Why these are one task, not two
At B2 the collaborative task and the discussion are only loosely related. At C1 they are continuous: whatever theme the five prompts sit around in Part 3 is the theme the examiner takes into Part 4, usually within seconds of the decision phase ending.
That has a practical consequence. Arguments you make in Part 3 are still live in Part 4, and an examiner may well come back to one — “you mentioned cost was the deciding factor; does that hold for…?”. Positions taken carelessly early become awkward to defend later.
- Part 12 minInterviewQuestions about you
- Part 24 minLong turnA minute each with two of three pictures
- Part 34 minCollaborative taskDecide something together
- Part 45 minDiscussionThe examiner opens the topic out
15 minutes · in pairs · two examiners
Part 3: the collaborative task
A question in the middle of the page with five prompts arranged around it. The examiner sets the discussion going and then withdraws completely — they will not help, and the silence if you stall is yours to fill.
| Phase | What is asked | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Discussion | Talk about the prompts with your partner | 2 min |
| Decision | Agree on one or two of them, with reasons | 1 min |
Depth beats breadth
The commonest mistake is treating the five prompts as a checklist and working through them at twenty seconds each. That produces five thin exchanges and gives the assessor almost nothing to mark on Discourse Management.
Two or three prompts explored properly is the better answer, and it is explicitly allowed — the instruction is to discuss the question, not to cover every box. Take a prompt, disagree about it, bring in a consequence, then move on when it is genuinely exhausted.
What the prompt page looks like
A question sits in the centre with five short prompts around it. The shape is always roughly this:
| Example | |
|---|---|
| Central question | “What should a city consider when deciding how to spend money on transport?” |
| The five prompts | cost · the environment · people who live outside the city · how long it takes to build · existing services |
| Then, after two minutes | “Now decide which two of these are the most important.” |
Notice that the prompts are single words or short phrases. They are deliberately open — none of them contains an argument, so the argument has to come from you. A candidate who reads a prompt aloud and says “yes, that’s important” has produced nothing to mark.
The decision phase
The last minute is a separate instruction, and it is frequently rushed because candidates hear it as a wrap-up. It is not — it is a second task with its own marks.
Two things make it go well. Refer back explicitly to what was said earlier (“given what you said about the cost…”) rather than starting from scratch; and give a reason for the ranking, not just the ranking. “Cost and the environment” is a list. “Cost, because everything else depends on it, and the environment because it is the one you cannot undo later” is an answer.
Negotiation language
This is the part where Interactive Communication is assessed most directly, and the phrases that carry it are worth having automatic.
- Building on your partner: picking up on what you said about…, that ties in with…, I’d go further than that…
- Disagreeing without closing it down: I see it slightly differently, I’m not entirely convinced, because…, that’s fair, though…
- Inviting them in: how do you feel about…?, would you agree with that?, what would you add?
- Steering: shall we look at… instead?, we should probably decide, then
- Conceding: you’ve convinced me on that one, I hadn’t considered that
That last group is underrated. Changing your mind visibly, for a stated reason, is strong evidence of real interaction — much stronger than defending a position you no longer hold.
Try it nowNegotiate a real prompt page with a live AI partnerIt builds on what you say, disagrees, and asks you to decide — the language of Part 3, on demand.SpeakIf your partner dominates, or barely speaks
You are assessed individually, but how you handle the imbalance is part of the assessment. With a dominant partner, interrupt politely — can I just come in there — because a passive turn costs you. With a very quiet one, ask direct questions rather than filling the silence yourself; drawing them out scores, talking over the gap does not.
Part 4: the discussion
Around five minutes. The examiner takes the Part 3 theme and asks broader questions: long-term consequences, competing priorities, whether something is a cause or a symptom. Questions may be directed at one of you or thrown open to both.
Longer answers, and why
This is where the most room is to show what you can do, and short answers waste it. The shape that works is a position, a reason, and something that tests it — an example, a limit, an exception.
The language that earns the top bands here is the language of qualification, not of certainty: up to a point, that depends very much on…, in most cases, though not all, it’s less a question of X than of Y. Unhedged confidence reads as less sophisticated at C1, not more.
Try it nowTake Part 4 questions from a live AI examinerPosition, reason, qualification — with the next question arriving the way the real one does.SpeakWhen a question is put to both of you
Answer, then hand over — “…but you might see that differently?” Two separate monologues delivered in sequence is the weaker response, and it is what happens by default when nobody makes the handover explicit.
If you have no opinion
Take one and argue it. You are not marked on the quality of your views, and pretending to a position is entirely legitimate here. “I don’t have strong feelings, but the argument I find most convincing is…” is a complete answer and buys you thinking time.
Practising it
Parts 3 and 4 are the hardest to rehearse alone, because half of what is being assessed is how you respond to another person. A study partner is genuinely better here than solo drilling — but the parts that are drillable are the negotiation phrases and the extended answer shape, and those are what most candidates are actually missing.
You can work on both at Part 3 and Part 4 practice, which take a live transcript or typed answers and mark against the assessment scales. See also practising C1 speaking with an AI examiner for what that can and cannot replace, the long turn for Part 2, and the C1 Speaking test explained for the whole paper. The C1 Advanced exam preparation guide sets Speaking against the other three papers.