Picture-based task
A picture and five questions: what it shows, then the topic around it, in the past, the present and the future.
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Picture-based task, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Know how the picture-based task works
The second speaking task is worth 24 marks: 16 for communication and content and 8 for linguistic knowledge and accuracy. It lasts two and a half to three minutes at Foundation and three to three and a half at Higher. You see a picture and five bullets in Gujarati, and the teacher asks five questions.
Describe the picture for the first question
Say who is there, where they are and what they are doing: ચિત્રમાં એક પરિવાર છે, તેઓ બગીચામાં છે, બાળકો રમી રહ્યાં છે. Use places in the picture: ડાબી બાજુ, જમણી બાજુ, વચ્ચે, પાછળ.
Go beyond the picture for the other four
Questions two to five are on the picture's topic and ask for your experience and views. At Higher the fifth bullet is a !, a question you have not seen.
Use the past, the present and the future
The task requires all three at both tiers. Look at the bullets for a past one (ગયા વર્ષે) and a future one (આવતા ઉનાળામાં), and plan a sentence in each.
Give opinions and reasons
મારા મતે, મને લાગે છે કે and કારણ કે turn a short answer into a developed one: મને લાગે છે કે રમતગમત મહત્ત્વની છે, કારણ કે તેનાથી તંદુરસ્તી સારી રહે છે.
Ask for a question again if you need to
You may ask for a question to be repeated: માફ કરજો, ફરીથી કહેશો? Register is not marked in this task, so તમે or તું is fine.
Picture-based task key terms
The words the specification and the mark schemes use, each defined the way an examiner wants it.
- Picture-based task
- The second speaking task: a picture, five bullets and five questions on one topic.
- Developed answer
- An answer with more than the bare fact: a detail, an example, an opinion or a reason.
- Justification
- The reason for an opinion, usually after કારણ કે.
- Time frames
- Past, present and future, which this task requires at both tiers.
- Linguistic knowledge and accuracy
- The grid that marks your range of vocabulary and grammar and how accurate it is.
Common mistakes in Picture-based task
The slips that cost marks year after year, and what to do instead.
Listing objects in the picture one word at a time.
Make sentences about people and actions: એક છોકરો ફૂટબૉલ રમી રહ્યો છે.
Answering every question in the present.
Plan at least one past and one future answer: ગયા વર્ષે મેં ..., આવતા વર્ષે હું ....
Stopping after a one-word answer.
Add a reason or an example each time, with કારણ કે or ઉદાહરણ તરીકે.