What is the most important thing a company can do for a new employee?
A strong Task 1 answer states the choice immediately, gives two supports or one support with an example, and lands its last word around forty seconds. Fifteen seconds of preparation is enough for the plan, not for the wording.
The prompt and the clock
What is the most important thing a company can do for a new employee?
15 seconds to prepare, up to 45 seconds to speak
A model answer at the right length
101 words — what 45 seconds actually holds.
Answer it yourself first
Record yours first. A memorised TOEFL answer is audible in the rhythm, and raters mark delivery, which is exactly what memorisation damages. Read this afterwards for the shape and the vocabulary.Give them one named person whose actual job is answering obvious questions, and say so out loud. New employees spend their first two months not knowing who to ask, and the cost of that is invisible because it looks like slowness rather than like a problem. The second thing is a small real task within the first two weeks. Nothing settles a new person faster than having finished something. What most companies do instead is three days of presentations that are forgotten immediately, followed by nothing at all, and then they wonder why the person is still tentative in month four.
The words that carry it
Each one links to how it is pronounced.
- invisible
four syllables with the stress on the second
- slowness
the abstract noun naming the hidden symptom
- settles
the exact verb for making somebody comfortable
- presentations
four syllables with the stress on the third
- immediately
five syllables with the stress on the second
- tentative
three syllables with the stress on the first
How to build the 45 seconds
- 1Name one measure in the first sentence.
- 2Explain the cost of not doing it.
- 3Add a second measure with a timescale.
- 4Contrast with what is usually done.
Sounds to watch
Straight answers
How long should this answer be?
Forty-five seconds, which is roughly 110 to 130 words at a natural pace. The model below is 101. If your version runs past fifty seconds the recording cuts off, and raters hear an answer that stops mid-sentence.
Does it matter which side I take?
No. Raters mark delivery, language use and topic development, never which opinion you chose. Pick one in the first second and spend the preparation time on two supports rather than on deciding.
What does sayit score here?
An estimate from fluency and pronunciation only — not an official band, and not a mark for vocabulary or grammar. The transcript is shown in full, so you can judge your own wording and development yourself.
What the score on your result means
An estimate from fluency and pronunciation only — not an official band, and not a mark for vocabulary or grammar.Drill it until the clock stops mattering
A free account keeps every take, so you can watch your pace settle and your filler count fall across a fortnight.