## Why it is more forgiving than it feels

Speaking is the section candidates dread most, and the mismatch between that dread and the actual
marking is large.

The examiners are trained to assess A2 speakers. They are not listening for fluency, range or
elegance. They expect hesitation, a small vocabulary and simple sentence structures, because that
is what A2 is. What they need to see is that you can communicate: understand a question, give a
relevant answer, keep a short exchange going.

## The one failure mode that matters

Freezing. Silence gives an examiner nothing to mark, and a grammatically imperfect answer is
worth far more than no answer at all.

If you do not understand a question, say so. *Pode repetir, por favor?* is completely acceptable,
and the examiners will rephrase. Using it is not a mark against you. Sitting in silence is.

## Prepare the predictable ground

The topics are not a mystery. They are your life: where you are from, who you live with, what you
do, what your day looks like, what you did at the weekend, what you like and dislike.

Rehearse two or three sentences on each of those out loud, with a real person if you can. Not a
script to recite, just enough that the first sentence arrives without a search. Once you are
talking, the rest follows much more easily.

## Do not skip it because it is only 25%

The second pass rule, a minimum of 25% in every component, applies here too. Speaking is the
lightest component by weight and it can still fail your whole exam on its own. Candidates who
neglect it because the percentage looks small are the ones the floor rule catches.

We do not cover speaking. This is a reading tool, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.