You had your two content points ready. You presented your points clearly with elaborations like you were supposed to. You think you did very well and you were happy with your presentation in the MUET speaking part 1.
However when your MUET results came out, only then did you realise that no, you did not do well in your MUET speaking test at all. This scenario have unfortunately happened to many candidates who have sat for the MUET speaking test.
They thought they had done really well in the MUET speaking test as they related their ideas and presented their opinions correctly. But what actually happened was that they totally missed the mark during their MUET speaking part 1.
This is because even when you have related your points in such a way that is very clear with good elaboration and wide vocabulary, it will not determine very high marks unless you get one thing right. And that is providing the right content points for the MUET speaking part 1.
To get the right content points you would need to answer the question. This would involve doing this very important thing. It is for you to link your tast as candidate A, B, C or D to the situation given. Only then will you have fulfilled the requirement of the question.
I know, as you are reading this blog, you are thinking how you would do that, right? Well it is in this blog that I am going to explain to you how to link your task with the situation provided for you to arrive at the correct content points.
This is to avoid the disappointment later that when you were hoping to get high marks for your MUET speaking, the opposite happens. Therefore to get a clearer idea of how to get to the right content points, we will look through the correct way to do this step-by-step.
In order to come up with the right content points for MUET speaking part one, you would need to first of all:
- Read and understand the situation.
- Read and understand your task as candidates A, B, C or D.
- Link your task to the situation given.
- Brainstorm two content points that will fulfil the requirement of the task.
- Present your MUET speaking part 1 with elaboration.
In this blog, I am only going to focus on how linking your task as candidates A, B, C or D to the situation alone will lead you to the correct content points Speaking Part 1. To understand how to do this correctly let’s look at one sample of the MUET speaking part 1 question.
Let’s go through how to get the correct content points together.
1. Read and understand the situation given in MUET speaking part 1
Once seated in the examination room with the other MUET candidates and two examiners, you will find in front of you the question paper for the MUET speaking test. You will then be given two minutes to prepare your presentation.
The very first thing that you need to do is for you to read and understand the situation. All four candidates will be getting the same situation.
As it is stated here in the question above, the situation states that it is very important to save money for our future. And it goes on to ask what are the ways to save money.
So you know now that the situation that has been carved out for you is for you to talk about the ways to save money in the future.
Always bear this in mind when you are presenting your views in the MUET speaking part 1 later.
2. Read and understand your task as candidates A, B, C or D
Next you will need to read and understand the task set for you as candidates A, B, C or D. As it is stated in the question above you are candidate C. So your task is for you to talk about cooking your own meals.
In your presentation later during the two minutes, you will provide a line or two about what the phrase ‘cooking your own meals’ means to you. It is good for you to do this as it will show to the examiners exactly what you understand about the task given to you.
So your introduction to your MUET presentation for part one will sound something like this:
“Good morning to the examiners and fellow candidates. There are many ways for us to save money and grow our savings for the future. In my opinion, I believe that cooking our own meals will definitely save us a buck or two. Saving money is especially important for those of us who are just starting our tertiary education or just starting a new job. Our savings will definitely go a long way.”
So this is how you start the first part of your presentation in MUET speaking part 1.
3. Link the task to the situation and understand what is asked of you
The two minutes preparation time, is for you to get your response ready. This is when you brainstorm on what you are going to say during the two minutes presentation for MUET speaking part 1.
You will brainstorm content points that answer the question given to you as candidates C. To arrive at the correct content points, you would need to do this one thing.
And that is like what I have said earlier, is for you to link the task to the situation given. Linking the task to the situation is the only way for you to get the right content points.
This seems easy. However, as a teacher, I’ve come across many students who actually failed to do just that. The students have quickly read the task and only came up with content points answering only to the task. It is wrong for you to do this. As you would see later in this blog, the correct way to do it is for you to link your task with the situation given.
Let’s look at what I mean by students not linking their task to the situation in this section below
4. Not linking the task to the situation will lead you to the wrong content points
Let’s remind ourselves again of the task and the situation given for you to fulfil as candidate C. There are many ways for us to save money for our future. And your task as candidate C is for you to talk about cooking our own meals to save money.
Some students who would not link the task to the situation would be focusing on only the part about cooking our own meals.
One way of avoiding this is for you to read more blogs like this one. Here I would give you more tips to help your band in MUET.
So the response that they are going to provide later are going to talk about the advantages of cooking our own meals. Some students would voice the opinion that cooking their own meals will:
- Improve their cooking skills
- Here they would be talking about how having to cook for themselves would teach them new skills.
- Practice makes perfect. They might also include the fact that having to cook for themselves every day will eventually sharpen their skills.
- They might become very good and master the cooking techniques of certain dishes like Italian or Korean cuisines.
- Try new recipes
- For this point, the students might include that cooking for themselves would allow them to try new recipes.
- These are the recipes that they might not be able to cook before.
- By cooking for themselves, they would watch tutorials on how to cook certain dishes for themselves by watching videos on YouTube.
- they might even get the chance to share their new talents with loved ones.
Unfortunately, this is not the correct way of answering the question. Students like this will end up getting only a band one or two for the MUET speaking part 1. Sadly, this normally happens to students who are unaware of the fact that they should first of all link the task with the situation to get the right content points for MUET speaking part 1.
So what then are the correct content points for this question? Let’s look at this next section to understand the CORRECT content points.
5. Linking your task to the situation will lead you to the correct content points
The content points in this question for MUET speaking part 1 that you are going to give is about the fact that cooking your meals, will save you money for your future.
You will see that when you link your task to the situation, the contents points that you give will go in a totally different way from the points given above. These points stated here are the right content points.
The content points that you will come up with are such as these. You are going to say that cooking our own meals will save us money as:
- It is cheaper to cook at home, especially for a large family
- The students might expand the point by saying that catering for ourselves at home saves money as there is no overhead cost as customers in restaurants will have to pay.
- These are the overhead costs like rent, utilities and decor.
- Also, we would save money on charges and tax. These extra charges are such as service charge and service tax.
- it is cheaper to buy our groceries in bulk and to cook in batches
- You can expand your point here that you can lower your expenses if you buy your groceries in bulk.
- You will save money on the ingredients you use and cut the overhead costs as you would have to pay in restaurants
- You will save money on labour costs.
- As you buy in bulk, you will also be able to use the groceries for multiple meals.
- Moreover cooking in batches (cooking in parge protions) will allow you to freeze a portion of the meal to be eaten at a later date.
Evidently you can see that the content points are totally different from what have been given when a student do not link the task to the situation. The differences are like heaven and earth!
The students who link their task to the situation also will hopefully get band 3.5 or higher depending on how the points are presented during the two minutes presentation time for MUET speaking part 1.
If you have finished reading my blog up to this point, then it shows that you are very concerned about your performance in the MUET speaking paper. Continue reading my other blogs on how to improve your performance in the speaking test.
You can read more about MUET speaking part 1 sample answer here. I will see you soon in my next blog and good luck in your MUET speaking test.
