CAE Speaking Part 4: The Longest Part of the Test

Part 4 is five minutes. The whole Speaking test is fifteen.

That makes it the single longest part, longer than Part 1 and Part 3 combined, and it is reliably the one candidates spend the least preparation time on.

The reason is understandable. You cannot revise it, because the questions come out of whatever happened in Part 3.

You can still train for it, and SpeakShark is free for that, three AI conversation sessions a day with no card, each capped at five minutes and four turns.

In this guide: what Part 4 actually is · the clock nobody checks · why it cannot be revised · the predictable move · justifying, not just opining · who you are talking to · what we could not verify · how we researched this · FAQ

Key takeaways

• Part 4 is five minutes, a third of a fifteen minute test.
• The questions come from the topics raised in Part 3, so they cannot be revised.
• Cambridge names two skills: expressing and justifying opinions, and agreeing or disagreeing.
• The examiner asks, and you discuss it with the other candidate.
• A weak Part 3 leaves you starting Part 4 cold with five minutes to fill.

What Part 4 actually is

Cambridge's description, in full:

Further discussion with the other candidate based on the topics or issues raised in the task in Part 3. The interlocutor asks each of you some questions and you discuss them with the other candidate.

And what to practise:

Expressing and justifying opinions, agreeing and / or disagreeing.

Two sentences and a skills list. That brevity is itself informative: there is no picture, no card, no written prompt, no props. Part 4 is a conversation about ideas, held under exam conditions, for five minutes.

The clock nobody checks

Lay the four parts out and the imbalance is obvious.

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

Five of those fifteen minutes are Part 4. It is longer than Part 1 and Part 3 together. It is longer than any long turn you will give.

Now compare that against where preparation actually goes. Search volume, practice books and video guides all cluster around Part 2, because Part 2 feels frightening and has a visible artefact you can rehearse against. Part 4 has no artefact, so it quietly gets skipped, and it is the biggest block of speaking in the exam.

Why Part 4 cannot be revised

The questions are "based on the topics or issues raised in the task in Part 3", and Part 3 hands you written prompts you have never seen. So the chain is: unknown prompts, then a discussion, then questions derived from that discussion.

There is no list to memorise at the end of that chain. Anyone selling you one is selling you a guess.

This also creates a dependency worth naming. Part 3 feeds Part 4. If you engaged properly with the collaborative task, you arrive at Part 4 with positions you have already taken, reasons you have already given, and a disagreement you can pick back up. If you survived Part 3 by agreeing with everything, you arrive with nothing and five minutes to fill.

That is a practical argument for treating Part 3, the collaborative task, as an investment rather than an obstacle.

The one predictable move

You cannot know the questions. You can know their direction.

Part 3 is concrete: specific prompts, a specific decision. Part 4 goes outward from there, toward the general issue sitting behind the specific task. That widening is the move, and it is the same move every time regardless of topic.

Which means the drill is topic-independent:

1. Take any narrow subject. What you ate this morning, a decision you made at work, a photograph.
2. Name the general issue behind it in one sentence.
3. Give an opinion on that issue, with a reason.
4. Give a counter-position, with a reason.
5. Keep going for two minutes.

Do that daily with different starting points and the widening becomes automatic. It is the single highest-return Part 4 drill because it is the only part of the task that is predictable. Twelve daily speaking drills from B1 to C1 and role play scenarios for speaking practice both build this kind of repetition, and a free daily session is enough volume to keep it moving.

Justifying, not just opining

Cambridge lists "expressing and justifying opinions". The second verb does the work.

Five minutes is long. Candidates who run dry in Part 4 have almost never run out of opinions, they have run out of reasons, because they treated each question as something to answer rather than something to develop.

The difference is visible in a single exchange:

• "I think remote work is better." That is a sentence. It closes.
• "I think remote work is better, mainly because the commute was the part that exhausted people rather than the job itself, although it clearly depends on whether you have somewhere quiet to work." That is a contribution. It opens two directions, and the other candidate can enter either.

The second version also demonstrates the thing the level is defined by. The Council of Europe's global scale says a C1 user "can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions" and can "use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes". A justified, hedged, two-sided opinion is that descriptor in action. A bare statement is not, no matter how correct the grammar. CEFR levels explained for speaking goes into what separates the levels.

Also worth remembering: disagreeing is on Cambridge's list. A five minute discussion where both candidates agree about everything is five minutes of very little happening.

Who you are actually talking to

"The interlocutor asks each of you some questions and you discuss them with the other candidate."

Both halves are in that sentence. A question arrives from the examiner. The discussion that follows happens between the two candidates.

Candidates who deliver every answer to the examiner, eyes forward, treating the other person as scenery, are answering a different task from the one set. The examiner is not the audience for the discussion, they are the source of the question.

Practically that means the moves from Part 3 carry straight over: inviting the other candidate in, building on what they said, coming back in politely when they have run long. If your partner is dominating or barely speaking, the same handling applies, and it is assessed rather than penalised.

For the underlying comfort of speaking to a person rather than performing at one, why your English speaking is not improving, online methods to build confidence in English and finding an online speaking partner are the useful reading. If it is clarity rather than content that trips you, how to improve English pronunciation targets that instead.

Two details about the room, both from Cambridge: there are two examiners, one conducting the test and one who "listens to what you say and takes notes", and one of them could be examining remotely.

If you are coming up from the level below, what Cambridge B2 First speaking involves shows how much lighter the discussion demand is there, and Part 2, the long turn covers the part everyone over-prepares by comparison.

What we could not verify

We have not reproduced the assessment criteria. Cambridge publishes its own scales and we are not paraphrasing band descriptors.

We have not published sample Part 4 questions. They are generated from Part 3 in a live test, and Cambridge's own sample papers are the right place to see real ones.

We could not confirm how the examiner chooses which questions to ask beyond Cambridge's statement that they are based on the topics or issues raised in Part 3.

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

How we researched this guide

The Part 4 description, the skills list, the five minute timing, the timings for the other three parts, the 15 and 23 minute totals and the two examiner setup all come from Cambridge English's C1 Advanced exam format page, read directly in a browser.

The observation that Part 4 is the longest part is arithmetic on Cambridge's own published timings rather than a claim we found somewhere. We laid the four durations side by side precisely because no preparation material we looked at did, and the imbalance only becomes obvious when they are in one table.

The C1 descriptor comes from the Council of Europe's global scale rather than a summary of it, because the exact wording is what distinguishes a justified opinion from a fluent-sounding sentence.

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

Practise speaking, from SpeakShark

SpeakShark is an AI English speaking practice app, and it is our pick for Part 4 because Part 4 is the part least served by everything else. There is no card to drill and no picture to describe. There is a five minute discussion where somebody asks you something you did not expect and you have to justify a position out loud. 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.

Being straight about the limits: a free session runs five minutes with four turns, which suits daily practice of the widening drill rather than simulating a full 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
• Support: speaksharksupport@gmail.com
• Free tier: 3 AI conversation sessions per day, no card

Sources

• Cambridge English, C1 Advanced exam format: the Part 4 description and skills list, all four part timings, the 15 and 23 minute totals, the two examiner setup and the note that digital and paper formats match
• 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