In the B1 Preliminary Speaking long turn you describe a photograph on your own for about a minute. Nobody helps you and nobody interrupts, which is why candidates dry up after fifteen seconds. The fix is an order to work through — place, people, actions, details, guesses — so you always know what to say next.
One sentence saying where it is and what is happening overall: ‘This photo shows a busy market, probably in the morning.’ It buys you five seconds and sets a frame.
Place, then people, then what they are doing, then details, then guesses. Practise this order until it runs without thinking, because in the exam you will not be able to invent one.
‘A woman is choosing some fruit. Two children are running past.’ This tense is what the task is designed to elicit, and it is the easiest way to keep producing sentences.
‘On the left…’, ‘behind them…’, ‘in the background…’. Each phrase gives you a new part of the picture and therefore a new sentence.
‘They might be a family.’ ‘It looks like a holiday.’ ‘Maybe they are waiting for someone.’ Speculation is marked as range and it is unlimited.
If you cannot name it, describe it: ‘the thing you use for carrying shopping’. Stopping to search for the word is the only real mistake available here.
‘It looks like a nice place to spend an afternoon.’ It closes the turn naturally rather than trailing off into silence.
The minute is yours. Finishing early gives away marks you could have earned by describing one more corner of the picture.
Not thisIn the photo there is a market. There is a woman. There is a child.
ThisThis is a busy market. A woman is buying fruit while her son waits beside her.
‘There is’ repeated is one structure used ten times. Joining ideas with ‘while’ and using the continuous shows range.
Not thisThe people are wear coats.
ThisThe people are wearing coats.
The present continuous needs the -ing form after are. This is the tense the whole task runs on, so the error repeats.
Not thisThis photo reminds me of my holiday in Greece last year, when we…
ThisThis photo shows a beach with a few people swimming.
The task is to describe the picture. A personal story is a different task and stops you producing the target language.
Not this(after fifteen seconds) That’s all, I think.
This(after fifteen seconds) In the background there are some hills, and it looks quite early in the morning.
Stopping early is the commonest way to lose marks here, and the picture always has more in it.
Not thisI don’t know the word… sorry… I don’t know.
ThisIt’s a kind of bag that you carry on your back.
Paraphrase keeps you speaking and is itself evidence of range; silence is evidence of nothing.
Not thisIn the photo, on the photo, at the photo — I’m not sure.
ThisIn the photo / in the picture.
The preposition is ‘in’, and hesitating over it at the start damages the first impression of the whole turn.
40 original questions. The first 10 are open to everyone. Answers are checked in your browser and never sent to us, so you can share this page with a class as it is.
1Complete with one auxiliary verb.
4Complete with the -ing form of one verb.
6Complete with one noun.
7Write the five-step order you would follow when describing a photograph.
One good answer
Place first, then who is there, then what they are doing, then small details like clothes and weather, and finally guesses about who they are or why they are there.
8Complete with one verb in the present simple.
10Complete with one modal verb.
12Complete with one noun.
14Complete with one adjective.
15Write two sentences speculating about a photo of three people sitting on a station platform with suitcases.
One good answer
They might be a family going on holiday, because they have several large suitcases with them. It looks like they have been waiting for a while — one of them is reading and the others seem bored.
16Complete with one verb in the present simple.
18Complete with one preposition.
21Complete with one adverb of possibility.
23Complete with one word.
25Write one closing sentence for a photo description of a park on a sunny afternoon.
One good answer
On the whole it looks like a lovely place to spend an afternoon, and I think I would enjoy being there myself.
26Complete with one adjective.
28Complete with one noun.
30Complete with one verb in the present simple.
33Complete with one pronoun.
35You have described the people and their actions and thirty seconds remain. Write one sentence saying what to do next.
One good answer
I would move to the background and the small details — the buildings, the weather, what people are wearing — and then guess where they are and why they might be there.
36Complete with one noun.
38Complete with one preposition.
Note
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About a minute. It feels much longer than it sounds, which is why a practised order — place, people, actions, details, guesses — matters more than vocabulary.
Start guessing. Who are these people, where are they going, what happened just before the photo was taken? Speculation is unlimited and is marked as language range.
Accuracy is one of several criteria, and fluent speech with small errors scores better than hesitant speech with none. Keep going and correct yourself briefly if you notice something.
Not in this part. Save it for the discussion that follows, where personal experience is exactly what the examiner asks for.
Open any photo on your phone, set a timer for a minute and describe it out loud. Do it daily for two weeks and the minute stops feeling long.