Describe a change you would like to see in the way people work.
A forward-looking abstract card that naturally produces conditionals and speculation. The fourth bullet is unusual and genuinely hard — it asks you to explain the obstacle, not just the benefit.
The task card
Describe a change you would like to see in the way people work.
You should say:
- what the change is
- who it would affect
- what problem it would solve
and explain why you think it has not happened already.
How long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Pick one change, not a manifesto. A four-day week, no meetings before ten, no emails after seven, hiring without CVs, mandatory handover documents. One change lets you go deep; three changes make you shallow.
The third bullet asks for the problem it solves, so name the problem first in your notes and design the change backwards from it. Candidates who start from the solution end up saying 'it would make people happier', which is unarguable and therefore uninteresting.
The fourth bullet — why it has not happened — is where a strong candidate separates themselves, because it forces you to argue against your own position for a moment. Cost, habit, the difficulty of measuring output, managers who are judged on visible activity. Conceding a real obstacle and then answering it is the single most band-raising move available on abstract cards.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
One change, sharply defined
- No meeting without a written purpose and a decision it must reach
- A four-day week, or core hours with the rest flexible
- No emails after seven, or hiring without CVs, or mandatory written handovers
Name the problem better than the solution
- Fragmentation rather than 'wasted time' — the day broken into pieces too small to think in
- Work that gets pushed into the evening and then relabelled as dedication
- Talent lost because of when and where the work must happen, not whether it can be done
Why it has not happened
- Habit, and the fact that a full calendar looks like productivity
- Some people would struggle to show what they contribute without it
- Cost, measurement difficulty, or a manager judged on visible activity
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- CHANGE — no meeting bookable without a written purpose + a decision
- WHO — office workers, ~400 at my old place; hits middle managers hardest
- PROBLEM — fragmentation: day in 11 pieces, real work pushed to the evening
- WHY NOT — habit + meetings are how some managers show they're managing
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The change I'd like is a hard rule that no meeting can be booked without a written purpose and a decision it's supposed to reach. That's it. If you can't write one sentence saying what the meeting decides, you can't book it. It would affect anyone who works in an office, which in my old company was about four hundred people, but it would land hardest on middle managers, because they book most of the meetings and they're also the ones drowning in them. The problem it solves isn't really time, although the time is bad enough. It's fragmentation. My working day used to be broken into eleven pieces by meetings, and none of those pieces was long enough to do anything difficult in. So the actual thinking got pushed to the evening, which is how you end up with people answering emails at eleven at night and calling it dedication. The meetings weren't the work. They were what stopped the work. Why has it not happened? Partly habit — meetings are deeply ingrained, and a calendar full of them looks like productivity even when it's the opposite. But I think the honest answer is that meetings are how a lot of managers demonstrate that they're managing. If you take them away, presenteeism has nowhere to go, and some people would genuinely struggle to show what they contribute. That's uncomfortable, and it's why the change would need to come from the top rather than from anyone in the room.
Why this works: One change, argued precisely, with the problem defined more sharply than the solution — fragmentation rather than the obvious 'wasted time'. The fourth bullet is answered with a genuinely awkward reason rather than a comfortable one, which is what makes the answer sound like a real opinion. The language is spoken throughout ('That is it', 'drowning in them') while still carrying precise vocabulary like presenteeism and fragmentation.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- the nine-to-five
Standard shorthand for conventional working hours.
- presenteeism
Being at work to be seen rather than to produce; precise and useful here.
- to strike a better balance
Collocation for work-life balance without the cliché.
- output rather than hours
The core contrast in almost every modern argument about work.
- it would take a leap of faith
For a change that requires trust before evidence.
- deeply ingrained
For habits that resist change; ideal for the fourth bullet.
- to trial something
Precise verb for testing a policy before adopting it.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- output rather than hours
- “The whole argument comes down to measuring output rather than hours.”
- presenteeism
- “A lot of it is simple presenteeism — being seen rather than being useful.”
- deeply ingrained
- “The habit is so deeply ingrained that people book meetings without deciding to.”
- to trial it
- “You could trial it for three months and measure what actually happened.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Working hours
Example questions
- 1How has the normal working day changed in your country in recent years?
- 2Do you think people work better with fixed hours or flexible ones?
- 3Would you say working from home suits every kind of job?
The future of work
Example questions
- 1What kinds of jobs do you think will disappear in the next twenty years?
- 2How might automation change what work means to people?
- 3Do you agree that older and younger workers want different things from a job?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Abstract and idea-led prompts.