Examiner Comments on Candidate Band 8 This candidate speaks very fluently and is able to give long, complex and very detailed responses without any loss of coherence, repetition or language searches. She uses a wide range of discourse markers naturally and precisely. Her range of vocabulary allows a high degree of precision and flexibility with plenty of examples of stylistically appropriate language. Only occasional inaccuracies or slight inappropriacies (Competition is quite big) restrict her rating. She uses a wide range of complex structures with the majority of sentences being error-free. However, there are examples of inappropriate choice of tense and other occasional, non-systematic errors. Candidate J is easy to understand throughout the test, in spite of her accent. Although there are occasional mispronunciations of individual phonemes, these have minimal effect on communication. She is able to use a wide range of features, such as intonation and contrastive stress, to convey meaning. This candidate's high overall fluency and wide range of features with only occasional examples of inappropriate usage make her a strong example of a Band 8 candidate.