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CELPIP Speaking Task 6 (Difficult Situation): Both Options Are Bad — Pick One Anyway

Task 6 puts you in an awkward situation with two uncomfortable choices and asks you to tell someone what you have decided. Politeness is not the skill being tested. Choosing, and being understood, is.

What Task 6 actually asks

You are placed in an uncomfortable situation. Something has gone wrong, or two people want incompatible things, and both available options will disappoint somebody. You choose one, and you speak to the person affected.

It is the task people find hardest, and not because of the English.

The failure: being so polite that nothing is said

The instinct in an awkward moment is to soften. So the answer becomes:

"I'm so sorry about this situation. I really appreciate your understanding and I hope we can find a solution that works for everyone. I know this is difficult and I feel bad about it. Thank you so much for being patient."

Warm, courteous, and it does not contain a decision. The listener still does not know what is happening. And a marker cannot assess a choice that was never made:

A response giving insufficient information to assess scores 0 or 1.

Politeness is the wrapping, not the message. Wrap something.

The other failure: choosing without telling them why

The opposite error is blunt:

"I've cancelled your booking. Sorry."

There is a decision, but the person has been given nothing to accept it with. Task 6 is testing whether you can deliver bad news in a way that survives contact with a real human being.

The shape that works

  1. Say what has happened, briefly and plainly. One sentence.
  2. Say what you have decided. Not what you might do — what you have done or will do.
  3. Give the reason. Short. People accept a decision far more easily when they understand it.
  4. Offer what you can. Almost always there is something — a partial fix, an alternative, a timeline.
  5. Acknowledge the cost to them, once. Once is sincere. Four times is padding.

Notice that the apology is step five, not step one. Leading with sorry and never arriving at the decision is the commonest shape of a low answer.

A worked example

The prompt (original AlmiWorld practice prompt)

You manage a small community hall. A family booked it months ago for a wedding this Saturday. A pipe has burst and the main room will not be usable until next week. The only other space is the smaller side room, which holds forty people; their guest list is ninety. Call the family and tell them what you are going to do.

The response (spoken, about 60 seconds)

Hello Mr. Farah — I'm calling about Saturday, and I'm afraid I have bad news about the main hall.

A pipe burst on Tuesday night and the room's flooded. It won't be dry and safe until the middle of next week, so we cannot use it for the wedding.

Here's what I've done. I've held the side room for you for Saturday at no charge, and I've spoken to the church hall on Bellevue — they're free that afternoon and they hold a hundred and twenty. If you want it, I'll book it now and we'll pay the difference in the rate.

The side room is yours if you'd rather stay here, but I want to be straight with you: it takes forty people, and you have ninety. I don't think it works.

I'm sorry. You booked us in March and this is not the week for it to happen. Tell me which way you want to go and I'll make the calls today.

Why this works.

  • The bad news arrives in the second sentence, not the tenth.
  • A decision has already been taken. He held the side room and rang the church hall before calling. That is what a competent person does, and it shows without being announced.
  • The honest sentence is the strongest one. "It takes forty people, and you have ninety. I don't think it works." Refusing to pretend the bad option is fine is exactly the judgement being tested.
  • One apology, placed near the end, where it lands as sincerity rather than as throat-clearing.
  • It closes with a next step.

Two things worth knowing

You may invent everything. The burst pipe, the church hall, the rate difference — none of it is in the prompt. Task 6 rewards a person who solves the situation, and solving requires details the prompt never gave you. Make them up.

"I don't think it works" is not rudeness. Test-takers avoid direct sentences because they seem impolite in English. They are not. Clear beats soft, every time, and softness that hides the message is what actually offends.

Try one

[Try Task 6: Difficult Situation →] — one full task, marked, no card required.

Try Task 6: Difficult Situation

One full task, marked, no card required.

Related

Sources

Original material — never copied from Paragon or CELPIP publications.

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AlmiCELPIP is original practice material and is not affiliated with or endorsed by CELPIP, Paragon Testing Enterprises, or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). We never copy or reproduce real CELPIP test material. CLB figures are published program guidance that can change — always confirm the exact requirement you need with IRCC. Practice results are an estimate, not an official CELPIP result.