Part 3 is where the examiner stops asking about your life and starts asking about the world: "Why do people give gifts?", "Should governments fund the arts?". Candidates fear it because they think it tests ideas. It doesn't — it tests whether you can produce organised language about an idea you had four seconds ago. This lesson installs the fixed thinking shape that makes that possible.
The three-move answer
Every Part 3 answer, whatever the question, runs the same three moves:
Opinion → Reason → Example or Consequence
- Opinion. One sentence, committed: "I'd say the main reason is convenience." Not a survey of all possible views — one claim you can defend for thirty seconds.
- Reason. Why the claim is true: "because most working people simply don't have time to..."
- Example or consequence. Ground it. Either a concrete case ("you can see this in any office at lunchtime — half the desks have delivery bags on them") or a consequence chain ("and as a result, whole industries have grown up around saving people twenty minutes").
Three moves is 30–45 seconds — exactly the length examiners want. Longer and you drift; shorter and you look unable to develop. The shape also is the coherence score: opinion-reason-example is a visible logical structure, which is precisely what the Fluency & Coherence descriptor rewards at band 7.
Why do some people prefer to shop in physical stores? "Mostly because they want to judge the product with their own hands, I think. Photos can be edited, but touch can't — you know instantly whether a jacket is well made. For example, my father refuses to buy shoes online; he says a shoe that's wrong by five millimetres is wrong all day. So for anything you wear or sit on, physical stores still win."
Opinion (judge with your own hands), reason (photos can be edited, touch can't), example (father and the shoes), one-line consequence to close. Nothing in it required knowledge — only shape.
Buying thinking time legally
You are allowed to think. What you're not allowed to do is fill the pause with a memorised-sounding stall ("That is indeed a multifaceted issue worthy of consideration...") — examiners hear that exact sentence daily, and it buys you time at the cost of credibility.
Legal thinking-time phrases are short, natural, and react to the question:
| Situation | Say |
|---|---|
| Need 2 seconds | "Hmm, good question." / "Let me think." |
| Need 5 seconds | "I've never actually thought about that before, but off the top of my head..." |
| Question is ambiguous | "Do you mean in general, or here specifically?" (asking for clarification is free time AND interaction credit) |
| Lost mid-answer | "Sorry — what I'm trying to say is..." (self-repair is a band-7 behaviour, not a failure) |
The difference between these and the memorised stall: these are five to ten words, said once, in your normal voice. The stall is twenty words of essay-English delivered at recitation speed. One sounds like thinking; the other sounds like hiding.
The "no opinion" rescue
Sooner or later you get the question you genuinely have no view on: "Should companies be required to publish their salary ranges?" Candidates freeze here because they're searching for their true opinion. Stop searching.
The examiner scores language, not beliefs. Pick a side arbitrarily and defend it.
You will never be asked to live by what you said, and the examiner does not care whether you meant it — there is no dial for sincerity. The rescue procedure: pick whichever side offers the easier reason, flag your uncertainty honestly if you like ("I'm honestly not sure, but I'd lean towards yes..."), then run the three moves exactly as normal. Flagging uncertainty costs nothing; producing no developed answer costs the entire question.
A useful reason-generator when your mind is blank: ask yourself who is affected, and what do they gain or lose? — money, time, health, relationships, safety. One of those five will yield a defensible reason for either side of any social question ever asked in Part 3.
Follow-ups are the point, not the trap
Expect the examiner to push: "But is that always true?" This is not aggression — Part 3 exists to see you handle a challenge. Concede and refine: "Fair point — probably not for small companies, where... but for large ones I'd still argue..." Conceding a case and holding your claim is high-band interaction. What you must never do is abandon your opinion entirely and agree with whatever the examiner said; that reads as having had no position at all.
Your drill (15 minutes)
- From the speaking recall wall, pick one current Part 2 cue card and imagine its Part 3 thread — the abstract version of its topic (a card about an old person you know becomes "Is age respected less than before?"). Write three such questions, or take reported Part 3 questions from the recall wall directly.
- Record your answer to each using the three moves. Hard rule: commit to an opinion inside your first sentence.
- For one question, deliberately argue the side you don't believe. This rehearses the no-opinion rescue before test day, where it will not be optional.
- Listen back. Mark any pause you filled in silence — next attempt, fill it with a phrase from the table. If a precise word escaped you and you talked around it, that was a win, not a flaw; unfamiliar topic vocabulary is also worth banking from our glossary as you review.