update. Please note that this article was written in 2015 and has not been updated or expanded since.

I would like to collect in one article everything that I know today about the format of the oral part of the exam in English, as well as the criteria for evaluating the exam. All of the following is based on information posted on the website of the Federal Institute for Pedagogical Measurements, as well as presentations and reports conducted by Macmillan, in particular those made by Maria Valerievna Verbitskaya, the author of numerous manuals on the English language, one of the leading experts on the Unified State Examination. I have tried to be as precise and as accurate as possible when presenting the facts. If you think that any information in this article is inaccurate or outdated, please write about it in the comments.

Let's start with a little announcement. Demo versions of the exam and the entire package of documents (specifiers, codifiers, demo versions) for the exam are located on the new site at http://new.fipi.ru. (the old site is operational, there is a bank of open tasks).

They wanted to return the oral part of the exam in a foreign language for a long time. The problem was only how to do it in an accessible and methodically sound form. At the experimental stage, in 2004-2008, the oral part was, but then it was decided to exclude it. Mainly due to organizational difficulties, such as time constraints (the exam is long, students get very tired), poor technical equipment and insufficient number of experts.

When introducing speaking in the academic year 2014-2015, we decided to follow the path computerization, that is, they refused the participation of a “live” examiner (there will be only a technical specialist in the audience), the students “communicate” with the computer, a digital record of the answers is kept, which will be evaluated by experts after the end of the exam. Over time, they want to computerize the entire exam entirely.

The oral part is held on a separate day, after a few days off.

Maximum the number of points for the oral part - 20. For the written part - 80 points.

The oral part is not (!) mandatory, but it will be necessary for those who want to get more than 80 points for the exam.

The minimum score is currently 22, it used to be 20. The threshold is very low, 99% of students overcome it.

When developing the exam, the compilers faced a huge number of scientific and methodological difficulties regarding the exam format, difficulty levels and assessment criteria. This year, the oral part of the exam in English will consist of the following tasks.

1. Expressive reading of a fragment of an informational or popular science text aloud.

Example.

"C3. Imagine that you are preparing a project with your friend. You have found some interesting material for the presentation and you want to read this text to your friend. You have one minute to read the text silently, then be ready to read it out aloud.

You don't see many birds in winter. Most have left your area. Those that stay are not active. Activity uses energy that is needed to keep warm. The worst problems for birds in winter are getting enough heat and holding on to the heat once it is made. These are problems for all birds."

Base level setting, score - 1 point.

Students are required to read intelligibly and expressively, which is easily perceived by ear without interruption in communication.

Main evaluation criteria:

• speech is easy to understand
• there are no unreasonable pauses,
• phrasal stress, intonation contour and pronunciation of words without violating the norm,
• the stress on the words is correct.

Allowed no more than 5 phonetic errors(including 1-2 errors that distort the meaning), that is, even if the student makes 5 phonetic errors, he will still receive 1 point. A score of 0 points is given if speech is perceived with difficulty (a large number of unnatural pauses, hesitation, incorrect stress, more than 5 phonetic errors, more than 3 errors that distort the meaning).

2. Conditional dialogue-questioning with verbal and visual support.

C4. Study the advertisement.

You decided to visit the place and now you are calling to make some clarifications. In a minute you are to ask five questions to find out the following:
1) dates for departures
2) hotel facilities
3) if breakfast is included
4) number of city tours
5) availability of party reductions

Necessary ask 5 direct questions (of any type) for reference keywords, that are in the assignment.

Setting the baseline. Per each question - 1 point. Total maximum 5 points.

The content question should correspond to the task, that is, it is necessary to ask about what you want to ask, and have the correct grammatical form of a direct question. Estimated language and intonation. The intonation should correspond to the type of direct question being asked, possible phonetic and lexical errors should not impede perception.

Grade 0 points is set if the question is not asked, if the content of the question is incorrect, if the question is not grammatically formatted, or there are lexical and phonetic errors that prevent communication.

Here disputes concerning types of questions are possible. While the compilers decided so. A divisive question is possible, requests from the What about...? Could you tell me about...? do not count as questions as they are essentially requests. Questions like Could you tell me what the price is? is not considered incorrect if the word order is correct.

One of common mistakes- Instead of asking questions, students start the story from the picture. In this case, a score of 0 points is given, since the communicative task has not been solved.

3.A monologue thematic statement based on a verbal situation and visual information.

Example.

"C5. Imagine that while traveling during your holidays you took some photos.
Choose one photo to present to your friend. You have one minute to think it over.
When presenting the picture remember to mention:
when you took the photo
what/who is in the photo
what is happening
why did you take the photo
why did you decide to show the picture to your friend

Setting the baseline. Need to describe only one a photo. There was a problem with this during testing. The children did not read the task, or read inattentively, and began to describe all three photographs. In theory, there should not be such a problem on the exam, since the student will need to press one of the three buttons, and only one picture will remain on the screen.

Next, I will highlight the whole sentence in bold, since this point was not obvious to me. To receive a high score, a coherent story consisting of 12-15 sentences is required, with an average of 3 sentences per item. If the student says only one sentence for each item, then he will not receive a high score for this task.

Assessed three criteria:

• solution of a communicative task (3 points).

3 points are given if the communicative task is completed completely, the content fully, accurately and fully reflects all the aspects specified in the task. 2 points - if one aspect (point of the plan, what is in the lines) is not disclosed, 1 point - if two aspects are not disclosed (or all aspects are disclosed, but very little is said). 0 points - if the task was ignored, or three or more aspects were not disclosed.

• Organization of oral utterance (maximum 2 points).

Here I do not really agree with the requirements, namely the need to speak the introductory and final phrases, for example, I "d like to show this photo / That"s one of the most beautiful photos ... or That"s all I wanted to say ... But ... requirements are requirements.

• Language design of the statement (maximum 2 points).

Language design is a complex and rather subjective criterion, here the difference in the approaches of experts is of great importance. Since the speech is spontaneous (1 minute for preparation is very little), errors and reservations are allowed. The main thing is that there are no language errors that impede communication. Total maximum 7 points.

I will highlight one more suggestion, as it is important. A common mistake of students is that children say that they are captured in the photo, although the task simulates a situation when they cannot be in the photo, since they took this photo. In case of such an error, 0 points are assigned for the task, since the student did not complete the communicative task, did not understand the task.

4. Monological thematic task.

"C6. Study the two photographs. In a minute be ready to ...

1) give a brief description of the photos (action, location)
2) say in what way the pictures are different
3) say which of the pastimes presented in the pictures you prefer
4) explain your choice

This task is fundamentally different from task 3, as it is a high-level task. Here you need analytics and a fairly high level of other language training, since the basic level of vocabulary and grammar will not be enough. Evaluation criteria - see point 3. Total maximum 7 points.

A few more points. The preparation time for each task is about 1.5 minutes. The response time for the first 2 tasks is 1.5 minutes, for the second 2 questions - 2 minutes. The total time to complete the oral part of the exam is 15 minutes. Students are NOT expected to take any notes in a draft during the exam, as there is very little preparation time. In January, Macmillan will release a new collection of tests to prepare for the exam.

As the main benefits for preparing for the exam, the compilers of the exam recommend the following:

AT 2015 year, for the first time, an oral part was introduced at the Unified State Examination in English. How to prepare for speaking and score the maximum number of points if there is so little time left before the exam? First, calm down and understand that this is a completely doable task. And secondly, familiarize yourself with the structure of this part of the exam and follow the tips below.

Let's get ready for the exam together!

So, the oral part of the English exam consists of 4 tasks.

Total response time per examinee (including preparation time) — 15 minutes.

The maximum score for completing the oral part of the exam in English is 20 points.

This is the computerized part of the exam. During the response, audio and video recordings are made.

After completing all the tasks, make sure that the audio recording of your answer is in high format (no noise interference, the sound level is sufficient for the examiner to perceive your answer). If the sound quality does not satisfy you - there is no sound completely or partially, or the recording is made very quietly, which makes it difficult to understand it - you should request a retake of the oral part exam!!!

The oral and written parts of the exam are held on different days according to the approved schedule.

The oral part of the USE in English was not mandatory in 2015. And if the student decided not to pass speaking, he automatically reduced the overall result by 20 points (100 - 20 = 80 points). My students passed the oral part in 2015 with a score of 19 and 16 points. I want to note that the student received 16 points not because she did not have enough knowledge, but because the answer was too long and the recording time had expired. Therefore, while preparing for the exam, develop a sense of time!

Attention!

You can practice passing the oral part of the exam on the simulator by going to the website

Video instruction for completing Task 1 of the Oral part of the Unified State Examination in English.

Exercise 1

- reading aloud a short text of a popular science nature.

Preparation time - 1.5 minutes

Performance - 1.5 minutes

The maximum number of points - 1 point

What skill is being tested?

the phonetic side of speech (pronunciation of English sounds, intonation of sentences) and reading technique (understanding of reading vowels and consonants of the English language).

Evaluation criteria

1 point you will get if your speech is perceived easily: there are no unreasonable pauses, phrasal stress and intonation contours are observed, pronunciation of words without violations of the norm: no more than five phonetic errors are allowed, including one or two errors that distort the meaning.

0 points the student will receive if their speech is difficult to understand due to a large number of unnatural pauses, stutters, incorrect placement of stresses and errors in pronunciation of words OR more than five (5) phonetic errors are made that distort the meaning OR three or more phonetic errors are made that distort the meaning.

According to USE experts, typical mistakes include:

- incorrect division into semantic syntagmas of simple and complex sentences

- incorrect reading of syntagmas with enumeration (you need to read them with ascending intonation)

- incorrect intonation of sentences with a descending tone

- incorrect pronunciation of unstressed syllables (lack of reduction)

- incorrect reading of words with long and short vowels that affect the change in the lexical meaning of the word: least - list, leave - live, port - pot

- incorrect reading of words with voiceless and voiced consonants at the end of the word, which change the meaning of the word: ba d–ba t, foo d-foo t

- incorrect reading of words in which letters are written but not read: balle t, this t le, w hole, mus c les

- incorrect pronunciation of sounds typical of the English language, substitution of their pronunciation for Russian sounds: [θ] - [ð], [w], [h], [ŋ], [ɜ:]

Before starting to execute assignments of the 1st oral part of the exam in English, I advise you to repeat "" and "".
Exercise 1

Imagine that you and a friend are preparing a school project. You have found interesting presentation material and want to read it to your friend. You have 1.5 minutes for preparation (reading to yourself) and 1.5 minutes to complete this task (read aloud).

Sample text

Madame Tussaud's is the most popular wax museum in the world. There are life-size wax models of the famous and infamous, both living and dead. Among them are Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, the British Royal family, Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper and many others.

The museum is situated in Marylebone Road in London. There is usually a long queue in front of the museum. Many tourists consider their trip to London worthless without visiting this museum.

There are several halls at Madame Tussaud's. Highlights include the Grand Hall, the Chamber of Horrors and “The Spirit of London” exhibition.

“The Spirit of London” is a new milestone for Madame Tussaud's. It covers a period of more than 400 years of London history: from Elizabethan times to the present days. Sights, sounds and even smells combine to tell the colorful story of London to visitors.

sample text

Task 1

Imagine that you are preparing a project with your friend. You have found some interesting material for the presentation and you want to read this text to your friend. You have 1.5 minutes to read the text silently, then be ready to read it out aloud. You will not have more than 1.5 minutes to read it.

Half the human beings who have ever died, perhaps as many as 45 billion people, have been killed by female mosquitoes. Mosquitoes carry more than a hundred potentially fatal diseases including malaria, yellow fever and elephantiasis. Even today, they kill one person every twelve seconds. Amazingly, nobody had any idea that mosquitoes were dangerous until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1877, the British doctor Sir Patrick Manson proved that yellow fever was caused by mosquito bites.
Seventeen years later it occurred to him that malaria might also be caused by mosquitoes. He encouraged his pupil Ronald Ross to test the hypothesis. Ross was the first person to show how female mosquitoes transmit the parasite. Manson went one better. To show that the theory worked for humans, he infected his own son – using mosquitoes carried in the diplomatic bag from Rome.

Advice: check the dictionary for the correct pronunciation of words malaria, elephantiasis, hypothesis, parasite

Listen to the audio recording of this text.

P.S. For reading, you can use the texts from the training tasks for the exam, the section "Grammar and Vocabulary", having previously completed them and checked them against the keys to avoid mistakes.

sample text

Task 1

When it comes to California summer camps for kids, Skylake Yosemite Summer Camp is the very best. This year the camp is celebrating its 66th season.

If you are looking for a summer camp your kids will love, we invite you to consider Skylake. We are located in the California Sierra National Forest, on Bass Lake, just a few miles from the south gates of Yosemite National Park. Skylake Yosemite is the kind of summer camp kids love.

Our dock on Bass Lake offers a variety of fun-packed waterfront activities, including warm-water swimming, waterskiing and tubing, canoes and kayaks. All staff members are First Aid Certified and have Water Safety Certifications.

Getting to camp is easy, because we offer charter bus service from Northern and Southern California and provide complimentary pick up at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport, located only one hour from camp.

Audio: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or higher) is required to play this audio. Download the latest version. Also, JavaScript must be enabled in your browser.

sample text

Task 1

Imagine that you are preparing a project with your friend. You have found some interesting material for the presentation and you want to read this text to your friend. You have 1.5 minutes to read this text silently, then be ready to read it out aloud. You will not have more than 1.5 minutes to read it.

Some paintings found in different caves around the world are recognized as the work of Stone Age artists. But what was the purpose of the paintings? Why were they hidden in a dark room where there is no evidence that cave people lived?

No one really knows, but there is one theory that makes great sense. It is called the theory of Sympathetic Magic. According to this, the cave people believed that if they could make a likeness of an animal, they could put a spell over it. This spell would give the tribe power over the live animal.

Stone Age existence depended on killing animals - for food, clothing, and even weapons and tools. The animals were large and fierce; the cave people had only the most simple weapons. Hunters had to be brave and fearless. They needed more than a spear or club; they needed all the magic they could get. The magic could help the hunters catch the animals.

Listen to the audio recording of this text.

Audio: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or higher) is required to play this audio. Download the latest version. Also, JavaScript must be enabled in your browser.

sample text

Task 1

Imagine that you are preparing a project with your friend. You have found some interesting material for the presentation and you want to read this text to your friend. You have 1.5 minutes to read this text silently, then be ready to read it out aloud. You will not have more than 1.5 minutes to read it.

Mountain gorillas live in the dense forests of Central Africa and are one of man's closest relations in the animal kingdom. They live in family groups and spend the day eating plants. Every evening each gorilla builds a nest to sleep in.

Mountain gorillas are black, and have evolved very thick fur so that they can withstand the cold mountain air. An adult male is called a silver back because of the silver-grey fur that grows on its back when it reaches maturity. A silverback is about the same height as an average man but heavier. Females are much smaller.

The destruction of their natural habitat is a serious threat to gorillas. Illegal hunting and trading are also a problem. Tourism helps to finance the ongoing efforts to save this endangered species. A few companies organize gorilla safaris so that people can see these amazing creatures at first hand. Some of the money from these tours goes to wild life organizations to protect the gorillas.

Listen to the audio recording of this text.

Audio: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or higher) is required to play this audio. Download latest version

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All the necessary theory. Quick solutions, traps and secrets of the exam. All relevant tasks of part 1 from the Bank of FIPI tasks have been analyzed. The course fully complies with the requirements of the USE-2018.

The course contains 5 large topics, 2.5 hours each. Each topic is given from scratch, simply and clearly.

Hundreds of exam tasks. Text problems and probability theory. Simple and easy to remember problem solving algorithms. Geometry. Theory, reference material, analysis of all types of USE tasks. Stereometry. Cunning tricks for solving, useful cheat sheets, development of spatial imagination. Trigonometry from scratch - to task 13. Understanding instead of cramming. Visual explanation of complex concepts. Algebra. Roots, powers and logarithms, function and derivative. Base for solving complex problems of the 2nd part of the exam.

I really want to write about why the oral part of the exam does not reflect the real conversational skills of the student, but I will restrain myself. Instead, we will discuss more relevant issues - what does speaking at the Unified State Exam consist of and how to beat it.

Assignments of the oral part

The oral part of the Unified State Examination consists of 4 tasks:

1. Reading text
2. Dialogue-questioning with support
3. Photo Description
4. Comparison of two photos

All this is allotted 15 minutes. For the correct completion of all tasks, you can get 20 points.

The peculiarity of this part of the exam is that it is given on the computer. You come to a specially equipped classroom and receive a disk with the program. Run the program on your computer, put on the headset and follow the instructions on the screen. You can see how it will look on the exam in online simulators or. On the display you will see a timer that will help you track the response time yourself.

If there are any difficulties with the program, an assistant who is present in the class will help you. After recording each task, the student will be able to listen to himself. Please note that if the answer was not recorded, or recorded with strong interference, you must definitely tell the assistant about it! If you do not do this, the incorrectly recorded answer will go to the assessment of the expert.

Reading text

Task 1 of the oral part of the exam is a reading of the text of popular science topics. The legend says that you are preparing for a report in a foreign language and rehearsing it in front of a friend.

On the training 1.5 minutes are given for the task, and for text reading also given 1.5 minutes. The text is small, so it is quite possible to meet this time.

Here is an example of such a task:

Evaluation criteria

For the task you can get everything 1 point, if “speech is perceived easily: there are no unreasonable pauses; phrasal stress and intonation contours, pronunciation of words without violations of the norm. No more than five phonetic errors are allowed, including one or two errors that distort the meaning.

An error that distorts the meaning is considered:

1. Change of sound, which leads to a change in the meaning of the word. For example, live is pronounced with a long vowel - leave, cut - like cart. Or put is pronounced with a vowel “a” in the middle, and science is pronounced with two consonants at the beginning.
2. Incorrect pauses when reading text.

Simple phonetic errors include:

1. Incorrect reading of sentences with enumeration (should be with rising intonation)
2. Incorrect intonation of affirmative sentences (should be with a descending tone)
3. Incorrect setting of logical stress (it should fall on words that carry the main meaning in the sentence - most likely, this is a noun or a verb)
4. Incorrect pronunciation of sounds typical of the English language, substitution of their pronunciation for Russian sounds: [θ], [ð], [w], [h], [ŋ], [ɜ:]
5. Lack of "linking r" (linking r) - that is, voicing the final r / re in position before the vowel, if the next word begins with a vowel (for example, where is ..., there are ...)

Training

In fact, getting a maximum of 1 point for the first task is not difficult.

How I practice reading aloud with students:

1. I choose the text (I take the texts for reading from the Solutions textbooks of the Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate levels - they are voiced there), listen.
2. Let's work together to find the places we don't understand.
3. We are looking for a suitable passage.
4. We look through it and mark the semantic pauses with vertical lines - | .
5. We underline the words that carry meaning (we ignore all service words - articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs).
6. We listen to the passage again and repeat after the speaker, then the student reads himself.

Then I ask the same algorithm at home and listen to the student in the lesson. Below is an example of the text parsed in this way:

About the reading rules that I pay attention to when preparing, I already wrote in, and. These are articles about the OGE, the first task in both exams is very similar. Also on the links you will find exercises on the studied sounds.

• Practice at home with a voice recorder, listen to yourself and mark mistakes. Since during the exam you will encounter noise interference in the face of other students who will start talking with you and annoy you, I advise you to turn on the TV or radio during training to simulate this very irritant.
• If you don’t know how a word is read (for example, shallow), remember how similar words are read (narrow) and read by analogy. When preparing, I strongly recommend that you check the pronunciation of all difficult words with the dictionary
• Pause at punctuation marks and emphasize intonation independent parts of speech
• Take your time! 90 seconds is enough to read the entire text at a calm pace
• If you realize that you read a word incorrectly, reread it correctly. Only the last version of the word will be counted.
• Before the oral part of the exam in the morning, say one option at home

To prepare for this part of the exam, as always, I recommend assignments from the FIPI website, as well as the following books:

Preparing for the exam in English takes time and effort. Of course, a month before the exam it is quite difficult to adequately prepare. However, not all is lost! A talented teacher Sofia Vladimirovna shares valuable recommendations and practical advice - what you can do in the remaining time.

The most difficult part is the oral part of the exam. Let's look at the most important aspects and typical mistakes.

Reading

Many people think that passing the Reading part is easier than everyone else. One cannot but agree that reading skills can be improved in a fairly short time. However, in this part, from year to year, graduates make mistakes that are better not to be repeated.

What is not allowed:

1) Replace diphthong /əu/ to the sound /ɔ/

2) Forget about the interdental /ð/

3) Forget how words are pronounced

• Enough - [ɪ "nʌf] -enough
• Science - ["saɪəns] -the science
• Since - -With since then

It is important to remember that the text you read must first of all be well perceived by ear. Pauses, hesitations, repetitions of words, errors in pronunciation and omissions of words make it difficult to understand. The result is low scores.

Drafting questions

The next step is to write questions based on the given picture.

1) Remember that questions like What about...? Or I'd like to know are invalid, as it is correct to use only direct questions!

Direct questions:

• Do you work on Saturdays?
• When do you open?

Indirect questions:

• I wonder if you work on Saturdays.
• I'd like to know when you open.

2) In most cases, questions should be asked using the Present/Future Simple.

3) Do not forget to change in general questions some - on the any , something - on the anything , somebody - on the anybody .

4) Be careful when asking a specific question. Often students make reservations by adding to the question the information they are asking about.

When did you go to the park in the evening ?

Description of one of the photos

It is important to follow the plan given in the assignment. This makes it easier and easier to navigate and not miss an important aspect of your story.

1) When describing a photo, use the phrase In the photograph you can see. With a pretext on the photograph- the phrase will be used in a different meaning. For example, don’ t put the cup on the photograph .

2) When describing what is happening in the photo, use tenses present Continuous/ Past Continuous. In this case, the times of the Simple group cannot be used.

Comparison of two photos

1) Use phrases correctly, paying attention to the article:

If we look at picture 1.

If we look at the first picture.

2) The answer will be more advantageous if time is used for the first item of the task present Continuous+ circumstance of place or particle I.

• We can see a girl shopping online at home.
• We can see a girl who is doing her shopping online at home.

3) Speaking of similarity, use the word both. Mistake to say the both pictures - No article needed!

4) When talking about your preferences and choosing between two pictures, for example, between two ways of shopping - you should not say - I prefer picture. Need to say - I prefer shopping in a supermarket.

Friends, remember one more rule for passing exams successfully - be focused, attentive and believe in yourself! And in order to make the most of the weeks left before the exam, come to classes with our school's online tutors.

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