Presentation and Conversation Skills: Question 4
Syllabus SL3, SL5
In the follow-up conversation after an individual talk arguing that the school should introduce a peer-mentoring scheme pairing older and younger students, the examiner asks:
"What would you say to a student who doesn't want to be paired with someone they've never met?"
Which response best demonstrates active listening and effective conversation skills? [1]
Show worked solution Hide worked solution
Worked solution
Assessment focus
This question tests whether a candidate can distinguish a response that genuinely engages with the specific wording of a question from responses that sound fluent or confident but fail to actually address what was asked, the core distinction between active listening and reciting prepared material in the follow-up conversation.
Why B is correct
Option B opens by acknowledging that the concern is real (“that’s a genuine concern”), then answers the exact worry raised, being paired with someone unfamiliar, with a specific, workable proposal: an opt-in taster session before any pairing is fixed. This shows the candidate has listened to the precise objection and developed a reasoned, concrete response to it.
Why the distractors are wrong
- A repeats a general benefit from the prepared talk (confidence) without addressing the specific worry about being paired with a stranger, a classic case of answering a different, easier question.
- C dismisses the concern with no reasoning or evidence, which fails to engage with the question at all.
- D evades the question entirely by claiming the talk was about something else, rather than attempting to answer what was actually asked.
Mark scheme
- 1 mark for selecting B.
- 0 marks for any other option. No partial credit, since this is a discrete single-answer selection question.