What kinds of question come up in the O-Level Chinese 会话, and how do you extend each one?

Does SEAB publish a list of 会话 question types?

No. The K320 syllabus describes the 40 marks conversation in a single sentence and names no question types. SEAB's 2026 instructions to O-Level candidates add only that the conversation is "related to the theme of the video".

What are the five question types?

• 描述 (describe): what you saw in the clip. For example, 短片里发生了什么事？ Our wording. In the recalled O-Level record this type barely appears.
• 经历 (experience): something that happened to you. For example, 你有没有类似的经历？ Our wording. By our sorting, none of the 18 recalled O-Level wordings is an experience question; in our view an experience is most useful as the example an opinion answer needs.
• 看法 (opinion): your view on a statement or a question. Recalled from 2025: 有人认为做义工不应要求回报，你怎么看？ (Some people think volunteers should not ask for anything in return. What do you think?)
• 建议 (suggestion): what could be done, by you or by others. Recalled from 2025: 你认为我们要怎样做，才能让乐龄人士感受到我们的关心与爱护？ (What do you think we can do so that seniors feel our care?)
• 假设 (hypothetical): what you would feel or do in a situation. Recalled from 2025: 如果你是接受义工帮助的人，你会有什么感受？ (If you were the person receiving the volunteers' help, how would you feel?)

The recalled wordings are as candidates and tuition centres wrote them down after the exam. Our corpus treats recall as reliable on theme and approximate on exact wording, so read them as the shape of a question, not its text. The full record, with how many independent sources support each row, is on the recalled 会话 topics, with evidence tiers.

Which question types have actually been asked at O-Level?

Mostly 看法. Our corpus holds 18 recalled G3 Chinese 会话 question wordings: nine from 2019 (one source only), three from 2023 and six from 2025 (on themes two independent sources agree on). Sorting them by our own taxonomy, 15 ask for a view, one is a suggestion question, one is hypothetical, and one asks whether you would do what someone in the clip did, and why. None is a pure description question. That is our classification of a recalled record, not a count SEAB has published.

Two 2025 sittings were recalled as a run of three questions each, and in both the run goes from a personal response to the clip, to a suggestion or a reflection, to a view on a general statement. One of them, as recalled:

1. 你想像录像短片中的女生一样为乐龄人士主办活动吗？为什么？ (Would you organise activities for seniors like the girl in the clip? Why?)
2. 你认为我们要怎样做，才能让乐龄人士感受到我们的关心与爱护？ (What can we do so that seniors feel cared for?)
3. 要建立一个关爱乐龄人士的社会，每个人都需要做出努力。请谈谈你的看法。 (Building a society that cares for seniors needs everyone's effort. Give your view.)

Our inference: a student whose practice has mostly been describing what they saw in a clip has practised the type the O-Level record shows least.

What does 附录C reward, whatever the question type?

The same four things. The content criterion, 个人意见和内容的组织 (personal opinion and the organisation of content), is half of the 会话 mark, and its top band (等级 1, 16–20) is described in four lines. The middle band (等级 3, 6–10) is described in four matching lines, and the difference between them is the whole lesson.

Rich content against simple content; a view extended and illustrated against a view that stops; detailed against not detailed enough; talking without being led against talking only when led. None of those depends on the question type. The type only tells you where your answer begins.

How do you extend a 看法 (opinion) answer?

Our guidance: say where you stand in the first sentence, give the reason, then prove it with one real example. If the question is a statement (有人说……请谈谈你的看法), find its key word and answer that word, not a simpler version of the question. Then grant the part of the other side that is true before you say where it goes wrong. In our judgement, that last move is what separates an extended view from a repeated one.

Both answers, with their other turns and line-by-line notes against 附录C, are on a 等级 1 会话 answer beside a 等级 3 one.

How do you extend a 建议 (suggestion) answer?

Our guidance: give two or three suggestions, put them in an order, and say which one matters most and why. In our reading, a list of actions with no ranking is what the 等级 3 phrase 内容简单 might describe. The move that extends a suggestion answer is to go one step past the obvious idea: say why the first thing people suggest is not enough, and what would work better. Then tie one suggestion to something you have seen or done.

How do you extend a 假设 (hypothetical) answer?

Our guidance: answer as yourself, in the situation. Say what you would feel or do, then why, then bring it back to something real: a time you were in a similar position, or someone you know who was. A hypothetical question still asks for 个人意见; it is not an invitation to invent a story. If you have no real example, say what you think and give a reason rather than making one up.

What about 经历 and 描述 questions?

For an experience question, tell one specific incident: who, where, what happened, and what you made of it. One incident told with detail does more than three told in a line each. For a description question, which the recalled O-Level record barely contains, describe briefly and move on to what the scene means; the marks are for a view and its development, not an inventory of the clip.

What if a question does not fit any type?

Answer the question that was asked. The taxonomy is a starting point for practice, not a script for the exam, and a student who forces every question into a rehearsed shape risks answering a question nobody asked. Listen for the key word, state your view on it, and extend it. For the themes those questions have been about, see recalled O-Level 会话 topics; for how the whole oral is marked, the 附录C descriptors, band by band.