Speaking practice

I strongly prefer to study in silence, for two reasons. The main one is that I study mostly mathematics, and when I am working through a proof I am holding several steps in my head at once. Music with words pulls at exactly that part of my attention. Last term I tried studying calculus in a café for a week, and I noticed I was re-reading the same line three or four times. When I moved to the library reading room, the same chapter took me about half as long. The second reason is habit — because I always study in the same quiet place, sitting down there has become a signal to my brain that work is starting. So for me, silence wins every time.

Notice what this answer does: it commits in the first sentence, it gives a specific subject rather than 'studying', it contains a real measurable comparison, and it fills the full 45 seconds without hurrying. Nothing in it is unusual English — the vocabulary is ordinary and the structure carries the score.

The announcement says the library will close at ten on weeknights instead of midnight, so that more staff can be employed during the day and security and energy costs can be cut. The man disagrees with the decision, although he accepts the daytime staffing argument. His first reason concerns the alternative the university offers. He points out that the 24-hour lounge has only about forty seats and no quiet rule, and he says that when he worked there before a chemistry final, people were on video calls at one in the morning. In his view a lounge is not a study space. His second reason is the reference collection. The books in it cannot be taken out of the building, and late at night is exactly when he uses them, so if the building is shut, that collection is effectively unavailable to anyone who works at night. He feels daytime students keep what they had while night students lose something with no replacement.

Almost every sentence reports somebody else. There is no 'I think' anywhere, and that is correct — Task 2 asks what the speaker believes, not what you believe. Conceding the point he accepts ('although he accepts…') shows precise listening and costs three seconds.

Anchoring is our tendency to lean too heavily on the first number we hear when we are estimating something we do not know, and then to adjust away from it too little. The professor gives two examples. The first is a laboratory study. Students watched a wheel of fortune stop on either ten or sixty-five — obviously random, and everyone could see that — and were then asked what percentage of United Nations countries are in Africa. The group that saw ten guessed about twenty-five per cent, and the group that saw sixty-five guessed about forty-five. So a completely meaningless number shifted their estimates by twenty points. The second example is from shopping. A jacket labelled 'was twelve thousand, now six thousand' anchors you on twelve thousand, so instead of asking what the jacket is worth to you, you ask whether six thousand is a good deal compared with twelve — and the seller chose that first figure. The professor uses this to explain why the opening offer in a negotiation matters so much.

The examples carry the marks, and the numbers inside them carry the examples. A response that says 'he gave an example about a wheel and an example about shopping' scores far below one that says twenty-five and forty-five.

The professor explains that plants defend themselves chemically in two different ways. The first is constitutive defence, where the plant produces the toxin all the time. His example is the oleander, which is poisonous in every leaf every day. The advantage is that the defence is ready immediately, so the attacker's first bite is already a mistake. The disadvantage is the constant cost in energy and nitrogen, which the plant could otherwise use for growth or seeds — he compares it to paying an insurance premium every day. The second strategy is induced defence, where the plant produces nothing until it is attacked. His example is the tomato: when a caterpillar begins chewing, a signal spreads through the plant and within hours even undamaged leaves start making proteins that disrupt the insect's digestion. The advantage is that nothing is spent in a year with no attack; the disadvantage is the delay, during which the plant is unprotected. He concludes that predictable attack favours the constitutive strategy and unpredictable attack favours the induced one.

Task 4 rewards structure above all. Two strategies, four facts each, and the closing principle — deliver them in that order and the content score takes care of itself. The final sentence is the one most candidates never reach.