We have been conducting live classes on Facebook and YouTube for a while now. You can also check out when our next FREE class is. And what we noticed from teaching these classes is that a lot of students seemed to be concerned with one particular thing in OET speaking: TASK FULFILMENT! Basically, do we lose marks if we do not complete the speaking role play task?
There are usually 4-5 bullet points in a typical roleplay card. The reality though is that some students may only answer 2-3 of them during the limited time in the real exam. This causes students to worry about whether they will lose marks because of this. Today we are going to address this confusion.
When we look at the OET speaking marking rubric, one of the aspects that is marked upon is overall task fulfilment. Which accounts for 20% of the total score. However, please note that you won’t lose marks just because you didn’t complete all the bullet points.
Although they will mark you based on whether you fulfilled the task or not. It is more about you demonstrating your English communication skills rather than finishing all the tasks in a rush. With the new OET 2.0 update, it is now written in the guidelines that they should also assess your ‘clinical communication skills’. I will be talking more about this in future blog posts.
The other misunderstanding among students is the interlocutor task. You might be wondering if he/she trying to help you or harm you? Like I said in a previous article, the OET interlocutor is trying to help students throughout the five minutes for each of the two role-plays. The interlocutors look at the role-play cards in detail beforehand to give them a good understanding of the tasks. So the OET interlocutor will help you as much as possible to try and fulfill all of those bullet points. But it does not really matter if you cannot answer all of them. But you should aim to complete all of the bullet points. This is something to practice with your teachers and study partners before you take your exam.
So remember, if you want to get a great B. You don’t necessarily have to cover all the bullet points. Just demonstrate your English communication skills. If you have any questions, make sure you put them in the message box below and I’ll be happy to answer them. If you want to get more OET tips for each sub-test, make sure you go to www.swooshenglish.com
