Band 6.0-6.5

As noted earlier, the candidate is generally able to talk at length on topics and shows that she has the range of vocabulary to do so without relying on excessive repetition. There are some occasions when breakdowns in speech indicate problems accessing vocabulary, as in Part 1 when the beautiful view is employed twice after hesitations involving a search for language … to describe Tai O and other villages, and later, Sweden. 

Some errors are made, such as the confusion over employer and employee in Part 3, but the message is nearly always clear. There are few examples of collocation, and of idiomatic and less common lexis, and paraphrase is used sparingly. 

There is plenty of grammatical complexity with a good range of subordinate clauses and some complex verb tenses, though the latter tends to result in mistakes as at the end of Part 1 in the reference to a cancelled exchange opportunity in Sweden. 

The majority of sentences contain some error. Verb tense is a particular problem with present simple always used for past events (e.g. speaking of childhood in Part 1: I always go swimming and hiking). 

The error count climbs as the test progresses and the level of difficulty increases and the grammatical relationship between the parts of some reformulated sentences can be difficult to follow (e.g. Because man is … most of the man … I think most of the man doesn’t care about the outfit at all.)  

The candidate generally shows good control over phonetic aspects of pronunciation and the message can be followed without difficulty. 

Stress and intonation are managed quite well, and sometimes, as in Part 1, I love outdoor activities, and in Part 3, most of the uniform[s] are quite beautiful, there are glimpses of very native-like control of these features … but this is not sustained, largely due to a focus on accessing language and to breakdowns downs in speech – which also impacts chunking, though there are a number of good exemplars of this.