Band 5.0 - 5.5

The range of vocabulary presented allows the candidate to answer most questions but not always to extend the initial response. There is little evidence of an ability to collocate or paraphrase and the candidate does not use any less common words. 

Some errors may lead to confusion, particularly, my mother and father would not distract me (in Part 1), and the repeated use of formula (instead of formally) in Part 3. 

A range of complex structures is used, although the majority of these are noun clauses that follow the frequently used I think. Nonetheless, examples of all three types of subordinate clause are provided.  

The candidate is comfortable using the present simple tense and some future tense structures – past tenses forms are, however, hardly ever attempted and the present tense is often incorrectly employed to refer to past actions (e.g. … I remember that I like [liked] playing …). Continuous tenses are attempted but this sometimes leads to error (I’m wear; when we shopping).  

Other error types include subject/verb agreement (e.g. some people is doing); singular plural forms (e.g. that clothes - other job); and article problems – with missing articles especially noticeable (e.g. I’m student; I’m child; go to park). 

Overall, while the meaning is generally reasonably clear, errors are dense and this does have some impact on the ease with which the message can be followed. 

The omission of consonants is a problem – final consonants (student, outside, T-shirt); but also the omission of r in consonant clusters (free, prefer, friend); and similarly l (place, clothes). There are also problems with th (rendered as f in, for example, think, clothes). However, while these phonetic issues are frequent, they do not normally lead to a breakdown in meaning.  

Intonation is sometimes used effectively but is not sustained. Sentence stress is also employed but sometimes results in an exaggerated lengthening of single syllable words or the final syllable of multi-syllable words. Some chunking is produced but hesitations and slow speech reduce the effectiveness of this and other pronunciation features