CAE Speaking Part 3: The Task You Cannot Do Alone

Part 3 is the part of CAE Speaking that a phrase list cannot save you in.

Cambridge gives you and another candidate some written prompts, you talk for two minutes, then the examiner asks a question that forces a decision and gives you one more minute to reach it together.

You are not being marked on how much you say. You are being marked, in part, on how you handle the other person.

Practising the reacting half is what SpeakShark is for, free with three AI conversation sessions a day and no card, each capped at five minutes and four turns.

In this guide: what Part 3 actually is · the two stages · what Cambridge says to practise · the partner problem · practising without a partner · where it sits in the test · what we could not verify · how we researched this · FAQ

Key takeaways

• Part 3 is a two minute discussion with written prompts, then a one minute decision.
• Groups of three get three minutes and two minutes instead.
• Cambridge's list of skills to practise is mostly interaction, not vocabulary.
• Disagreeing is on the list. Agreeing with everything gives the examiners little to mark.
• There are two examiners: one runs the test, one listens and takes notes.

What Part 3 actually is

Cambridge's description, in its own words:

Conversation with the other candidate. The examiner gives you spoken instructions with written prompts which are used in a discussion. You have to talk with the other candidate for about 2 minutes (3 minutes for groups of three) about the written prompts. After the discussion time, the examiner will ask you another question which requires you to make a decision. You have 1 minute to talk together and make the decision (2 minutes for groups of three).

Two things follow immediately.

The prompts are written and in front of you. You are not being tested on remembering a topic. The cognitive load is in responding, not recalling.

The examiner steps back. In Part 1 the examiner asks you questions. In Part 3 the examiner sets a task and lets two candidates run it. That change of footing catches people who have only practised answering.

If you sat B2 First before this, the shape will feel familiar and the demand will not. What changes in Cambridge B2 First speaking is worth reading alongside this, and CEFR levels explained for speaking covers what the jump from B2 to C1 is actually measuring.

The two stages and their clocks

The second stage is where candidates lose marks without noticing, because it has a different goal from the first.

Stage one is exploratory. You are covering prompts, comparing, speculating. Nothing has to be concluded.

Stage two is convergent. The examiner asks something that requires a decision, and one minute is not long. A pair that keeps exploring in stage two runs out of clock with no decision reached, and the task was to reach one.

The practical move is to change register when the second question comes: stop opening new ideas, start closing. "So shall we say..." is worth more in that minute than another interesting observation.

What Cambridge says to practise

Cambridge publishes the skill list for Part 3, and it repays reading slowly:

Exchanging ideas, expressing and justifying opinions, agreeing and / or disagreeing, suggesting, speculating, evaluating, reaching a decision through negotiation, etc.

Count how many of those are things you do to another person. Exchanging. Agreeing or disagreeing. Suggesting. Negotiating. Only speculating and evaluating can be done into empty air.

That is the whole reason Part 3 resists the preparation most people do. You can memorise fifty phrases for expressing opinions and still be unable to hold a two minute exchange, because the difficulty is not producing language, it is producing it in response to something you did not choose.

Note also agreeing and / or disagreeing. Disagreement is on Cambridge's own list. A candidate who agrees with everything to be safe is removing half the material they could be assessed on.

The Council of Europe's own definition of the C1 level points the same way. Its global scale says a C1 user "can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions". Spontaneously. Without searching. A memorised phrase, retrieved visibly, is the opposite of the descriptor the level is named after, which is why the phrase-list approach tends to plateau exactly here. Twelve daily speaking drills from B1 to C1 is built around closing that gap.

The partner problem

The question every candidate asks: what if I get a partner who talks over me, or one who says almost nothing?

Both are survivable, and both are opportunities if you have rehearsed for them.

A dominant partner. Coming back into a conversation politely is an assessable skill. "Can I just pick up on that", "That's true, although", and simply saying their name are all normal, and all better than waiting silently for a gap that never arrives.

A silent partner. Inviting them in is not charity, it is the task. "What do you think about this one?" and "Would you go for that or the other?" do two jobs at once: they demonstrate interaction and they generate something for you to respond to.

The mental reframe that helps most: you are not competing with the other candidate for airtime, you are both being assessed on how the conversation goes. Helping them speak makes your own performance better, not worse.

If the fear is less about the partner and more about drying up in front of one, why your English speaking is not improving and online methods to build confidence in English deal with that directly.

Practising without a partner

Here is the honest position, which most preparation sites skip.

You cannot fully rehearse Part 3 alone. It is a paired task and the difficulty lives in the unpredictability of another person. Any guide that tells you a worksheet solves this is selling you the easy half.

What you can rehearse alone is every component:

1. Reacting to a prompt you have not seen. The skill is speed of response, not quality of idea.
2. Justifying an opinion out loud, in one breath, without a run-up.
3. Disagreeing politely, which is a specific and learnable set of moves.
4. Closing under a clock. Set a one minute timer and force yourself to reach a decision aloud.
5. Coming back in. Practise the interruption phrases until they arrive without thinking.

The closest available substitute for the real thing is talking with something that answers what you actually said rather than following a script, because that reproduces the one quality a worksheet cannot: you do not know what is coming next. Role play scenarios for speaking practice and finding an online speaking partner for free cover the two realistic ways to get that, and a free daily session is enough to keep the habit alive between them.

For the wider habit, a 30 day plan to improve speaking and free methods to raise fluency set the cadence, while speaking exercises for adult learners suit anyone fitting this around a job.

Where Part 3 sits in the whole test

The whole test is 15 minutes per pair, or 23 minutes for a group of three.

Two details about the room are worth knowing. There are two examiners: Cambridge says one conducts the test and the other "listens to what you say and takes notes". And the interlocutor may be examining remotely while you are in the room, which is worth expecting rather than being surprised by.

Part 2 has a close analogue in another exam, and the same panic: how to speak for two minutes without freezing is written for the IELTS long turn but the mechanics of holding a solo minute transfer directly. If clarity rather than content is your weak point, how to improve English pronunciation is the place to start.

Notice also that Part 4 grows directly out of Part 3: it is "further discussion with the other candidate based on the topics or issues raised in the task in Part 3". A Part 3 where you actually engaged gives you material for Part 4. A Part 3 you survived leaves you starting cold with five minutes to fill.

What we could not verify

We have not reproduced the assessment criteria. Cambridge publishes its own scales and we are not paraphrasing band descriptors, because we have misquoted official descriptors before and it cost a full repair pass.

We have not published sample prompt cards. Cambridge publishes sample tests, and its own material is the right place for the actual task content.

We could not confirm how examiners are paired with remote interlocutors beyond Cambridge's note that one examiner could be online.

We are not stating pass rates or average scores by part. We found no attributable figure.

How we researched this guide

The Part 3 description, both timings, the group of three variants, the skills list, the number of examiners and their roles, the 15 and 23 minute totals and the Part 1, 2 and 4 formats all come from Cambridge English's C1 Advanced exam format page, read directly in a browser.

We quoted the task description and the skills list rather than paraphrasing them, because the argument of this post rests on what is in that list. "Exchanging", "agreeing and or disagreeing" and "reaching a decision through negotiation" are interactive verbs, and a paraphrase tends to flatten them into "speaking skills", which loses the point.

Cambridge notes that the formats are the same for both the digital and paper-based exams, so this applies whichever version you sit.

The C1 descriptor comes from the Council of Europe's own global scale rather than from a preparation site's summary of it, because the exact words "without much obvious searching for expressions" are the argument. A paraphrase would have said "speaks fluently", which is true of a well-rehearsed script too.

Practise speaking, from SpeakShark

SpeakShark is an AI English speaking practice app, and it is our pick for Part 3 preparation because of what Part 3 actually demands. Every other resource can hand you prompts. None of them can be surprised by what you say and respond to it, which is the exact skill being assessed. You talk, the AI answers what you actually said, and you get speaking feedback while the conversation is still going. The free tier gives basic feedback; the detailed pronunciation and grammar breakdown is on Premium.

To be straight about the limits: a free session runs five minutes with four turns, which suits daily practice of the component skills rather than simulating a full 15 minute paired exam.

Start free with three sessions a day and no card. Paid sessions run ten minutes with unlimited turns. Limits are on the pricing page, and how it works walks through a full session.

We are a speaking improvement tool. We are not an exam preparation provider, and we are not affiliated with Cambridge English, the IELTS partners, Pearson or any exam board. For test format, booking and official practice material, go to the exam body directly. Use SpeakShark to make your spoken English stronger, and use official material to learn the test.

• Site: speakshark.com
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• Free tier: 3 AI conversation sessions per day, no card

Sources

• Cambridge English, C1 Advanced exam format: the four Speaking parts, their timings for pairs and groups of three, the skills lists, the two examiner setup and the note that digital and paper formats match
• Cambridge English, C1 Advanced: the qualification overview this format sits under
• Council of Europe, CEFR Table 1, common reference levels global scale: the C1 descriptor, including "fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions"

FAQ