minutes: "Now you have about a minute to decide which two ways of communicating are the least effective." The handbook describes the focus as "sustaining an interaction, exchanging ideas, expressing and justifying opinions, agreeing and/or disagreeing, suggesting, speculating, evaluating, reaching a decision through negotiation". As at B2, you are not penalised for failing to agree, and you are not expected to cover every prompt.
Two Part 3 tasks in the official layout (TalkDrill)
Task A
Question in the centre: How might these changes affect the way people work in the future? Prompts: working from anywhere · AI assistants · a four-day week · retiring later · constant retraining. Decision question: Which change will be hardest for employers to manage?
Task B
Question in the centre: Why might people choose to spend money on these things rather than save it? Prompts: travel · education · their appearance · experiences with friends · supporting causes. Decision question: Which of these is the easiest to justify?
Forty-five seconds of a Grade A exchange, Task A (TalkDrill)
A: "Shall we start with AI assistants, since they seem to touch all the others?" B: "Good idea. My sense is they'll change the texture of work more than the amount of it; people will still be busy, just with different things. Though I wonder whether that's optimistic." A: "It might be. If an assistant drafts half your output, the question becomes whether your employer still needs you full-time, which is where the four-day week comes in, and not necessarily by choice." B: "That's a fair point, and it links to retraining too. If roles keep shifting, the people who cope will be the ones who can learn fast, which rather favours the young, doesn't it?" A: "Unless retiring later forces companies to invest in older staff as well ..."
This is the Band 5 descriptor made audible: "interacts with ease, linking contributions to those of other speakers; widens the scope of the interaction and negotiates towards an outcome". Each turn takes the partner's idea somewhere new, the prompts are connected rather than listed, and the disagreement ("It might be") is immediate but soft. The language that does the linking, and the reason a well-spoken 70-second monologue scores lower than this, is on our Part 3 phrases page.
Where Part 3 marks go
- Parallel monologues. Two fluent candidates each take 50 seconds on a prompt and never refer to each other. Each is Band 3 at best on Interactive Communication, however good the grammar.
- Reaching the decision in the discussion phase. The decision question has not been asked yet. Explore; decide when invited.
- Using the 15 seconds to plan a speech. Use them to read the question in the middle and pick one prompt to open with. The rest emerges from the conversation.
- Silence from the quieter partner. Candidates taught at school never to interrupt often wait to be invited. The C1 Interactive Communication descriptors at Bands 1 and 3 both begin "Initiates and responds appropriately", so a polite interruption ("Can I pick up on that?") is rewarded, not punished; the Turkish and Vietnamese page has drills for it.
Part 4: the discussion (5 minutes)
Five minutes is a third of the test, and the handbook sample shows what fills it: six questions on the Part 3 theme, used "in order, as appropriate", each with "Why? / Why not?", and the back-up prompts "What do you think?", "Do you agree?", "How about you?". The handbook's own examples for the communication task include "Some people say that because of modern technology we are losing our communication skills. What's your opinion?" and "Do you think that it's likely that one day there will be an international 'world language' that everyone speaks?". These are the "unfamiliar" topics of the glossary: nobody has personal experience of a future world language. The mark comes from how you reason aloud.
Ten Part 4 questions following Task A and Task B (TalkDrill)
- Do you think working from home makes people more or less creative? (Why?)
- Some people say a job for life is a thing of the past. Is that a loss or a gain?
- Should governments pay for adults to retrain, or is that the individual's responsibility? (Why?)
- Do you think people will work fewer hours in thirty years' time? (Why? / Why not?)
- How far should employers be responsible for their staff's wellbeing?
- Is it true that people today value experiences more than possessions? (Why? / Why not?)
- Do you think spending on education is always a good investment? (Why? / Why not?)
- Some people say social media has made us care more about how we look. Do you agree?
- Is it better to give money to causes or to give time? (Why?)
- Do you think attitudes to saving money differ between generations? (How?)
Grade C and Grade A, question 2 (TalkDrill)
Grade C territory: "I think it's a loss, because people had more security in the past. Now you have to change your job every few years and it's stressful. But it's also a gain because you can try different things and you don't get bored." Both sides, reasons, accurate; Band 3 Discourse Management and a Band 3 Global Achievement feel.
Grade A territory: "I'd resist calling it either, because what's been lost and what's been gained fall on different people. For someone with skills that travel, the end of the job for life is liberating; they can move, renegotiate, leave a bad manager. For someone whose value was tied to one firm's way of doing things, it's genuinely frightening, and I don't think telling them to be adaptable is much of an answer. So if I had to choose, I'd say it's a gain on average and a loss for the people least able to absorb it, which is precisely why it's politically awkward." The question is reframed, the evaluation is split by group, the vocabulary is precise ("renegotiate", "absorb", "politically awkward"), and the conclusion is the speaker's own. This is "handles communication on a wide range of topics, including unfamiliar and abstract ones, with very little hesitation" from the Band 5 Global Achievement descriptor.
Where Part 4 marks go
- Running out of ideas by minute 13. Five minutes is long. Practise Part 4 as a block, never as one question.
- Agreeing with everything. "Do you agree?" is an invitation to add, qualify or disagree. "Yes, I agree with him" is a wasted turn.
- Anecdote instead of argument. A personal story is fine as an example; it is not an answer to an unfamiliar-topic question on its own.
What separates a 180 from a 200
Per the official results page, C1 Advanced reports 180 to 192 as Grade C, 193 to 199 as Grade B and 200 to 210 as Grade A, with the Grade A certificate stating C2; 160 to 179 is reported as Level B2. The overall score is the average of the five skill scores, so Speaking at 200 is one fifth of a Grade A.
Cambridge's guide for teachers, The Cambridge English Scale explained (November 2023), shows how the Speaking marks add up at C1: each of the assessor's five marks is doubled and the interlocutor's Global Achievement mark is multiplied by five, with half marks allowed, so Speaking is out of 75. For official practice tests it places 45 marks at 180, 66 at 200 and 30 at 160, and it warns that scores within about three Scale points of a boundary "need to be reviewed carefully". Our arithmetic: 45 is Band 3 on every criterion and 66 is an average of about 4.4: a 200 in Speaking is mostly 4.5s, not 5s.
An official example: Teresa and Antonio
Cambridge publishes a C1 Advanced Speaking video of Teresa and Antonio with examiner comments and marks. Teresa received 3.5 for Grammatical Resource and 4 for Lexical Resource, Discourse Management, Pronunciation, Interactive Communication and Global Achievement. Antonio received 4.5 on everything except Discourse Management, where he received 4. The examiners say Antonio "interacts with ease" and "widens the scope of interaction", while Teresa's "development of ideas is mainly of her own points".
Our arithmetic, not a Cambridge figure: with the guide's weighting Teresa's marks come to 59 of 75, between the 45 placed at 180 and the 66 placed at 200, and Antonio's to 66.5, at the 200 line. Cambridge gives no Scale score for this video. The gap between them is mostly Interactive Communication and range, which is the table below.
The table is our reading of the C1 handbook descriptors: the Band 3 column is the C1 standard that sits in Grade C territory, and the Band 5 column is the top of the scale.
| Criterion (C1 handbook) | Band 3, the C1 standard | Band 5, the top | What it sounds like in the room (TalkDrill) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grammatical Resource | Good control of a range of simple and some complex forms | Maintains control of a wide range of grammatical forms | Inversions, cleft sentences, mixed conditionals and participle clauses used because they fit, without self-correction |
| Lexical Resource | A range of appropriate vocabulary on familiar and unfamiliar topics | A wide range of appropriate vocabulary on familiar and unfamiliar topics | Precise verbs ("absorb", "erode", "offset") and collocations instead of "very" plus an adjective |
| Discourse Management | Extended stretches with very little hesitation; clear organisation; a range of cohesive devices and discourse markers | Extended stretches with ease; contributions relevant, coherent and varied; a wide range of cohesive devices and markers | Paragraphs you can hear: a claim, a contrast, an example, a conclusion, with "having said that", "which is why", "to some extent" |
| Pronunciation | Intelligible; intonation appropriate; stress accurately placed; sounds clear | Intelligible; "phonological features are used effectively to convey and enhance meaning" | Stress and intonation doing work: the contrast in "a gain on AVERAGE and a loss for the people LEAST able" is heard, not explained |
| Interactive Communication | Initiates and responds, linking contributions to other speakers; maintains and develops the interaction | Interacts with ease; "widens the scope of the interaction and negotiates towards an outcome" | Your partner's idea becomes the start of yours, and the discussion ends somewhere neither of you began |
Read down the Band 5 column and notice that none of it is about avoiding mistakes. The handbook glossary says that "false starts, incomplete utterances, ellipsis and reformulation" are "not penalised" where communication is achieved. A 200 is earned by range, control and interaction, not by caution. The full scales for all three levels, the Global Achievement descriptors and how the two examiners' marks are combined are on our criteria and scale page. If your pronunciation mark is the one holding you at Band 3, the intonation patterns guide covers what the C1 Band 5 descriptor rewards: phonological features "used effectively to convey and enhance meaning".
A practice route to test day
The dates. Per the 2026 examination dates PDF (version 4, June 2026) the remaining paper C1 Advanced sittings are Saturday 14 November, Wednesday 25 November, Saturday 28 November, Saturday 5 December and Saturday 12 December 2026; the 2027 PDF (version 1) opens with Saturday 23 January and Wednesday 17 February 2027. C1 Advanced Digital is available through the year via centres. Both PDFs tell candidates to confirm the Speaking date with the centre. Fees are centre-set; see our fees and registration page, and the dates page for every 2026 and 2027 sitting.
- Watch the official sample Speaking test with the C1 scales beside you. The C1 Advanced preparation page links the sample papers, the Speaking videos with examiner comments and the handbook. Pause after each part and name the band features you heard.
- One unfamiliar-topic question a day, 90 seconds, recorded. Use the Part 4 list above. Listen back once for structure (claim, contrast, example, conclusion) and once for range. Our AI interview practice presses with "Why?" and "Do you agree?" the way the interlocutor does.
- Part 2 with three pictures, three times a week. Choose two in three seconds, answer both printed questions, hedge with at least four different forms.
- Part 3 and Part 4 together, with a partner or with the AI as the second candidate. Nine minutes without a break is the real test of stamina. The paired practice bank runs the official timers and gives feedback by criterion.
- Two full 15-minute mocks in the final fortnight. Mark each against the five criteria. If Grammatical or Lexical Resource is the low row, the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese page lists the transfer errors that keep strong candidates at Band 3.
The Cambridge English hub carries the dates block, the Scale strip and the links to every page in this set, including B1 Preliminary Speaking if you teach or coach the lower levels too.