Think on Your Feet

Think on Your Feet

You have delivered your presentation, and you are not finished. The audience now asks **questions**, and how you handle them is marked too, under **AO8**. AO8 rewards how well you **listen and respond**, adapting your spoken language to each question as it comes. Two things matter most: • **Genuine engagement with the actual question**, not a rehearsed chunk of your talk replayed at somebody who asked something else. • **Spoken Standard English**, held together even though you are improvising. This is the unscripted part, which is why it frightens people. A few habits make it far less frightening than it looks.

What is being marked?

A candidate answers three questions after their talk. Which of these would AO8 reward most?

• Answering each question as it was actually asked, even when it goes beyond what the talk covered
• Steering every question back to the strongest section of the presentation
• Speaking for as long as possible on each one, to show how much was prepared
• Using the most complicated vocabulary available at every opportunity

A calm routine

When a question arrives, run this quietly in your head. It takes about two seconds and it works. • **Listen to the whole question.** Do not start composing an answer while they are still speaking, because you will answer the question you expected rather than the one you got. • **Buy a beat gracefully.** "That is a good question, let me think for a moment" is a sentence. "Um, er..." is a noise. Both take the same two seconds; only one of them sounds composed. • **Answer the actual question**, directly and honestly, including the parts you cannot answer. • **Stay in Standard English**, calm and courteous, whatever the question was like. The order matters. Almost every bad answer comes from skipping the first step.

Rank the replies

You have argued that screen time before bed harms sleep. Someone asks: "What about people who read on a screen BECAUSE it helps them sleep?" Put these four replies in order, from WEAKEST to STRONGEST.

• A: "Yeah, dunno really, it's like, everyone's different innit."
• B: "That wasn't really what my talk was about, so I couldn't say."
• C: "That is a good question. The research I looked at was about screens before bed generally, so I would expect the same effect."
• D: "That is a fair point, and I am not certain. What I found was that the blue light matters more than the activity, so I would expect reading on a screen to behave like scrolling on one. I would want to check whether a paper book is different."

Handle the question

You have just finished. A hand goes up near the back. Work through your response.

• They ask something, but the room is noisy and you only caught the second half. What is the best first move?
• Now you have it, and it is asking about something your talk did not cover. What do you do?
• It is a two-part question and you can feel yourself losing the second half already. What helps?
• You are nervous, and you can hear "like" and "basically" creeping into your sentences. What now?

Hear the slip

This is a transcript of a candidate answering a question. Tap the sentence that breaks spoken Standard English.

• Thank you, that is a good question.
• The main thing I found was that screens before bed delay the point at which people fall asleep.
• It was like, basically, loads of studies said it innit.
• So I would recommend leaving the phone in another room.

The two hard questions

Two kinds of question make people panic, and they need opposite instincts. Knowing which one you are facing is most of the work:

When you do not know

Someone asks a question you genuinely cannot answer. Which reply scores best?

• "I am not certain about that one. What I do know is that the studies I read only covered teenagers, so I would be cautious about applying it to adults."
• "I don't know."
• "Yes, definitely, studies show it affects about forty per cent of people."
• "That is basically what I said in my talk, so I will leave it there."

Under attack

An audience member says, sharply: "You only looked at one age group, so your conclusion is worthless." Which reply is strongest?

• "That is a fair challenge. My evidence was about teenagers, so you are right that I cannot speak for everyone. Within that group the pattern was consistent, and that is what I would still stand by."
• "Well, you clearly were not listening, because I covered that."
• "Yes, okay, you are probably right, I will drop that bit."
• "Anyway. Next question?"

Spoken Standard English

AO8 asks for Standard English while you improvise, which is harder than it sounds and narrower than most people think:

Rewrite the reply

Take the sentence that slipped: "It was like, basically, loads of studies said it innit." Keep the content, drop the fillers, and it becomes: "_____ studies found the same result, _____ I could not say exactly how many. _____ is that the effect was _____ across all of them."

What each phrase buys you

Write the reply

Exam practice. An audience member says, quite sharply: "You only looked at one age group, so your conclusion is worthless." Write the reply you would actually give, in about 50 words. Include:

• an acknowledgement of their point BEFORE you answer it
• what your evidence does and does not cover
• a reason for the part of your argument you still stand by

Going for Distinction

The Spoken Language endorsement marks how you _____ and respond to questions, not only how you present. Answer the question you were actually _____, rather than replaying the strongest part of your talk. When you do not know, say so and _____ from what you do know. Keep spoken _____ English throughout, however unscripted the moment: composure under a hard question is what a Distinction sounds like.