Task 7Flat yes
Should high schools start later?
The model pre-empts the lazy-teenager assumption before it can be raised, then concedes the childcare gap and answers it on fairness rather than logistics.
Practise this question✦
Speaking Task 7 · Free · 2026 CELPIP format
CELPIP Speaking Task 7: Expressing Opinions
Five untimed CELPIP Speaking Task 7 questions, each with a spoken model answer. Ninety seconds of argument with nobody to persuade and nothing on screen to lean on. Record yourself, reveal the model, then read how it takes a position and defends it.
30s prep · 90s 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 7 actually asks you to do
Task 7 asks what you think. Should high schools start later in the morning? Should cities charge households for every bag of garbage? Should children's teams keep score? Should there be a fixed retirement age? Should one sick day need a doctor's note? One question, 30 seconds to prepare, 90 seconds to answer.
What makes it the hardest task on the test for most people is what it takes away. Task 5 gives you options on the screen and a person to argue with. Task 6 gives you a situation and a listener. Tasks 3 and 4 give you a picture. Task 7 gives you a sentence. There is nothing to describe, nobody to persuade, and no material anywhere except what you can generate. Ninety seconds is a long time to fill from an empty room.
Which is why the failure here is so distinctive. Candidates do not run out of English on Task 7, they run out of argument, and you can hear the exact moment it happens: around second fifty they start restating the position they took at second three, in slightly different words, twice more. Ninety seconds of that is a band 6 answer delivered in band 9 English.
One fact makes the whole task easier, and almost nobody uses it: you are not required to be sincere. The task asks what you think, but nothing checks, nothing follows you home, and no rater has an opinion about garbage fees. So do not choose the side you believe. Choose the side you can develop, which is often the side you find slightly annoying, because you have already argued with it in your head.
The move that lifts the band
Concede, then answer
There is a narrow path between never mentioning the other side and giving it equal weight. Both edges cost marks. The path between them is worth more than any other single technique on this task.
✕
Never mentioning it
Caps the answer. The rater is listening for whether you understood the issue or memorised a side, and an argument that never meets an objection cannot demonstrate the first one.
✕
Giving it equal weight
Reads as indecision and is penalised under Task Fulfillment. On the one hand, on the other hand, and no landing, is an answer to a question nobody asked. The prompt says what do you think, not what could be thought.
✕
Conceding so generously the position dissolves
Fairness is a virtue in a conversation and a problem in a 90 second answer. If your concession is bigger than your case, you have argued the other side by accident.
✓
Concede, name it as real, then answer it
"Now, I do understand the objection, and it is a real one. Buses run in shifts, and parents leave for work at eight, so a later start opens a childcare gap. That is not nothing. But we are asking teenagers to absorb the whole cost of an adult scheduling convenience, and I think we have the wrong group carrying it."
Read that last one again and notice how much work it does in four sentences. It proves you know the counter-argument. It refuses to strawman it, which is a judgement call a rater can hear. It supplies a concrete mechanism, buses and eight o'clock, rather than a vague nod. And then it answers on a completely different axis, fairness rather than logistics, instead of pretending the objection went away. That is the shape the published descriptors are pointing at when they give the top bands both concrete and abstract language.
There are three other endings that do the same job. Redesign the policy to answer the objection: recycling stays free, every household gets free tags, so the fee only bites the people throwing out six bags. Relocate the cause: the problem there is the adults, not the scoreboard, so deal with the adults. Resolve with a distinction: defend the right to retire at sixty-five absolutely, and keep it a right rather than a deadline. All three concede something real and none of them surrenders.
Official format
CELPIP Speaking Task 7 format at a glance
The 2026 CELPIP speaking format for the opinion task specifically.
- Official name
- Speaking Task 7: Expressing Opinions
- Position
- Seventh of the 8 speaking tasks
- Preparation
- 30 seconds, not skippable
- Recording
- 90 seconds. With Task 1, the longest response on the test.
- What you see
- Text only. One question about an everyday issue, usually answerable yes or no. No image, no options, no listener.
- Topics
- Ordinary and public: schools, garbage, sport, retirement, sick leave. Never specialist knowledge, and never political in the partisan sense.
- Roughly
- 200 to 230 words at a natural pace: a position, 2 reasons, an example, a concession and a close
- Scored on
- Content and Coherence, Vocabulary, Listenability, Task Fulfillment
Rater view
What raters actually reward in CELPIP Speaking Task 7
Nobody is grading your politics. They are grading whether an argument has a shape and whether you can build one out loud.
- A position in the first sentence
- "Yes, and honestly I think it is one of the easier problems we could fix." "No, I do not, and I would go a bit further." "I am in favour, with one condition." Land in the first three words, then get precise: not later, but nine rather than eight.
- Reasons on different axes
- Two reasons that are really one idea twice is a common trap. Biology and public health are the same axis. Capability and fairness of opportunity are not. Separate axes give the answer range as well as depth, and range is exactly what a criterion called Vocabulary is measuring.
- One example that touches ground
- A nephew catching a bus at ten past seven in January, in the dark. Losing four to one and then going for pizza. A surgeon of seventy-one. An opinion that never leaves the level of abstraction gives your vocabulary nothing to be precise about.
- A mechanism, not a slogan
- "When garbage is free at the point of use, there is no reason to think about it." "Age is a proxy for capability and it is a poor one." Naming why something works, before the evidence arrives, is what makes the evidence land on an idea rather than on nothing.
- A close that is not a summary
- "Move the start. Move the buses afterwards." Two short imperatives change the rhythm and land the position without restating it. Rhythm is scored under Listenability, and a three sentence recap of your own reasons is ten seconds of nothing.
One more technique worth stealing, because it is almost free: admit that your position is a changed one. "I think they should keep score, and I say that as somebody who used to believe the opposite." "What changed my mind is ..." It buys credibility instantly, it signals that the other side was taken seriously before you get anywhere near the concession, and it gives you a natural structure for the next thirty seconds. Nothing else on this page does that much for nine words.
And a warning about overstatement. It is tempting under a clock to make claims bigger, because big claims sound confident. They are also easier to dismiss. "Older workers are always better" is refuted by one counterexample; "age is a proxy for capability and it is a poor one" survives contact with reality. Hedging is not weakness on this test. It is scored.
Practise
5 CELPIP Speaking Task 7 questions with model answers
Five ordinary public questions, five different argumentative shapes: a flat yes, a qualified yes, a changed mind, a refusal with a distinction and a one-word no with the diagnosis attached. Open one, record your case with no clock running, then reveal the spoken model answer. Your recording stays in your browser: it is never uploaded and nothing here is scored.
Task 7Qualified
Should households pay per bag of garbage?
A position with one condition announced up front and paid off at the end. Promise a condition and forget it and the rater hears the coherence problem.
Practise this questionTask 7Changed mind
Should under-twelve teams keep score?
The easiest question here to answer with feelings and no argument. The model reframes the whole debate away from competition and onto adults pretending.
Practise this questionTask 7Refusal
Should there be a fixed retirement age?
Two reasons on genuinely separate axes, a workable alternative rather than only an objection, and a tension the model admits it cannot dissolve.
Practise this questionTask 7One-word no
Should a single sick day need a doctor's note?
One word of answer, and the diagnosis arrives with it: a rule that does the opposite of what it was written to do. Contagion and evidence then carry a reason each, so neither one restates the other.
Practise this questionTips
Speaking tips for the opinion task
Pick the arguable side, not the true one
In the 30 seconds, ask which side you have an example for. That is your side. Sincerity is not scored and nobody will ever know, and arguing a position you find slightly irritating is often easier because you have already rehearsed the objections.
Plan the concession, not the opening
The first sentence writes itself. The counter-argument does not, and it is the piece that lifts the band. Spend the prep deciding what the other side's best point is and what you will say back to it.
Two axes, not two sentences
Check that your reasons are actually different. Money and cost are the same reason. Money and dignity are two. If both your points would be answered by the same objection, you have one point.
Invent the evidence
"The town where my sister lives cut its landfill volume by roughly a third in the first year." Nobody is fact-checking, and the hedge roughly is doing real work. A specific claim you can attach a number to beats any amount of general truth.
Say what would change your mind
"What I would not accept is a flat charge with no free allowance." Drawing a line at the end shows a considered position instead of a slogan, and it fills the last ten seconds with content rather than a recap.
Argue in the shower
Take any headline and give it 90 seconds out loud: position, two reasons, an example, a concession, a close. Do it three times a week and the shape becomes automatic, which is the only thing that survives a 30 second prep.
Questions
CELPIP Speaking Task 7 FAQs
What is CELPIP Speaking Task 7?
CELPIP Speaking Task 7 is Expressing Opinions. A short question asks what you think about an everyday issue, such as whether high schools should start later or whether children's sports teams should keep score, and you argue your position. You get 30 seconds to prepare and 90 seconds to speak. It is the seventh of the eight speaking tasks in the 2026 CELPIP format.
How is CELPIP Speaking Task 7 different from Task 5?
Task 5 gives you options on screen and a named person to persuade. Task 7 gives you neither. There is nobody to argue with, nothing to compare and no picture to lean on, which makes it 90 seconds of argument built out of nothing but your own head. It is also 30 seconds longer than Task 5.
Can I discuss both sides in CELPIP Speaking Task 7?
You should mention the other side, but you must not give it equal weight. Acknowledging an objection and then answering it is a top band move. Presenting both sides evenly and never landing is indecision, and it is penalised under Task Fulfillment, because the task asks what you think rather than what could be thought.
Do I have to give my real opinion in Task 7?
No. The task never asks you to be sincere and nobody checks. Choose the side you have more to say about, not the side you happen to hold. A well argued position you do not believe scores higher than a sincere one you cannot develop, and swapping sides is a legitimate strategy rather than cheating.
How many reasons should a Task 7 answer have?
Two or three, each properly developed, plus one concrete example. Ninety seconds is about 200 to 230 words. Five reasons at that length gives each of them 40 words, which is a list. Two reasons on genuinely different axes, such as capability and fairness, give the answer range as well as depth.
Is there a picture in CELPIP Speaking Task 7?
No. Task 7 is text only, a single question on the screen during your 30 seconds of preparation, and it stays there while you speak. There is nothing visual to describe and no options to weigh, which is exactly what makes this the hardest task to fill for candidates who have not planned.
What does the top band sound like in Task 7?
It concedes. It says the case against is real, states the strongest counter-argument honestly, and then answers it rather than waving it away. That single move demonstrates that you understood the issue rather than memorised a side, and it is the clearest separator between a solid answer and a high one.
How do I fill 90 seconds if I run out of things to say?
Reach for a specific example or a concession, never a repetition. Restating your position for the third time is the commonest filler and it earns nothing. One named town, one number, one person you have worked with, or one honest account of what the other side gets right will fill the same time and add content.
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 7 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 7 running 30 seconds of preparation followed by 90 seconds of recorded speech.
Keep going
Where to go next
Task 8 closes the test with the strangest job on it: describing a thing that has no name down a phone line.
8
Task 8 · Unusual Situation
A circumlocution test with four obligatory beats, and candidates reliably drop the last one.
Learn Task 8 → 1Task 1 · Giving Advice
The other 90 second task, where the argument is aimed at one named person instead of nobody.
Learn Task 1 →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 →✦
Make the case, then hear it back
Five opinions, no clock, no score. Record 90 seconds, then find the moment you started repeating yourself. That moment is what the practice is for.