Giving Advice That Sounds Like Advice
Somebody has a problem and has asked what you would do. Ninety seconds is long enough for three developed pieces of advice, and the prompt always tells you who you are talking to.
The task, and the length that shapes it
Task 1 is Giving Advice: 30 seconds of preparation and 90 seconds of recording, which along with Task 7 is the longest answer on the test. It is text only. A short written situation appears on screen, stays there while you speak, and describes somebody else's problem, usually a friend or a relative who has asked you what to do.
That extra thirty seconds over the standard answer changes what the task is. Sixty seconds is a list of quick suggestions. Ninety seconds is about 200 to 230 words, which is room for two or three pieces of advice with a reason and a concrete detail attached to each. Candidates who plan a sixty second answer and then discover thirty seconds of silence at the end are not slow, they are under-planned.
There is no correct advice. Nothing in the criteria asks whether your suggestion is wise or whether anybody agrees with it. What is assessed is whether you took a position early, developed your reasons, chose precise and varied language, spoke in a way that is easy to follow, and used a register that suits the person named in the prompt.
Commit in the first sentence
The commonest structural failure here is the survey. Well, there are a few things she could do. On one hand she could stay in the apartment, but on the other hand moving might be better, it depends on her situation. Laying out the options without landing on one caps Content and Coherence at 7, because the task asked for advice and received a menu.
The fix is to commit in the opening sentence, before you have justified anything. Honestly, I would tell her to give notice and start looking now. That takes three seconds, it establishes the spine of the answer, and everything after it becomes support rather than deliberation.
Committing early also solves a time problem. An answer that spends forty seconds weighing options has forty seconds left for the actual advice, which is not enough for three developed points. Position first, reasons after, is both the stronger structure and the faster one.
Three pieces of advice, not eight
Ninety seconds divided by eight suggestions gives each of them about eleven seconds, which is one clause with no support. Content and Coherence rewards the quality, organisation and development of ideas rather than a count, so eight thin tips score below three real ones.
What makes a piece of advice developed is a reason and a concrete detail. She should talk to her landlord is a tip. She should talk to the landlord first, in writing rather than in the hallway, because once there is an email with a date on it she has something to point at if it drags on for months is advice. Same idea, about four times the content, and it uses precise language rather than general language.
A useful discipline in the preparation window is to pick three pieces of advice that are genuinely different in kind rather than three versions of one. Something immediate, something about other people, and something about the longer term will almost always cover a Task 1 prompt and will not overlap.
Register is scored, and the prompt names it
Tone is one of the four named factors of Task Fulfilment, and Task 1 hands you the relationship directly. A cousin, a co-worker, an aunt, a neighbour, a friend from a class. Each of those is owed a different register, and the ladder for this criterion runs from conveying information, through adjusting your style for different audiences, to adapting fully to the situation, the purpose and your relationship with the listener.
The failure runs in both directions. Advising a cousin in the language of a business letter, with I would recommend that you consider the following options, is as much a mismatch as telling your manager's manager honestly, just ditch it. The prompt is telling you which one it wants, and the information is in the first line, which is where most candidates are least attentive.
The markers are small and cheap to deploy. To a friend: look, honestly, if it were me, just, contractions throughout. To someone senior or unfamiliar: you might want to consider, it may be worth, full forms, a softer opening. One word written at the top of your notes during preparation, naming who they are, is enough to hold this steady for ninety seconds.
Commit in your first sentence, before any reasoning. Surveying the options and never landing caps Content and Coherence at 7, and it also eats the time you needed for your third piece of advice.
Two openings, same prompt
The prompt: your cousin has been offered a job in another city with better pay, but she would have to leave her friends and her current team, and she has asked what you think she should do.
Opening A. Well, this is a difficult decision and there are many factors to consider. On the one hand, the salary is important, because everybody needs money. On the other hand, friends and social life are also important for a person's wellbeing. So she should think carefully about what matters most to her. That is about fifty words, roughly twenty two seconds, and at the end of it no advice has been given. The register is also oddly formal for a cousin. Content and Coherence is heading for a cap at 7.
Opening B. Honestly, I would tell her to take it. She is twenty six, she has no mortgage and no kids, and this is exactly the point in her life when moving is cheap. The friends are the real question, and I do not want to pretend that is nothing, but four hours on a train is not the end of a friendship. Roughly the same length. It commits in the first six words, gives a reason with concrete specifics, and then names the strongest objection honestly, which sets up the rest of the answer.
The second one also sounds like a person talking to their cousin. Honestly, I do not want to pretend, the contractions, the direct address. That is register doing its work, and register is scored.
Filling the last twenty seconds
Ninety seconds is long, and the final twenty is where Task 1 answers most often thin out into repetition. Three moves reliably add content rather than words.
Anticipate the objection. She is going to say the team there is an unknown, and that is fair, but she can ask to speak to two of them before she signs anything. This is a concession answered, which is a high band move, and it fills ten to fifteen seconds with new material.
Give the next concrete step. Advice that ends with something the person can do on Monday morning sounds finished in a way that general advice does not. The first thing I would do is ask them to put the relocation allowance in writing.
Close by naming what you would not do. What I would not do is give notice before the contract is signed. It is a fresh idea, it takes six seconds, and it makes the advice sound considered rather than enthusiastic.
Write the relationship at the top of your notes during preparation. Task 1 always names who asked you, tone is a scored factor of Task Fulfilment, and register drift usually starts around second forty when you stop thinking about the person and start thinking about your next point.
Practise it
Five judgement questions on advice, commitment and register.