CELPIP Speaking Task 6: Dealing with a Difficult Situation
Task 6 is the register test. A real problem, usually two people you could address, sixty seconds to prepare and sixty to speak, and the two branches need different tones. Here it is inside a free full speaking test.
CELPIP Speaking Task 6, Dealing with a Difficult Situation, gives you sixty seconds of preparation rather than the usual thirty, and it needs them. The prompt describes a genuine conflict, and in most cases there is more than one person you could speak to. Choosing which is part of the task, and it changes the whole answer.
Why the listener decides the score
Apologising to somebody who has been inconvenienced and briefing somebody who has to authorise a solution are not the same speech. The first needs acknowledgement and an offer; the second needs a compressed summary and a request. Task Fulfillment covers tone, so a candidate who mixes the two, apologising to a manager or briefing a customer, loses marks without saying anything untrue.
The practical advice is to name your listener out loud in the first sentence. It commits you, it tells the marker which branch you chose, and it stops the answer drifting between the two.
The Task 6 situation on this test
Speaking Test 13 makes you the superintendent of an apartment building. The tenant in 302, Beatrix, has complained four times this month about noise from 402 above her. The tenant in 402 works night shifts, comes home at seven in the morning, and says the complaints are unfair because he is doing normal things at a normal hour for him.
Both people are being reasonable, which is what makes it a Task 6 rather than a complaint. There is no version where somebody is simply in the wrong, so the answer has to propose something rather than adjudicate.
How to answer Task 6
- Name the listener in the first sentence, then stay with them.
- State the problem plainly and once. Repeating it is how sixty seconds disappears.
- Acknowledge the other side without conceding the outcome. He is not doing anything unusual, and she is not sleeping.
- Offer two options and ask which they prefer. Ending on a question is stronger than ending on a decision.
- Use the full sixty seconds of preparation. This is one of only two tasks that give you a whole minute.
The 8 questions on Test 13
Your older sister wants to sell the family house everyone grew up in, and your brother is refusing to agree. She has asked what you think she should do.
Tests: ninety seconds of advice in a family dispute where you are being asked to take a side.
Talk about a time when you lost something important: keys, a wallet, a document, or something with sentimental value. Tell your listener what happened, what you did about it, and how it ended.
Tests: three named beats in sixty seconds, with a resolution that is not always a happy one.
Describe the picture to someone who cannot see it. It is a car repair garage with a service desk, a waiting corner, two work bays and an open bay door.
Tests: placement. Four clearly separated areas make the organising decision easy and the discipline hard.
In this picture, what do you think will most probably happen next? It is the same repair garage.
Tests: hedged futures across two zones, the desk and the bays, which behave differently.
Choose between a quiet room and a small gym for the office. The office manager is suggesting six more desks instead. Persuade him that what you chose is more suitable.
Tests: arguing for space against capacity, to a listener whose job is capacity.
You are the superintendent of an apartment building. The tenant in 302, Beatrix, has complained four times this month about noise from 402. The tenant in 402 works night shifts, comes home at seven in the morning, and says the complaints are unfair.
Tests: choosing a listener and holding one register, in a dispute where neither person is in the wrong.
Do you think that governments should limit how much water a household can use? Explain your reasons.
Tests: ninety seconds on a policy question, with a concession that has to be specific rather than polite.
You are unpacking a museum crate that arrived without paperwork and find a shallow varnished wooden case with a glass pane in the lid, three brass levers and a coil of copper wire inside. Phone the curator office, speak to Wren, and ask how the museum should store it.
Tests: precise description of a flat, layered object, and the closing question, which is scored.
CELPIP Speaking format: where Task 6 sits
| Task | Preparation | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Giving AdviceAdvise one named person on a decision | 30 sec | 90 sec |
| 2. Talking about a Personal ExperienceTell one story from your own life | 30 sec | 60 sec |
| 3. Describing a SceneDescribe a picture to someone who cannot see it | 30 sec | 60 sec |
| 4. Making PredictionsSay what happens next in the same picture | 30 sec | 60 sec |
| 5. Comparing and PersuadingChoose in a silent 60 sec, then argue for it | 60 sec | 60 sec |
| 6. Dealing with a Difficult SituationPick a listener, then resolve it | 60 sec | 60 sec |
| 7. Expressing OpinionsTake a side on a general question | 30 sec | 90 sec |
| 8. Describing an Unusual SituationDescribe an unnamed object, then ask | 30 sec | 60 sec |
| Total | 8 tasks | About 15 min |
How Task 6 is scored
On Content and Coherence, Vocabulary, Listenability and Task Fulfillment. Task 6 is the task where Task Fulfillment does the most work, because tone is explicitly part of that criterion and the prompt gives you a social situation with a right and a wrong register. The CELPIP speaking score chart sets out what each criterion looks like at each band.
Free, all eight tasks recorded on the exam clock, with expert feedback.
FAQs
What is CELPIP Speaking Task 6?
Task 6 is Dealing with a Difficult Situation. You are given a real conflict and, usually, more than one person you could speak to. You get sixty seconds to prepare, which is double the usual, and sixty seconds to speak.
Which listener should I choose in Task 6?
The one you can sustain for a full minute, not the one that sounds nicer. Name them in your first sentence and stay with them, because the two branches need different registers and drifting between them costs marks under Task Fulfillment.
What is the Task 6 situation on speaking test 13?
You are the superintendent of an apartment building. Beatrix in 302 has complained four times this month about noise from 402, and the tenant in 402 works night shifts, gets home at seven in the morning, and considers the complaints unfair.
Should I end Task 6 with a decision or a question?
Usually a question. Offering two options and asking which the other person prefers reads as resolution rather than as an ultimatum, and it gives you a clean ending inside the minute.
Why does Task 6 get sixty seconds of preparation?
Because the answer has a social shape as well as a content shape. You have to decide who you are speaking to, what register that needs, and what you are actually offering, and thirty seconds is not enough for all three. Only tasks 5 and 6 get the full minute.