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Conversation Skills for the KET Exam

Conversation skills in A2 Key include transactional dialogues (making requests, asking prices, giving directions), interactive turn-taking, and appropriate responses to questions. These skills are tested in both the speaking exam and the listening section.

Locale-specific study guides

Pass-rate data, regulatory context, and study tips for Conversation Skills all change by candidate locale. Pick your context:

Common failure modes

These are the patterns that cause most candidates to lose marks on this topic. Recognising them in advance is half the work.

!Not using standard conversation openers: "Excuse me...", "Could you...?", "I'd like..."
!Giving answers that do not relate to the question asked
!Failing to ask for clarification when not understanding — instead guessing incorrectly

Study tips

1Memorize the standard A2 conversation patterns: shopping (How much is it?), directions (Turn left, go straight), making requests (Can I have...? Could you help...?).
2Practice with a partner: role-play buying tickets, asking for information, and making arrangements.
3Learn the repair strategies: "Sorry, can you repeat that?" "What does ... mean?" "I'm not sure, but..."

Sample KET Conversation Skills questions

These sample items mirror the format and difficulty of real KET questions. Practice with thousands more on the free Koydo question bank.

1
You are in a shop and want to know the price of a jacket. You say:
- A"Jacket money?"
- B"How much is this jacket, please?"Correct
- C"Tell me the cost of the jacket."
- D"I want jacket price."
Why this answer?
"How much is this jacket, please?" is the standard polite A2 transactional question for asking about price. Options A and D are not grammatically correct. Option C is grammatically possible but unnatural — "tell me" is a command, not a polite request.

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