Should companies pay for the environmental damage they cause?
A strong Part 3 answer takes a position in the first clause, supports it with one reason and one concrete case, and then names where it stops being true. Around a minute.
The question, as the examiner gives it
Should companies pay for the environmental damage they cause?
no preparation, about 1 minute to speak
A band 7 to 8 answer
About 125 words at a natural pace — roughly what 60 seconds holds.
Answer it yourself first
Record your own answer first. A model you have read three times comes out with a flattened rhythm, and examiners are trained to hear exactly that. Read it afterwards for the vocabulary and the shape, not to memorise the sentences.In principle this is not even controversial. If a cost is produced by an activity and paid by somebody else, the price of that activity is wrong and every decision made on it is distorted. Making the producer pay simply corrects the price. The difficulty is entirely practical. Attribution is hard, damage often appears decades later, and companies restructure or disappear, so the liability evaporates. What I would support is provision in advance, money set aside before the activity, in the way that mining operations are sometimes required to fund restoration up front. The objection is that costs are passed to consumers, and that is true. But a product whose real price is visible is exactly what you want, because then people can choose knowingly.
The words that earn marks
Each one links to how it is pronounced.
- controversial
four syllables with the stress on the third
- distorted
the precise verb for a price being wrong
- attribution
four syllables with the stress on the third
- liability
five syllables with the stress on the third
- evaporates
vivid verb for a legal obligation disappearing
- provision
the financial sense of the noun
- restoration
four syllables with the stress on the third
How a strong answer is built
- 1Agree and state the economic principle plainly.
- 2Name the practical difficulties honestly.
- 3Propose a workable mechanism.
- 4Address the main objection and turn it round.
Sounds to watch
The ones this answer leans on most.
Straight answers
How long should my answer to “Should companies pay for the environmental damage they cause?” be?
About 60 seconds. Long enough for the answer plus a reason or an example, short enough that the examiner can get through the rest of the set.
Should I memorise the model answer?
No. Record your own version first, then read the model for the shape and the vocabulary. A memorised answer changes rhythm and pace noticeably, and examiners are trained to hear it — it usually costs more than the better wording gains.
Does sayit score this answer?
It scores what a microphone can observe: an estimate from fluency and pronunciation only — not an official band, and not a mark for vocabulary or grammar.
What the band on your result means
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