Task 1: Giving Advice & Templates

In Task 1 you speak to one person who needs help deciding something or preparing for something. You get 30 seconds to prepare and 90 seconds to speak.

Almost every free template teaches two suggestions. Two suggestions do not fill ninety seconds.

What happens next is predictable. You finish at about fifty-seven seconds, you are left with more than half a minute of silence, and length is one of the things this test scores. So you either stop early and lose marks for it, or you say the same thing twice in different words and lose marks for that instead.

The problem is not your English. It is the template.

The official strategy is one sentence

CELPIP publishes a short list of strategies for this task. One of them says:

Provide at least three suggestions.

Once you know that, the ninety seconds becomes simple arithmetic.

Twenty-two seconds is exactly enough to say what to do, why, and one specific thing. It is not enough for anything vaguer. The clock does the teaching for you.

🎥 A full 90-second answer, and a two-suggestion answer that runs out (11:00)

The video opens by performing a two-suggestion answer against a live clock so you can watch it finish early, then builds a three-suggestion answer on the same question and takes it apart line by line.

Jump to: 0:23 a two-suggestion answer, timed · 2:46 the full 90-second answer · 4:41 how to write notes in 30 seconds · 6:25 why at least three, from official guidance · 6:44 the 1-3-1 structure · 7:34 good answer versus excellent answer

The structure: one, three, one

One line in. Their name and the situation, in one sentence.

Three suggestions. For each one: signal it, say it, then give one reason or one specific detail.

One line out. What happens for them if they do these things.

The signal phrases

CELPIP's own material supplies these, so use them rather than inventing your own.

• If I were you, I'd…
• Another thing you could do is…
• And the last thing I'd say is…

They matter more than they look. Without them your three suggestions run together into one long stretch of speech, and speech that sounds like one idea gets credited as one idea.

Your 30 seconds: four lines with arrows

Thirty seconds is not enough to write sentences. Try it and you will get one and a half written before the screen changes.

So write four short lines. The top line is the name and the problem. The three under it each have an arrow.

Daniel — promotion, another city

1. real cost of living   → rent, not salary → cousin/Calgary $400
2. go for a weekend      → commute Mon am, walk 2 neighbourhoods
3. what the job IS in 1yr → who reports, travel, moving costs → in email

→ not guessing, choosing

The arrow is the whole point. On the left you put the idea. On the right you put the specific thing.

The left side is easy. Anyone can think of the word money in ten seconds. The right side is where your score comes from, and it is the part you cannot invent while you are speaking. If you have not decided it now, you will reach that suggestion, feel the gap, and start saying um.

Good answer versus excellent answer

Here is the same piece of advice, written two ways. Both are friendly. Both belong to a three-suggestion answer. Both fill the time.

Good: You should really look at the financial side of things.
Excellent: Whether the salary increase is going to cover the higher cost of living, because sometimes what looks like a raise leaves you worse off.

One names a topic. The other tells him what to go and check, and why it matters.

This is not an opinion. Examiners write notes on officially rated answers, and the weaker one is marked down for ideas that lack clear development, while the stronger one is credited for specific details.

Development does not mean longer words or more ideas. It means going one step past the topic.

The one-second test

Take any suggestion you made and ask: could this person have thought of it themselves in one second?

Think about money. Obviously yes. So that is a topic, not advice.

Then add one of these four things:

Think about money becomes check what a one-bedroom apartment costs there before you answer. That is about four extra seconds, and those four seconds are where your score is.

A full answer

The question. Your co-worker has been offered a promotion at work, but it requires him to relocate to another city. He is unsure whether to accept the offer or stay in his current position. Advise him on what he should consider when making this decision.

The answer, 208 words, landing at about 89 seconds.

Hey Daniel, congratulations on the promotion. I can see why the city part makes it a hard call, so let me give you three things to check.
**If I were you, I'd start with the real cost of living, not just the salary. A twenty percent raise sounds big, but check what a one-bedroom apartment costs there first. When my cousin moved to Calgary, her rent went up four hundred dollars a month, so that raise was a lot smaller than it looked.
**Another thing you could do is spend a weekend there before you answer. Don't just look at the office. Ride the commute on a Monday morning, walk around two or three neighbourhoods, and then see how you feel on the Sunday night. A city feels very different when you're living in it.
**And the last thing I'd say is talk to your manager about what this job actually looks like in a year. Ask who you'd be managing, how much you'd be travelling, and whether they'll cover the moving costs. Get that in an email, not just a conversation, because people forget what they promised in a hallway.

Do those three things this week, and by Friday you won't be guessing anymore. You'll be choosing.

Nothing in that answer is clever. No advanced grammar and no difficult words. It fits because of the structure, and the three middle parts came out at 56, 52 and 56 words without being planned that way.

Three things that cost points

1. Two suggestions instead of three

Covered above, and it is the most expensive one. With a two-part template you are about thirty seconds short before you open your mouth.

2. Talking about them instead of to them

The question gives you a person. Most people never speak to that person.

❌ He should think about his family.
✅ Daniel, I'd talk to your partner this week.

The first sounds like you are describing the situation to an examiner. The second sounds like advice. CELPIP's strategy list says to speak directly to the person, and when examiners praised a stronger answer they noted that the speaker addressed the friend directly.

Use the name. It costs nothing.

3. Sounding impressive instead of sounding kind

This one catches people who already have very good English. You want a high score, so you reach for big words, and a friend asking for advice gets:

❌ You must carefully evaluate the financial implications.

That is excellent vocabulary and it is not how anyone talks to a friend. Tone is scored here. Tone means whether the way you speak matches the person you are speaking to, so being too stiff with someone close to you is a mistake in the same way that being too casual with a stranger is.

The official word for the tone this task wants is thoughtful.

✅ I'd start by checking what rent actually costs there.

Same advice. Now it sounds like a person.

Phrase banks

Opening lines

• Hey [name], congratulations on [the thing]. I can see why [the hard part] makes it a tough call.
• Hi [name], I know [situation] feels like a lot right now. Let me give you three things to think about.
• [Name], I've been thinking about what you asked me. Here's where I'd start.

Advice verbs

check · ask · try · book · call · ride · walk · confirm · write down · look up · talk to · sit down with

Prefer a verb the person can do this week. Consider and evaluate are not things anyone actually does.

Closing lines

• Do those three things this week, and by [day] you won't be guessing anymore.
• Try those and I think it will feel a lot clearer by the weekend.
• Start with the first one tonight, and the rest gets easier.

Warmth, when it fits

• I know this is a lot to think about.
• Whatever you decide, it's not the wrong answer.
• You've got more time than it feels like.

Worked skeletons

Four common situations, each with three suggestions and a specific thing inside every one. Notice that the right-hand detail is always the part doing the work.

A. A friend is nervous about a presentation

1. If I were you, I'd record yourself once on your phone → watch it with the sound off and count how often you look down
2. Another thing you could do is cut your slides by a third → keep only the ones you could explain with the screen off
3. And the last thing I'd say is ask Priya to sit in on a practice run → she gave a talk last month and will know what the room is like

B. Someone is job hunting

1. If I were you, I'd pick five companies rather than fifty → spend an hour on each one instead of five minutes on all of them
2. Another thing you could do is message two people who already do that job → ask what their Tuesday actually looks like
3. And the last thing I'd say is put a two-hour block in your calendar on Sunday evening → applications sent at midnight on a Thursday get read last

C. A neighbour is dealing with noise from the flat above

1. If I were you, I'd knock once before doing anything else → most people genuinely do not know they are loud
2. Another thing you could do is write down the dates and times for two weeks → building management will ask for this and you will not remember it
3. And the last thing I'd say is email the manager rather than phoning → an email leaves a record and a phone call does not

D. A friend is moving to a new city

1. If I were you, I'd visit for a weekend first → ride the commute on a Monday morning, not a Saturday afternoon
2. Another thing you could do is check what rent actually costs there → compare it with your current place before you look at the salary
3. And the last thing I'd say is ask about moving costs in writing → get it in an email, because people forget what they promised in a hallway

Before you speak

• I have three suggestions, not two

• Every one has a specific thing on the right of the arrow

• None of my three would fail the one-second test

• I am using the person's name

• I have my three signal phrases ready

While you speak

• One line in, three suggestions, one line out

• I am speaking to them, not about them

• I sound like a friend, not a report

Practice

1. The one-second test (5 min). Write three suggestions for any situation. Then read each one and ask whether the person could have thought of it themselves in one second. Rewrite the ones that fail by adding a number, a day, a question or a person.

2. Find the third (5 min). Take any two-suggestion answer you have given before and add a third that is genuinely different, not the second one rephrased. This is the hardest habit to build and the one worth the most.

3. Record it (5 min). Do one full question with the real timer, then listen back and check one thing only: did every suggestion have a specific thing inside it, or did you name three topics?

• Practise Task 1 with a real 30-second timer and recorder

Related: Fast Planning for Tasks for the notes method across all eight tasks · Vocabulary for why simpler words score better here · Scoring and Performance Standards.