What are the OET warm-up questions?
They are more open questions aimed at making you comfortable and getting used to the interlocutor’s voice before. This part takes place at the beginning of your OET Speaking and generally lasts around 3 minutes.
Whether this warm-up part helps or hurts you depends on who is assigned to be your interlocutor. I would say that some are very friendly and it is very easy to interact with them, while others are always in such a bad mood that it makes you feel uneasy.
What are some common OET warm-up questions?
Where are you from?
What did you decide to become a Doctor, Nurse, Vet..?
What makes a good Doctor, Physiotherapist, Nurse…?
Why did you choose Medicine, Nursing…?
What are the current trends in your profession?
Why OET?
What do you find rewarding about this job?
How do you deal with a patient who is not satisfied with the current care?
Speak about yourself?
Speak about your hometown?
A way to not get nervous when we are asked any of these kinds of questions is to try to anticipate each and every single possible type of question and write responses for them.
Then you can record yourself answering those questions or ask somebody to practice with you.
It’s a simple strategy that will help you reduce your anxiety levels during the test.
Am I being evaluated during this part?
According to OET corp, they do not evaluate the OET warm-up Questions
What does OET corp say about the warm-up Questions?
They say that the aim of using such types of questions at the beginning of your OET Speaking questions is to make you more comfortable with your interlocutor and with the test structure itself. But we all know that in real life is not always what happens.
I am not saying here, it’s their fault. But what I am actually saying is that individuals tend to react differently when they are under pressure.
What really happens to Doctors during the OET warm-up Questions?
In general, physicians already panic during the warming up. As sometimes the questions people get are not what they are expecting.
In this part, you will be asked lots of random open questions, which although simple are tough for doctors to answer.
Most doctors all over the world are used to reading articles and speaking professionally in congresses. But when they are invited for a happy hour or a dinner, they feel uncomfortable as they struggle to speak about general subjects.
Having said that, an initial session on OET speaking which should calm them down, generally makes them sweat.
How to address this problem?
Practice, Practice, Practice
You need to practice speaking about general topics the most you can.
Try finding a speaking pal whom you can practice with and make sure you meet them in person or online often on a weekly basis until your test day comes. This will help you to improve your improvisation skills, fluency and boost your confidence to talk to people in English.
Relaxing Ritual for the test day
This is a small ritual, I have followed over the years every time I had to take a test and it always worked for me.
- Do not eat any dairy products for breakfast;
- Drink lots of water;
- Eat some apples;
- Avoid greasy food;
- Make sure you know the test location at least a day before;
- Do not study, work, or get stressed in the test’s eve;
- Meditate for 30 min on the test’s eve and test day;
Still need Help?
Don’t have anyone with whom you can speak English?
Find it hard to practice by yourself?
Not confident about intonation, pronunciation, and structure?
Send us an email or Whatsapp, and will be delighted to help you on your OET journey.
Learn how to overcome all your fears and weaknesses for the test from somebody who has over 20 years of experience in it.
Our OET experts are native tutors who took the test themselves and hold 20 years of experience in coaching Doctors for both OET and IELTS. Not to mention, they worked in the past for several years as examiners themselves.