Describe a team project in which the members disagreed.
A card about working with others towards one result — a university assignment, a product launch, a charity event, a short film — and about the moment the group did not agree. The disagreement is the story; how it ended is the verdict.
The task card
Describe a team project in which the members disagreed.
You should say:
- what the project was and who was in the team
- what your own role was
- what the disagreement was about
and explain how the team dealt with it.
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
Describe the project's goal and deadline in your first sentences, so the listener understands what success looked like. Then introduce the team through what each person did rather than their names alone: the one who organised everything, the quiet one who turned out to be brilliant.
Be specific about your own role, and connect it to the disagreement if you can: the evidence you gathered, the side you took, or the compromise you suggested. 'I wrote the report' is fine, but a role that shaped the argument is better.
For 'what the disagreement was about', make both positions sound reasonable. A clash between two sensible views is far more interesting — and more mature — than a story about one difficult person.
For the final bullet, explain how it ended and what that showed about the team: a vote, a trial, a deadline that forced a decision. The common mistake is saying 'we talked and solved it' without saying how.
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 project was a group assignment in my final year at university, three years ago. There were four of us, and the brief was to find a practical way to reduce food waste in the university canteen and present a tested plan to the catering manager at the end of term — about ten weeks' work. It was a good mix, though it didn't seem like it at first. Callum loved spreadsheets and set up a shared timetable on day one; Mei Lin was very quiet in meetings but brilliant with data; and Ade disappeared for nearly two weeks in the middle — his mother was in hospital — then came back and worked harder than any of us to catch up. My own role was the people side. I interviewed the kitchen staff and about forty students, and later I delivered the final presentation. The interviews mattered, because the staff told us something we hadn't spotted: most of the waste came from one standard plate size that was simply too big for lunch. That's where the trouble started. In week five, Mei Lin, who'd gone back through one week of waste figures and found they seemed to back the staff up, wanted to rebuild the whole plan around plate size. Callum argued, quite reasonably, that rebuilding the plan with five weeks left meant we might have nothing tested to present. It got fairly heated, and Ade and I ended up in the middle. In the end we settled it by testing instead of arguing. The canteen agreed to a one-week trial of a smaller plate, and waste dropped by about a fifth. Callum was the first to say he'd been wrong, which I respected. Honestly, the fact that the canteen still offers the smaller plate is more satisfying than the grade we got.
Why this works: Each team member is characterised by what they did — the spreadsheet on day one, the quiet data expert, the classmate who disappeared and then caught up — and the speaker's role is tied directly to the disagreement, because the interviews produced the idea the team argued about. Both sides of the clash sound reasonable, and the final bullet explains exactly how it was settled — a one-week trial — ending on a concrete, lasting result.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- to pull your weight
To do your fair share of the work; very natural for team cards.
- to play to people's strengths
To give each person the tasks they are best at.
- to clash
To disagree strongly; lets you describe a conflict briefly.
- to see both sides
To understand the reasons on each side of a disagreement.
- to meet someone halfway
To compromise by giving up part of what you wanted.
- to meet the deadline
Standard collocation for finishing on time.
- a shared goal
Something the whole team is working towards.
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.
- 1What makes some teams work well while others fail?
- 2Is disagreement inside a team useful or mostly harmful?
- 3Why do some people avoid disagreeing in meetings, even when they think something is wrong?
- 4Should schools assess students on group work, or only on individual work?
- 5How has remote working changed the way teams cooperate?
- 6Is competition or cooperation more useful in the workplace?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Activities and habits. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.