Task 6Stranger
A hotel with no record of your booking
Your parents drove six hours and every room is full. Speak to the clerk, or call your father. The clerk did not lose it, and the answer has to stay firm anyway.
Practise this question✦
Speaking Task 6 · Free · 2026 CELPIP format
CELPIP Speaking Task 6: Dealing with a Difficult Situation
Five untimed CELPIP Speaking Task 6 questions, each with a spoken model answer. Two people you could speak to, and you must choose exactly one. Record yourself, reveal the model, then read how it names the problem and lands a resolution in sixty seconds.
60s prep · 60s speak
No timer in this course
Nothing recorded is uploaded
The 8 speaking tasks
Each task is scored on all four criteria
How this task works
What CELPIP Speaking Task 6 actually asks you to do
Task 6 drops you into a situation that is genuinely awkward. A hotel has lost the booking you paid for and your parents are standing in the lobby with their bags. A painting crew has stacked paint tins on the only wheelchair ramp and your neighbour cannot get into her own home. Your brother has returned your car with a scratch he says was already there. A customer's tree has died, she did everything right, and your manager has told you not to authorize refunds.
Then the screen offers you two people you could speak to, and you pick one. Speak to the front desk clerk, or call your father. Speak to the foreman, or call the building's owner. Speak to your brother, or call your manager. Sixty seconds to prepare, 60 seconds to speak.
Task 6 is text only. No images, no photographs of options. It is worth saying because Task 6 and Task 5 get confused constantly: both offer a choice, both give a generous minute of preparation, and they are otherwise nothing alike. Task 5 is about choosing between things and persuading somebody. Task 6 is about choosing a listener and resolving something with them.
The full minute of prep exists because the choice is the task. The whole answer is scored on tone, and the tone you owe a front desk clerk who did not lose your booking is nothing like the tone you owe your own brother about eleven hundred dollars of paintwork. Choose the person, and you have chosen the register, the moves and the closing ask all at once. Try to plan before choosing and you will spend the minute writing an answer for nobody in particular.
The two ways to fail
Speak to them, and only to one of them
Failure 1: reporting instead of speaking
Reported
I would tell the foreman that there is a problem with the ramp and that my neighbour needs to get in, and I would ask him if he could move the tins.
Spoken
Excuse me, are you the foreman? I need two minutes. There is a woman outside in a wheelchair. Her name is Farah, she lives in 302, and she cannot get into her own home right now.
Both contain the same facts. Only one is the task. Register cannot be summarized: it only exists when it is used, and the reported version hides every tonal choice behind a wall of I would.
Failure 2: answering both options
Sixty seconds is barely enough for one conversation with a problem, a concession, a request and a fallback in it. Split across two, each gets thirty seconds, which is enough to name the situation and nothing else. The result is two fragments that both stop before the resolution, and the resolution is the scored part. Covering both feels thorough and reads as an answer that could not commit.
There is a third, quieter failure worth naming: choosing the comfortable option. Every Task 6 pairs a hard conversation with an easier one. Confront your brother, or ring your manager about a car. Tell the customer the truth, or phone your absent boss. The easy option is legitimate and it is also usually a trap, because it lets you produce a bland, low-stakes call with no awkwardness anywhere in it, and a rater has almost nothing to reward in a comfortable conversation. The difficulty in Dealing with a Difficult Situation is not an obstacle. It is the material.
Official format
CELPIP Speaking Task 6 format at a glance
The 2026 CELPIP speaking format for the difficult situation task specifically.
- Official name
- Speaking Task 6: Dealing with a Difficult Situation
- Position
- Sixth of the 8 speaking tasks
- Preparation
- 60 seconds, not skippable. One of only two tasks with a full minute.
- Recording
- 60 seconds
- What you see
- Text only. A situation, then two listeners offered as an either or choice. No images.
- Your job
- Choose ONE listener and speak to them directly. Not both, and not about them.
- Roughly
- 130 to 150 words at a natural pace, which is the problem, a concession, a request and a fallback
- Scored on
- Content and Coherence, Vocabulary, Listenability, Task Fulfillment, which includes tone
Rater view
What raters actually reward in CELPIP Speaking Task 6
A difficult conversation that works has a shape, and it is the same shape whether you are talking to a clerk or your brother.
- Separate the person from the problem
- "I know this is not your fault, so let me be quick about what I actually need." The clerk did not lose the booking. Saying so in the first sentence keeps them on your side while the complaint stays completely firm, and it is the difference between an effective adult and an angry one.
- Facts in one compact sentence
- Dates, paid in full, confirmation in hand. Get the evidence out before any demand arrives, and use numbers rather than adjectives for the human stakes: six hours in the car, sixty-eight and seventy years old. Precision is scored, and outrage is not.
- Concede their constraint
- "I understand the paint needs three hours, and I am not asking you to redo your work." Granting the legitimate half of their position before pushing on the rest is what earns you the next thirty seconds from somebody who was about to stop listening.
- Ask for something specific
- Not fix this. Move the tins to the far side and lay a board across the ramp. Call your sister property downtown before you offer me anything out of town. A busy person needs something they can say yes to, and a vague grievance gives them nothing.
- Escalate exactly one step
- "If they genuinely do not, then I will take the place out of town, but I would want the hotel to cover the difference and the taxi, and I would like your name." A conditional fallback with terms attached is firm without ever becoming rude, and it is a complex structure carrying real content.
Tone deserves the last word here, because it is where this task is genuinely won and lost. Task Fulfillment lists relevance, completeness, tone and length, and Task 6 is the task that puts the most pressure on the third one. The garden centre customer is polite and completely in the right and you cannot give her what she wants: the answer that hides behind the printed policy is technically correct and scores badly, because the task is about handling the difficulty rather than avoiding it. The brother has just lied to your face about a scratch: the answer that treats him like a formal complaint has misread the whole scenario, because the difficulty there is staying family while asking for money.
Notice what the strongest model answers do with that. They refuse clearly rather than implying a maybe, because a false hope is worse than a clear no and a rater can hear the difference. They offer a face-saving exit before asking for anything. And they separate the money from the real grievance, and name the real one last: "I do need you to stop telling me it was already there, because that is the part I actually mind." That is emotional honesty inside sixty seconds, and it is the hardest thing on this page to do well.
Practise
5 CELPIP Speaking Task 6 questions with model answers
Five situations, ten possible listeners, and five model answers that each pick the harder one. Open one, choose your person, record yourself with no clock running, then reveal the spoken model and the reasoning underneath it. Your recording stays in your browser: it is never uploaded and nothing here is scored.
Task 6Advocacy
A blocked wheelchair ramp
Paint tins on the only ramp and your neighbour outside now. Speak to the foreman, or call the owner. You are asking on somebody else's behalf, which changes everything.
Practise this questionTask 6Family
Your brother and the scratched car
He says it was already there. It was not. Speak to your brother, or call your manager. The hardest register here: stay family while asking for five hundred and fifty dollars.
Practise this questionTask 6Refusing
A dead tree and a seven day policy
She is polite, she did everything right, and you have been told not to refund. Speak to the customer, or call your manager. The only question with no good news in it.
Practise this questionTask 6Reassuring
A hospital run and an interview, both at two
Beatrice is eighty-one and the appointment took five months to get. Call her, or call the recruiter. Say what you have decided before she offers to give up her place, because she will.
Practise this questionTips
Speaking tips for the difficult situation task
Choose in the first ten seconds
You have a full minute, and the choice should take a sixth of it. Everything else you plan depends on who you are talking to, so deciding late means planning an answer aimed at nobody and then aiming it in a hurry.
Open in their world
"Hi. I know this is not your fault." "Excuse me, are you the foreman? I need two minutes." "Hey, come out and look at the car with me for a second." The first line tells the rater instantly that you know who you are speaking to.
Put a name on the problem
Her name is Farah, she lives in 302. A policy dispute becomes a person, and a person is much harder to say no to. It costs six words and it is the most effective thing in the whole answer.
Offer the easy fix first
Give them a way out before any ultimatum arrives. "Could you call the downtown property first? If they have a room, this is over in ten minutes." Then the fallback lands as reasonable rather than as a threat.
Say what you can do
When you have to refuse, pivot cleanly: "What I can do is this." Three specific, dated, checkable actions beat any amount of sympathy, and they turn a policy answer into a professional one.
Rehearse the awkward one
Whenever a Task 6 offers you a hard conversation and a safe one, practise the hard one. It is where the vocabulary, the hedging and the tone control all get exercised at once, and the safe one teaches you nothing you do not already have.
Questions
CELPIP Speaking Task 6 FAQs
What is CELPIP Speaking Task 6?
CELPIP Speaking Task 6 is Dealing with a Difficult Situation. An awkward situation is described in text, and you are offered two people you could speak to. You choose one, and then you speak to them directly. You get 60 seconds to prepare and 60 seconds to speak. It is the sixth of the eight speaking tasks in the 2026 CELPIP format.
Can I answer both options in CELPIP Speaking Task 6?
No. The instruction says choose one, and answering both halves each of them rather than doubling your content. Sixty seconds is barely enough for one conversation done properly. Splitting it produces two thirty second fragments that each name a problem and never resolve it, which fails the task rather than covering it.
Why does CELPIP Speaking Task 6 give 60 seconds of preparation?
Because the choice is genuinely part of the task. Task 6 and Task 5 are the only two with a full minute of prep, and here you are spending it deciding who to speak to and what register that person is owed. The tone you owe a stranger behind a counter is nothing like the tone you owe your own brother, and picking before you plan is the whole point of the minute.
Should I speak to the person or describe what I would say?
Speak to them. Directly, in the second person, as though they are in front of you. Reporting the conversation in the third person, saying I would tell the clerk that, is a common way to lose marks: the task asks you to have the conversation, not to summarize it, and the register only becomes visible when you actually use it.
Is there a picture in CELPIP Speaking Task 6?
No. Task 6 is text only, an either or choice written on the screen. It is easy to confuse with Task 5, which shows photographs of options, but they are different tasks with different jobs. Task 5 asks you to persuade about a choice between things. Task 6 asks you to resolve a problem with a person.
Which of the two options should I choose in Task 6?
The one with more to say in it, not the one that feels safer. Options that avoid the difficulty, such as calling your manager instead of confronting your brother, tend to produce bland answers with no awkwardness in them, and a rater has very little to reward in a comfortable conversation. The difficulty is the material.
Do I have to be polite in CELPIP Speaking Task 6?
You have to be appropriate, which is not the same thing. Tone is scored under Task Fulfillment, and appropriate can mean firm. Naming where the fault sits, asking for somebody's name, or setting a deadline is all within range. Losing your temper at a clerk who did not cause the problem is not, and neither is being so gentle that you never ask for anything.
What must a Task 6 answer contain to be complete?
Three things: the problem named plainly, the uncomfortable part not dodged, and a concrete resolution proposed. An answer that explains the situation for the full minute and never says what it wants is the commonest failure, because the request is the part being scored. Give somebody something specific to say yes to.
Does this speaking practice course score my answer?
No. There is no timer and no evaluation anywhere in the practice course. You record yourself so that you can hear yourself, the recording stays in your browser and is never uploaded, and then you reveal a spoken model answer with its structure, key phrases and common mistakes.
Is this Task 6 practice updated for the 2026 CELPIP format?
Yes. Everything here follows the 2026 CELPIP speaking format: eight tasks, a timer that runs per task and resets on every advance, and Task 6 running 60 seconds of preparation followed by 60 seconds of recorded speech, with a text only either or choice.
Keep going
Where to go next
Task 7 takes the listener away entirely and gives you ninety seconds of pure argument. Or go back to the other task with a choice in it.
7
Task 7 · Expressing Opinions
Ninety seconds built out of nothing but your own head. Sitting on the fence costs marks.
Learn Task 7 → 5Task 5 · Comparing and Persuading
The other task with a full minute of prep, and the one this is most often confused with.
Learn Task 5 →All 40 speaking samples
Every task, every question, every model answer, on one page with the topics listed in full.
See the samples →Timed speaking tests
All 8 tasks back to back with the real prep and response clocks running.
See the speaking section →✦
Have the conversation, then hear it back
Five awkward situations, no clock, no score. Record the hard version, then check whether you ever actually asked for anything.