IGCSE English 0500: Closing an Individual Talk Deliberately

A candidate is finishing planning a talk about learning to play chess from their grandfather over one winter. The talk opens with this line:

"The first time my grandfather set up the chessboard, I thought it would take an afternoon to learn, three winters later, I still haven't beaten him once."

The body of the talk describes what happened across those three winters. The candidate has not yet planned how to end the talk.

(a) Write a closing sentence for this talk that deliberately signals the talk is ending, rather than trailing off, and that connects back to the opening line above. [3]

(b) Explain, in your own words, why simply stopping after describing the most recent chess game (for example, ending with "...and that was the last time we played before winter ended") would be a weaker closing than the one you wrote in part (a). [2]

Assessment focus

This question tests the deliberate closing of an individual talk: ending with a sentence that clearly signals the talk is finished and gives the audience a sense of resolution, rather than simply stopping after the last piece of narrated content. A strong closing often echoes the opening, creating a “bookend” structure that shows the talk was planned as a whole.

Model closing sentence (part a)

“I still haven’t won a single game against my grandfather, but three winters in, I’ve stopped minding, because it turns out the losing was never really the point.”

This closing clearly signals an ending through its reflective, summing-up tone, and it deliberately echoes the opening’s detail about not having beaten him, giving the talk a sense of coming full circle rather than simply stopping.

Why the alternative ending is weaker (part b)

Ending with “…and that was the last time we played before winter ended” only closes the most recent event being described. It tells the audience the winter’s games have finished, not that the talk itself has reached a deliberate conclusion. It also makes no connection back to the opening line, so the talk loses the sense of shape and reflection that a bookended closing provides, and instead sounds as though it has simply run out of things to say.

Why this works

A deliberate closing does two jobs a “trailing off” ending cannot: it gives the audience a clear, confident signal that the talk has finished, and it offers a moment of reflection that connects the ending back to where the talk began. Echoing the opening image or phrase, rather than just stopping after the last event, is what turns a list of things that happened into a talk with a shape.

Common pitfalls specific to this task

Writing a closing sentence that adds brand-new information not developed anywhere in the body of the talk.
Producing a closing so long it starts summarising every point made, rather than a single deliberate sentence.
In part (b), focusing only on the alternative ending being “boring” rather than identifying the specific structural weakness of failing to signal an ending or connect back to the opening.