CELPIP Speaking Tasks 1-8, with a Sample Answer for Each

Hi Daniel, I think you should take the job in Calgary, and I want to explain why. The first reason is the work itself. You told me you have been doing the same reports for three years and you are bored by Wednesday every week. This role is project work, so you would be learning something new instead of repeating yourself. The second reason is the money. Even after the higher rent, you said you would be about four hundred dollars a month better off, and that changes what you can save. I know leaving your friends here is the hard part, and that is a real cost. But friends stay in touch, and a job you dread is with you every day. Take it.

The proudest moment I can remember was my first week working in a Canadian kitchen, about two years ago. I had been in Vancouver for a month and my English was still slow. On the Friday, the head chef was off sick and the restaurant was fully booked. I was the only one who knew how the prep list worked, so I ran it. I called the orders, I kept the line moving, and we served every table. Nobody sent anything back. At the end of the night the manager said one sentence to me: nice work tonight. It sounds small, but it was the first time since arriving that I felt useful rather than new.

This looks like a farmers market on a weekend morning, probably early autumn, because people are in light jackets and there are pumpkins on one of the tables. In the foreground on the left, a woman in a red coat is holding up an apple and looking at it closely, and a young girl beside her is pulling on her sleeve. Behind them, a man in an apron is standing at a stall with crates of vegetables, leaning forward to hand something to a customer. Further back I can see a row of white tents and a lot of people walking between them. The thing I notice most is that everyone in the picture is busy. Nobody is standing still.

Right now the two men are carrying a large sofa up a narrow staircase, and the one at the front is walking backwards. I think in the next moment they are going to get stuck at the turn. The staircase bends sharply at the top and the sofa already looks wider than the gap. What will probably happen is that they will have to stop, put it down on the steps, and tip it up on its end to get it round the corner. I also think the man at the back is going to be taking most of the weight while they work it out, because he is the one holding the lower end.

Dad, I think we should get the smaller car, the blue one. My first reason is parking. You park on the street outside the house and that space is tight, and this one is almost half a metre shorter, which makes it much easier to get into. The second reason is running cost. It uses less fuel, and the insurance quote was about three hundred dollars cheaper a year, so over the time you keep a car that is real money. I know what you are going to say, that the bigger one has more room for when the grandchildren visit. But that is a few weekends a year, and you can put the back seats down for that. You drive it alone every other day.

Hi Marta, it is Ana. I am really sorry to do this, but I have to move our dinner on Saturday. My sister's flight was changed and she now lands at six that evening, and I am the only one who can pick her up from the airport. I know you booked the table three weeks ago and I feel bad about it. Could we do the same place on Sunday evening instead? I checked and they have space at seven. If Sunday does not work for you, I am free any evening next week and I will book it and pay for it. Let me know which you would prefer and I will sort it out today.

I agree that students should have to do some volunteer work before they finish high school. My main reason is that it shows them a part of their own city they would otherwise never see. A student who spends forty hours in a food bank learns something about how people live that no class can teach. My second reason is practical. It is often the first thing on a young person's resume, and it gives them a reference from someone who is not a relative. That matters at eighteen when you have never had a job. I understand the argument against it, which is that volunteering stops being volunteering once it is required. That is fair, and I would keep the number of hours small for that reason. But I still think the experience is worth more than the principle.

It is hard to describe, but it looks a bit like a bicycle that somebody has rebuilt for two people sitting back to back. It is about the length of a normal bike, maybe a little longer, and the frame is painted bright orange. There are two seats facing opposite directions, and each seat has its own set of pedals and its own handlebars. The strange part is that there is only one wheel at each end, so I cannot work out which way it is supposed to go. My guess is that it is not really meant to be ridden. I think it is an art piece, or something built for a parade, because the paint is too clean for anything that gets used outdoors.