The last task shows a deliberately strange image - an odd object, an impossible vehicle, a scene that should not exist - and asks you to describe it to someone who cannot see it, usually over the phone. You get 30 seconds to prepare and 60 seconds to speak.
Preparation
30 seconds
Speaking time
60 seconds
Format
Describe a strange image to someone who cannot see it
Describing an Unusual Situation closes the Speaking section, and it is the one task where nobody has the right word. The image is chosen precisely so that naming the thing is impossible, which means the answer has to work by comparison instead.
That is the point of it: the task samples paraphrase, your ability to keep saying something useful about a thing you cannot name. It is also the eighth task of a section that runs roughly 15 to 20 minutes, so it arrives when concentration is at its lowest.
Structure
Thirty seconds of preparation with the image on screen.
Sixty seconds of recorded speech.
One unusual image and a named listener who cannot see it.
The final task of the eight, recorded in one take like all the others.
What to expect
The image is unfamiliar by design rather than difficult by vocabulary. Everything in it can be described with ordinary words as long as you compare rather than name.
An object built from parts that do not belong together.
A vehicle or machine with no obvious purpose.
A sculpture, display, or building with a strange shape.
An ordinary scene with one element that is clearly wrong.
Suggested steps and timing
Spend the first 10 seconds of preparation deciding what the thing most resembles, because that comparison is your opening sentence. Use the next 20 to choose four features you can genuinely describe - size, shape, colour, material, or the parts you can name - rather than searching for a word that does not exist.
Then speak: about 10 seconds to set the phone-call frame and give your overall impression, 25 working through the object part by part, 15 guessing at what it might be for, and the last 10 on a reaction that closes the call. The guess at its purpose is the reliable filler when the description runs short.
Key strategies
Compare instead of naming: "it looks like a bicycle made of chairs", "imagine a lamp, but the size of a door".
Give size in everyday terms - about as tall as a person, roughly the size of a suitcase.
Hedge freely. "It seems to be" and "I think it might be" are accurate here, not evasive.
Hold the phone-call frame. "You won’t believe what I’m looking at" licenses natural reaction language and keeps the listener present.
Common pitfalls
Freezing on a missing word instead of describing around it.
Saying the image is strange several times without ever saying how.
Dropping the listener and narrating to nobody in particular.
Treating it as Task 3 and describing an ordinary scene, which misses what the task is sampling.
Final advice
Practise this one first in a study session rather than last, because it is the task most damaged by fatigue and the one most candidates rehearse least. Take strange photographs, set a minute, and force yourself never to pause for a noun: one comparison, then detail, then a guess at what it is for. Fluent paraphrase around a missing word is a trainable habit, and it is exactly what this task exists to hear.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about Speaking Task 8.
You are not supposed to - the image is chosen so that nobody does. Describe by comparison and function instead: "it’s shaped like a giant spoon", "it seems to be used for carrying water". Fluent paraphrase around a missing word is precisely the skill being sampled.
Use the same spatial order as Task 3: one overall impression ("It looks like a bicycle made of chairs"), then the main object part by part - size, colour, material, position - then anything happening around it. Order is what keeps a weird image describable.
The prompt names a listener, often a friend on the phone. Keep the phone-call frame: "You won’t believe what I’m looking at…". It licenses an informal register and reaction language ("it’s honestly the strangest thing I’ve ever seen"), which sounds like natural fluency.
Both give 30 seconds to prepare and 60 to speak, and both describe an image to someone who cannot see it. Task 3 shows an ordinary scene you can name in normal vocabulary; Task 8 shows something unnameable on purpose, so comparison replaces naming and hedging becomes correct rather than vague.
Move down the ladder: what it looks like, what it is made of, what it might be for, what you would do if you saw it in the street. Speculating about the purpose and reacting to the object both count as describing it, and together they cover the last 20 seconds.
It matters for stamina. By the eighth task of a 15-to-20-minute section, most candidates are tired and rushing, which is when paraphrase deserts people first. Practising Task 8 at the start of a study session, when you are fresh, is the wrong order for the test but the right order for learning it.