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hello everyone thank you for joining me

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again and welcome to any new viewers

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this is to the point english with ben

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i'm ben

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and in this video i'm going to share the

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five most common mistakes that cambridge

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english exam students make in the

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speaking paper of the exams so whether

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it's the b2 first the c1 advanced or the

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c2 proficiency

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over the years of helping now thousands

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of people prepare for the exams

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these are the mistakes that i've noticed

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are repeated the most over and over

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again by different students so i want to

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share these mistakes so that you don't

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make those same mistakes number one and

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this is a very common one

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it's not completing the task in time

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now as most of you probably know in the

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speaking paper of the cambridge english

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exams some of the tasks have a time

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limit

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and often that time limit is very short

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you have to do a lot of things within

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that time for example in the c1 advanced

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part two which is the pictures you have

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to

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compare the pictures and you have to

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answer two questions using speculative

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vocabulary all in just one minute

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and now that's tough it's very tricky

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and many students are able to do the

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first task of comparing two of the

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pictures

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but then they run out of time before

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they even start answering the questions

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so you have to be very conscious of the

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the one minute limit in that task

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and keep moving very quickly and

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speaking quickly and thinking quickly

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it's very difficult but with practice

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you can do it so yeah practice speaking

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within one minute doing everything

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within one minute every time you

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practice that part of the exam do it

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against the clock

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another very common mistake and number

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two today is finishing the task too

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early

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so this is really the opposite to the

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mistake of number one

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and it's very difficult to time your

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answers to perfection where you finish

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on the dot of the one minute in the c1

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advanced or the two minutes of the c2

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proficiency

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long term it's very difficult it's

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almost impossible to time your answer to

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perfection

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so often people finish too early which

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in many ways is worse than

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not completing the task in in the time

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limit

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because if you finish too early then

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you're not taking advantage of the time

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that you are given it's your time

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to

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to take advantage of it to take the

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opportunity to impress the examiners and

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give the examiners content you know that

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examiner that sits behind the

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interlocutor who's sitting there with a

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pen and taking notes that's the assessor

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and they're just listening um for

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the content that you are giving them and

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if you don't give them content to mark

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then it's going to be very difficult to

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get a good score

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apart from that if you finish early the

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interlocutor is just going to sit and

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wait for you to continue until the time

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is up because again it's your time they

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don't want to stop before you've taken

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advantage of your time so that's going

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to be a very awkward silence for however

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many seconds it is

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so i always recommend that you keep

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talking until the interlocutor

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interrupts you

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it's fine if it is no problem if the

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interlocutor interrupts you as long as

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you have completed the task that's

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that's the balance keep talking don't

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give irrelevant information but make

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sure you complete the task

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and mistake number three is not

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interacting well with your partner

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now in all of the exams the b2 first the

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c1 advanced and the c2 proficiency there

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will be collaborative tasks so in these

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tasks you have to

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do

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a task with a with your partner with one

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partner usually sometimes with two

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partners but it's very important to

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interact well with your partner

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so

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what do i mean by interact well well

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it's including your partner in the

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conversation or sometimes

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asserting yourself

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in the conversation

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because you don't know what type of

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partner you're going to get you could

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have a partner who is very talkative

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that dominates the the conversation or

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on the other hand it could be a partner

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who is very

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nervous or very shy and doesn't talk

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much so you have to then include them in

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the conversation

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one of the biggest mistakes that people

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make is

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treating the collaborative tasks like

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monologues so one partner will speak for

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let's say a minute and then the other

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partner will speak for a minute and then

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they will finish

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that's not the way it should be done it

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should be lots of um

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short interactions so

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one partner presenting their ideas and

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asking their the opinion of their

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partner and then back and forth back and

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forth and that can be difficult when

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you're nervous because you're already

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people tend to get a bit self-centered

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when they're nervous and they're

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thinking about what they are doing and

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how they are performing

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but you have to take your partner into

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consideration so that's in the

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collaborative task and in the

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discussions at the end of all of these

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exams you have a discussion we just have

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have a nice conversation hopefully

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um about the questions that the

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interlocutor asks you and it should be

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as i said a nice conversation and

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interaction not monologues that's very

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important

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by the way before we continue if you're

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feeling a little bit lost with your exam

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preparation and you need some tips and

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advice and feedback from a real life

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teacher

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then why not join my exam academy

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there you will have workshops with me

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through zoom live workshops

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and also i'll be sharing extra content

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and you can join an exclusive telegram

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group where you'll meet lots of other

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like-minded students going through the

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same process

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check out my patreon

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page in the description and see if it

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looks interesting for you and hopefully

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see you there and tip number four is not

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using the right vocabulary this is a

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very common mistake that unprepared

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people make especially in the part of

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the speaking paper where you need to

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speculate often it's comparing and

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speculating

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again in all three of the exams the b2

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first the c1 advanced and the c2

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proficiency

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there will be some speculation because

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when you're looking at the pictures in

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particular

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you you don't really know exactly what

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you are looking at sometimes

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usually you have to speculate about what

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is happening in the pictures so you have

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to use speculative vocabulary

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also sometimes you need to use

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comparative vocabulary

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so you're comparing

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different pictures and speculating about

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what might be happening in the pictures

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and as i said people who are not

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prepared for the exams don't really

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understand that and they don't use the

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appropriate vocabulary and the examiners

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are listening out for that vocabulary

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so

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speculative vocabulary as i've said in

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many of my previous videos

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it might be it looks like it seems

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it could be it must be they must be they

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look like that type of thing go back and

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check out my other videos for more

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speculative vocabulary but

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as i said it's a big mistake that people

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make that they're not using the type of

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vocabulary that the examiners are

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looking for

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in the speaking paper and finally

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mistake number five is waffle

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no not that waffle to waffle is to speak

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for a long time without giving any

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useful information

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or just speaking about irrelevant things

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in general and this is a big problem in

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the exam because you have to do the task

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that you are set

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and again when people are nervous which

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you inevitably will be in the exam

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students often

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focus on

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the grammar they're using and the

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vocabulary which is which is good but at

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the same time you have to make sure

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the answers you are giving are relevant

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to the task you have been set

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so don't start waffling about something

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that is irrelevant or useless if you are

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asked a specific question only answer

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that question nothing extra this can

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often happen in the discussion part at

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the end of the exam the last part of the

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speaking paper because there is no time

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limit candidates often feel freer to

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just waffle basically to go

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start talking about things which without

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really answering the question but even

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in the discussion it's very important to

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only answer the question nothing else so

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do you make any of those mistakes let me

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know in the comments

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hopefully you'll be able to eradicate

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them now through your preparation

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process so you don't make them in the

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exam itself

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okay i hope you found this video useful

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and i'll see you very soon for another

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one take care bye