Speak About the Photo gives you one photo and 90 seconds to describe it aloud. It feeds the Speaking subscore.
Ninety seconds is much longer than it feels. Candidates who run dry at 40 seconds are not short of English — they described the main subject, ran out of things to say, and stopped. A four-stage structure prevents that.
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| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Photos | 1 |
| Time | 90 seconds |
| Subscore | Speaking |
| Recorded | Yes, and there is no retake |
| Stage | Content | Seconds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Overview | What kind of scene this is and where it appears to be | 0-15 |
| 2 — Main subject | The people or objects at the centre, and what they are doing | 15-45 |
| 3 — Background and detail | What is behind, beside, above; small details | 45-70 |
| 4 — General observation | Atmosphere, time of day, weather, or a comparison | 70-90 |
Stage 3 is where most of the time comes from. Anyone can describe the main subject; the background is what fills the second half.
A woman in an apron arranges apples on a wooden stall; crates of vegetables stand beside her and a customer reads a price sign.
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“This looks like an outdoor market, probably a street market rather than a supermarket, judging by the wooden stalls. In the centre there is a woman wearing a green apron, and she is arranging apples into a display on the counter in front of her. She is working with both hands and she seems to be concentrating on getting them evenly stacked, so I would guess she has just set up. Beside her, on the left, there are several wooden crates full of vegetables, and above the fruit there is a handwritten price sign hanging from the frame of the stall. Behind the stall I can see part of another stall and what might be a street, though it is out of focus. There is also a customer standing to one side, reading the sign rather than talking to her. Overall it looks like early morning, because the light is quite soft and the market does not seem busy yet. It is the kind of scene you would see in a lot of European towns on a weekday.” |
| Stage | Where |
|---|---|
| Overview | Paragraph 1 |
| Main subject | Paragraph 2 |
| Background and detail | Paragraphs 3 and 4 |
| General observation | Paragraph 5 |
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“This is a street scene, at a bus stop, and it looks like it is early evening. There are three people waiting under a covered shelter. One of them, a young man, is looking down at his phone with the screen lighting up his face. Another is holding a closed umbrella and standing slightly apart from the others, and the third has a bag over one shoulder and is looking up the road. Behind them I can see a bus approaching, with its headlights on, so they have probably been waiting a while. The shelter itself has an advertisement panel on one side, though I cannot read what it says. The road looks wet, so it has been raining recently, which would explain the umbrella. The general feeling is quite ordinary and slightly tired — it looks like the end of a working day rather than the start of one. Nobody is talking to anyone else, which is usually how bus stops are.” |
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“This is a construction site, and it looks like a fairly large project rather than a house. In the foreground there are two workers wearing hard hats and high-visibility vests. They are standing at a folding table with a large plan spread out on it, and one of them is pointing at something on the plan while the other appears to be making a note. Neither of them is looking at the camera, so this seems to be a working moment rather than a posed photograph. Behind them there is scaffolding covering the whole side of a building, several storeys high, and to the left there is a crane with its arm extended. The ground is uneven and there are materials stacked in piles, which suggests the work is still at an early stage. The light is flat and grey, so I would guess it is overcast. Overall it looks organised rather than chaotic, which is not always true of building sites.” |
| # | Photo to imagine and describe for 90 seconds |
|---|---|
| 4 | A family cooking together in a kitchen with flour on the counter |
| 5 | A student working alone at a long library table surrounded by books |
| 6 | A busy train platform with a departure board and passengers boarding |
| 7 | A veterinary waiting room with two owners and their pets |
| 8 | An outdoor cafe with tables under awnings and a waiter carrying a tray |
| 9 | A hardware shop aisle with a shopper comparing two paint tins |
| 10 | A riverside path with cyclists, a dog walker and a bridge in the distance |
| Function | Phrases |
|---|---|
| Open the overview | This looks like… / This appears to be a… / I would say this is… |
| Locate things | in the foreground / in the background / on the left / behind them / to one side |
| Describe an action | is holding / is reaching for / seems to be / is in the middle of |
| Hedge a guess | I would guess… / it looks as though… / probably… / judging by… |
| Add a detail | There is also… / Another thing I notice is… / What stands out is… |
| Say what you cannot see | It is hard to tell whether… / I cannot quite make out… |
| Close with an observation | Overall… / The general feeling is… / It reminds me of… |
“It is hard to tell whether” is the most useful phrase on this list. It turns something you cannot describe into a full sentence instead of a pause.
| Rewarded | Not rewarded |
|---|---|
| Speaking for the whole 90 seconds | Stopping early because you ran out of content |
| A steady, natural pace | Rushing to fill time |
| Varied sentence structures | The same “there is” pattern repeated |
| Clear pronunciation and natural stress | A specific accent — accent is not scored |
| One natural self-correction | Repeated restarts |
| Specific vocabulary for what is visible | Long words used approximately |
| Problem | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Silence after 40 seconds | Half the response window produces nothing | Use stages 3 and 4 — background and general observation |
| Repeating “there is” ten times | Shows one structure | Alternate with actions and subordinate clauses |
| Speaking too fast | Damages pronunciation and fluency together | Normal pace; 90 seconds is enough |
| Long pauses while searching for a word | Fluency is scored | Describe the thing instead of naming it |
| Restarting the description | Loses time and coherence | Correct once and continue |
| Inventing a story | Uses time on what is not visible | Describe, then add one general observation |
Ninety seconds for one photo. It is one of the longer speaking windows in the test, which is why running out of content is the most common problem rather than running out of time.
Move to the background and the small details, then finish with a general observation about the light, the time of day or the atmosphere. Those two stages reliably fill the second half of the 90 seconds.
No. Clarity, natural stress and fluency are what matter. A strong accent that is easy to follow does not cost you marks; unclear articulation or long hesitations do.
One natural self-correction is normal speech and costs nothing. Repeated restarts and long silences do hurt, because both reduce the amount of assessable speech in the window.
No. Rushing damages pronunciation and fluency at the same time, and 90 seconds is long enough for a full description at a normal pace. Speak as you would when explaining a photo to someone.
Yes. What was removed in July 2025 was Read Aloud and Listen Then Speak, with Listen Then Speak replaced by Interactive Speaking. Speak About the Photo and Read Then Speak both remain in the current format.
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