Describe a person you know who is very good at their job.
A card about competence — a nurse, a mechanic, a teacher, a market trader. The best answers show the skill through one specific scene rather than listing qualities.
The task card
Describe a person you know who is very good at their job.
You should say:
- who they are and what they do
- how you know them
- what makes them good at it
and explain how you feel when you watch them work.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow 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 someone whose work you have actually watched, so you can describe one concrete moment: the electrician who found the fault everyone else missed, the teacher who calmed a chaotic class in two minutes.
Make the third point behavioural, not adjectival. Instead of 'she is patient and professional', describe what she does: she asks twice, writes nothing down, and still remembers every order.
The feeling question is where band 8 answers separate: name a real reaction — admiration, calm, mild envy, wanting to raise your own standard — and say why.
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.
Jobs you can watch being done
- A nurse, mechanic, barber, chef, teacher, market trader, bus driver
- Physical or visible competence is far easier to describe than office expertise
- If you choose an office job, you must find one specific observable moment
What competence actually looks like
- Speed with no hurry — the hands move fast and the person seems calm
- They anticipate: the tool is already in their hand before they need it
- They explain what they are doing to the person who needs to know and not to anyone else
One scene, described closely
- Choose thirty seconds of their working day and describe it in detail
- Include what they did not do — did not panic, did not check a manual, did not upsell
- How other people behave around them, which is often the clearest evidence
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.
- WHO — Marek, runs the bike shop two streets away
- KNOW — customer ~6 yrs, now chat properly
- GOOD — diagnoses by sound; explains, never upsells; calm
- WATCHING — like watching someone who has stopped thinking about it
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 person I'd describe is Marek, who runs a bicycle repair shop about two streets from my flat. It's a small place, two people, and it's always slightly too full of bikes. I know him as a customer, originally, going back about six years. It has drifted into something friendlier than that — we talk properly now — but I'm not a friend exactly, I'm a person who turns up with a broken bike three times a year. What makes him good at it's hard to put into one sentence, so let me describe one occasion. I brought a bike in with a noise I couldn't identify — an intermittent click, the sort of thing that stops the moment anyone else listens for it. He lifted the back wheel, spun the pedals twice, and said 'bottom bracket', and he was right. He hadn't touched it. He had listened to it for about four seconds. But the part I actually admire is what happened next, which is that he told me it was a twenty-minute job, charged me for twenty minutes, and didn't attempt to sell me anything else, even though he could clearly see the tyres were finished. He mentioned the tyres. He didn't push them. There's a real discipline in that. How do I feel watching him work? Slightly envious, honestly. There's a particular quality that people have when they have done something for twenty-five years — the hands are quick but the person is completely unhurried, and they have stopped narrating the task to themselves. Nothing in my own working life looks like that. I spend most of my day thinking about how to do things. He has arrived somewhere past that, and it's genuinely a pleasure to stand in that shop and watch it.
Why this works: Competence is shown through one closely observed scene — four seconds of listening, a correct diagnosis, a wheel spun twice — rather than through adjectives, which is exactly what person cards reward. The refusal to upsell is a second, quieter piece of evidence about character. The final bullet answers 'how you feel' with a specific and slightly uncomfortable emotion, envy, and defines what he is envious of, which is far more interesting than admiration.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- she makes it look effortless
The classic collocation for expertise; follow it with the evidence.
- years of accumulated know-how
More precise than 'a lot of experience'.
- calm under pressure
Behavioural, observable, believable.
- it raised my own standards
A strong way to answer 'how do you feel'.
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.
- he knows his trade inside out
- “He knows his trade inside out, and you can see it in about ten seconds.”
- to make it look easy
- “He makes it look easy, which is always the sign that it is not.”
- he takes it in his stride
- “Whatever comes through the door, he takes it in his stride.”
- there is no fuss about it
- “There is absolutely no fuss about it — he just gets on and does it.”
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.
Doing a job well
Example questions
- 1What makes someone good at their job?
- 2How do employers usually recognise good work?
- 3Do you think experience matters more than qualifications?
Skilled trades
Example questions
- 1Are practical trades respected in your country?
- 2Can you suggest why fewer young people take up skilled trades?
- 3Should governments do more to encourage vocational training?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: People and relationships. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.