Welcome to Course 3, module 3. In this module we're going to talk about speaking strategies for iBT. And in the first part we're going to look at these strategies in the independent task only, let's begin. As mentioned before, you're going to have only one independent speaking task, for this task you're going to have only 15 seconds to prepare your answers and you're going to have 45 seconds to record your answers. The preparation time or the pre-speaking time that you have is very limited, 15 seconds is not a long time so you need to use this time wisely. First step can be analyzing the prompt, then you need to decide on your answer third. You Need to choose 2 to 3 reasons and you need to have some notes to help you speak throughout the 45 seconds that you have. Another strategy that can help you save time in preparation is expecting the language that you can use when you speak to answer the question. The questions that appear in the independent task either ask you about your opinion, your preference, whether you agree or disagree with something, they can be about some general topic or it might be about two opposite or contrasting ideas. You may recall these kinds of sentence structures from the templates that we talked about in course number two, but let's look at them specifically, depending on the idea and the kinds of tasks that you get. If you have an opinion question, you can answer the questions using these verbs or adverbs, you can say, I think I feel or I believe that and then completed with a sentence, a small town is a better place to raise children than a big city. Or you can start by stating your opinion with an adverb personally, I believe that, and then you can write a complete sentence just like the previous sentence or you can say in my opinion and then complete that with another complete sentence. If the question asks you about your preference, you can use verbs like enjoy and prefer, if you choose to use enjoy remember the verb that follows need to be used with ing. In this example I enjoy living alone, so I would not want a roommate, enjoy plus living or if you choose to use prefer, the second verb can be used with two or with ing. You can say I prefer to live in an apartment or I prefer living in an apartment. If the speaking question asks you to agree or disagree with something, you have several options, two of them are mentioned here. One, you can use agree with and then a non, example, I agree with those people or you can use the verb agree plus that, plus a clause. If you remember a clause has a verb and subject, for example, here you can say I agree or I disagree with the idea that college degrees are important. If what you're trying to say is about something general or a general idea, you can introduce that with this phrase in general and then completed with a sentence, in general, I think that some celebrities are overpaid. Another approach is using an adverb instead, for example, you can say I believe that first impressions are generally quite important or you can use another phrase that has the same meaning, on the whole, I enjoy traveling with friends rather than by myself. If you want to present contrasting ideas, then you can use the transition word after presenting the opposite opinion, here is an example. Many people like living with a roommate, however, I think living without a roommate is much easier. This might sound so obvious, but you need to have good reasons and examples to improve your speaking score and this task. One big mistake that some candidates make is they simply speak with fluency and good vocabulary, but the reasons are not strong enough to support their choice. When you respond to a task like this, you should try to give at least two reasons for your choices, also you need to make sure that these answers are not too general and they are not too big to understand. Also when you use examples, make sure that you make some of them personal related to your own experiences. Some iBT candidates wonder if they need to have a concluding sentence when they answer task one. Well in the 45 second response, you do not really need to have a formal conclusion, however, if you still have 10 to12 seconds and you're wondering what to add. You can definitely add a summary or concluding sentence at the end instead of just pausing and waiting. This is the end of part one of this module, in the second part we're going to look at some strategies regarding the integrated speaking tasks of iBT.
