Comparing and Persuading
Task 5 is the only task with three screens. You choose an option, then argue for it against a different one you have not seen before, and failing to compare them carries the heaviest ceiling on the test.
Three screens, and what happens between them
Task 5 is Comparing and Persuading, and it is structured differently from every other task. The first screen shows two options and gives you 60 seconds to choose one, with nothing recorded. The second screen restarts the clock for 60 seconds of preparation. The third gives you 60 seconds of recorded speech. Roughly three minutes in total, of which only the last minute is your answer.
The detail that catches people is what happens to the option you did not choose. It vanishes. On the speaking screen you see your own choice and a third option that somebody else wants, which you have never seen before. So the comparison you owe is not the one you spent the first minute making. It is between the thing you picked and the thing they are pushing for.
If you fail to choose in time, the system picks for you and moves on. Nothing on that screen is recorded, so the choosing itself costs you no marks, but you then have to persuade somebody in favour of an option you did not select. Choose fast. Neither option is better in any scored sense, only easier for you to talk about.
The ceiling that defines this task
Two failures on Task 5 cap Task Fulfilment at 5, which is the lowest task-specific ceiling anywhere in the section. The first is arguing for the wrong option, meaning the one you did not choose or the one the other person wants. The second is never comparing at all.
The second is far more common and much less obvious from the inside. A candidate spends sixty seconds saying enthusiastic things about their own choice, never mentions the other option, and finishes feeling they made a strong case. They made a strong advertisement. The task is called Comparing and Persuading, and a persuasive case that does not engage with the alternative has done half of it.
The test is mechanical: does your answer contain at least two sentences that put the two options side by side? Not two sentences about yours and two about theirs, but sentences with a comparative in them. The community centre course is cheaper, but more to the point it runs in the evening, whereas the private one only runs on Saturdays and that is the day he actually works. That is comparison.
Choosing fast, and choosing the arguable one
Sixty seconds is a long time to make a binary choice, and candidates fill it by weighing. Weighing is the wrong activity, because nothing you conclude is recorded and the option you reject disappears.
The question to ask is not which is better but which I can say more about. Look at each option for features that generate arguments: a time, a price, a distance, a condition, a limitation, something that affects somebody other than you. The option with four such handles beats the option you would genuinely prefer but can only describe as nice.
Make the decision in the first fifteen seconds, then spend the remaining forty five on something useful: reading your chosen option's details closely enough to quote them. Specific numbers and features from the option are what your argument will be built out of, and they are on screen, which means you never have to invent them.
The structure that fits sixty seconds
Open by naming your choice and the person, about eight seconds. Dad, I know you had your eye on the used van, but I really think we should go for the estate car, and let me explain why. Choice stated, listener addressed, opposition acknowledged, all in one sentence.
Two comparative reasons, about thirty seconds. Each one should name a feature of your option and set it directly against theirs. Different axes work better than two versions of the same argument: cost against reliability, or convenience against capacity.
Concede something real, about ten seconds. The van does have more room, I am not going to pretend otherwise. Then answer it.
Close with a specific ask, about ten seconds. Not so that is why I prefer it, but something they can agree to. Can we at least go and look at it on Saturday before you call about the van? Persuasion that never asks for anything is an opinion.
Make the choice in the first fifteen seconds of the choosing screen and spend the rest reading your option's details closely. Nothing on that screen is recorded, and the specifics you can quote are what your argument is built from.
Admit the weakness of your own option
This is the strongest move available on Task 5 and the least used. Naming the tired battery on the second-hand bike, or the fact that the community tutor has no certificate to hand out, and then answering it, is what makes the rest of your argument credible.
An answer that pretends its option has no drawback sounds like advertising copy, and it gives the listener nothing to accept. The person you are persuading can already see the weakness, because they have the option in front of them. Not mentioning it does not conceal it, it just means you did not address the thing they were actually thinking.
It is also a scored move in its own right. Hedging and certainty modulation, the ability to say you probably would not notice it day to day or it might be an issue eventually, but not this year, is a marker of the top bands. Concession is where those phrases naturally live, which is another reason to build one into every Task 5 answer.
Tone, and the person who is not always your family
Task 5 names who you are persuading, and it varies more than candidates expect. Official items use a family member, a co-worker, a friend, another supervisor, a father. Tone is a named factor of Task Fulfilment, so the register you owe a sibling is not the one you owe a colleague at your own level, and neither is the one you owe another supervisor.
With family the register can be direct and can appeal to shared history. You said the same thing about the last one and we spent two years fixing it. With a co-worker at the same level, the appeal is usually to the shared task rather than to either person's preference. With someone senior, the move is to present it as a recommendation with the decision still theirs: I would lean towards the second supplier, mainly because of the lead time, but obviously it is your call.
One other thing the prompts vary is whether money is involved at all. A good deal of popular advice says to argue price first. Some Task 5 items contain no figures whatsoever, and candidates who arrive with a price argument prepared are stranded. Build the comparison out of whatever the two options genuinely differ on, which the screen will tell you.
Count your comparatives. If your answer contains no sentence that sets your option directly against theirs, you have advertised rather than compared, and never comparing caps Task Fulfilment at 5.
Practise it
Five judgement questions on choosing, comparing and persuading inside sixty seconds.