CPE Speaking Part 1 Questions Practice

The first part of the Cambridge Proficiency Speaking exam is one of the easiest parts of the Speaking exam. As a result, this is the part of the speaking exam which is least practised before. However, because students are nervous about doing it (the speaking exam in general, not this particular part), they quite often make mistakes.

Like with everything, the more you both know about something and the more you practise doing it, the easier it will become.

And in this article with a practice test, that is exactly what you'll do. You'll be asked different questions which you will or may be asked in this first part of the exam and you will practise answering them.

But before you do, you'll learn a little about the format of this part of the exam.

To see examples of questions you will be given in the third part of the speaking exam and to practise talking about them, go to our Proficiency Speaking Part 3 Practice Questions web page.

The format of Part 1

This part of exam lasts about 2 minutes (3 minutes if there are 3 people doing the speaking exam) and it starts as soon as you sit down in front of the examiner. After being asked what your names are and then giving to the examiner the mark sheets which you will be provided with before you entered the exam room, each candidate will be asked a number of questions to answer individually.

You will each be asked between 3 and 4 questions in this part. Both you and your partner will always be asked two specific questions directly after you have given them your mark sheet. These questions are, "Where are you from?" and "Are you working or studying at the moment?". For both questions, don't over explain your answer. For the first question, simply say the country and the town/city where you are from (e.g. "I am from Santander which is in the North of Spain"). For the second, quickly tell them what you are doing (e.g. "I'm currently studying a degree in Psychology at university").

After this, you could be asked various questions (the examiner has a list to choose from). Both you and your exam partner will be asked different questions to answer individually.

For these questions which you are asked, you are expected to speak for more time, around 15 to 20 seconds.

Below you can watch a video from Cambridge which shows you this in practice.

Now you are ready to practise answering the questions which you will or may be asked in this part of the speaking exam.

Test:

In this test, you will be first asked 6 randomly selected questions which are commonly asked in this part of the Proficiency Speaking exam. To hear each question press the play button on the audio player. When you have heard the question, give your answer for it. To hear the next question, press the 'next question' button below the audio player.

When you have heard and answered the first 6 questions, you have the option to hear another 6 questions and so on.