Impromptu Speaking Topics: 50 Prompts and a Method That Works

An impromptu speech is one you give with little or no preparation: someone hands you a question and you answer it out loud, usually within a minute. The skill is real and it improves with repetition, but repetition needs material. Below are 50 prompts in five groups, a way to get through the 30 seconds before you start talking, and a plan for working through the list over a month.

If you want the three answer structures explained in more detail, they are in our guide to thinking on your feet. This page assumes you have read that or are happy to learn them as you go. Table Topics is the name Toastmasters clubs give to this kind of exercise, so everything here works for it too, and there is more on that at Table Topics practice.

How to use the list

1. Pick at random. Look at the seconds on your phone's clock and use that number to choose a prompt. If you pick the ones you like, you are practising the questions you were already good at.
2. Do the ones you dread. The prompt that makes your stomach drop is the one worth doing twice.
3. Use a timer and say it out loud. Thinking an answer is not practice. Moving your mouth is.
4. Record it. Voice memos are enough. You will not hear most of what you do until you play it back.

The 50 prompts

Each group lists which answer structure fits it best. They are suggestions, not rules. If a prompt in one group reminds you of a story, tell the story.

Opinions (point, reason, example, point)

1. Should everyone have to learn to cook before they leave home?
2. Is it better to be early or to be exactly on time?
3. Should schools start later in the morning?
4. Is working from home better for the people who do it, or for the companies they work for?
5. Are group projects a good way to learn?
6. Should tipping be replaced with higher wages?
7. Is it ever right to read the last page of a book first?
8. Do we spend too much time on our phones, or is that just something people say?
9. Should cities keep cars out of their centres?
10. Is a small circle of close friends better than a big group of acquaintances?

Stories (one story: where, what happened, what changed)

11. Tell us about a time you were completely lost, in a place or in a task.
12. Describe the best meal you have ever eaten and who you were with.
13. Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something important.
14. What is the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?
15. Tell us about the first time you were really good at something.
16. Describe a time something went wrong and turned out better than the plan.
17. Tell us about a teacher, coach or boss who changed how you work.
18. Describe a place you went back to as an adult that felt smaller, or bigger, than you remembered.
19. Tell us about the worst advice you ever followed.
20. Describe a time you had to do something you were afraid of.

Explain (past, present, future, or what it is, why it matters, how it works)

21. Explain how to make your favourite meal to someone who has never cooked.
22. Explain what you do for work or study to a ten year old.
23. Explain how to be a good houseguest.
24. Teach us one skill you can explain in 60 seconds.
25. Explain what makes a good first impression.
26. Describe how your hometown has changed over the last ten years and where it is heading.
27. Explain the rules of a sport or game to someone who has never played it.
28. Explain how to choose a good restaurant in a city you have never visited.
29. What is the difference between being busy and being productive?
30. Describe how you would plan a one day trip for a visitor to your city.

Persuade (problem, solution, benefit)

31. Convince us to take up your favourite hobby.
32. Pitch a new public holiday and tell us why it deserves a day off.
33. Persuade your team to try a four day week for one month.
34. Convince a friend to read a book you love, in under a minute.
35. Pitch a change to your workplace or school that would cost nothing.
36. Sell us an everyday object as if it were the most important invention of the century.
37. Persuade someone to learn a second language.
38. Politely persuade a neighbour to turn their music down.
39. Make the case for walking to work or school.
40. Argue for one new rule that every meeting should follow.

Work and interviews (30 to 60 seconds, answer first)

41. Tell us about yourself, in 45 seconds.
42. Why should we hire you for a role you have not done before?
43. What is a skill you want to build this year, and how will you do it?
44. Describe a time you disagreed with someone at work and what you did.
45. What would you do in your first week in a new job?
46. Tell us about a mistake you made and what changed afterwards.
47. How do you decide what to do first when everything feels urgent?
48. Describe the best team you have been part of. What made it work?
49. Give us a status update on a project that is behind schedule.
50. Introduce a colleague to a room of people who have never met them, in 30 seconds.

Prompts 44 and 46 are behavioural interview questions, so they answer best with the STAR method. We cover it, with worked examples, in the STAR method guide, and there is a longer set of job interview questions on the interview practice page.

What to do in the 30 seconds before you speak

Most people use their prep time to try to think of everything they could say. That is how you end up with nothing to start with. Use it to decide three things and nothing else:

1. Your opener. One sentence that answers the question. For the question "Should schools start later?", it might be "Yes, for teenagers at least."
2. One example. A single thing from your own life or something you have seen. Not three.
3. Your last sentence. Decide how you will end before you begin. Starting is easier than finishing when you are making it up, and the ending is where most impromptu answers fall apart into "so yeah" or "that's about it".

Then speak. You will think of other things halfway through. Leave most of them out. A short answer with a clear start and finish sounds better than a long one that wanders.

Match the structure to the prompt

You do not have to pick a structure from scratch each time. The group a prompt belongs to tells you which one to reach for:

• Opinions: say your point, give the reason, give an example, say the point again. It gives you an ending built in.
• Stories: tell one story. Where you were, what happened, what changed. Skip the lesson if it does not come naturally.
• Explain: past, present, future works for anything that changes over time. For a how-to, go in the order you would actually do it.
• Persuade: name the problem first, then your fix, then what gets better. People agree with a problem faster than they agree with a solution.
• Work and interviews: answer in the first sentence, then support it. For "tell me about a time" questions, use STAR.

After you answer: five checks

Play the recording back once, all the way through, and ask five questions. Do not fix all of them at once. Pick the one that was worst and work on that in the next take.

1. Did my first sentence answer the question?
2. Did I give one example instead of three?
3. Did I know how I was going to end?
4. Did I finish inside the time, without racing through the last ten seconds?
5. How many fillers did I say? Tally "um", "uh", "like" and "you know" on a piece of paper, or with the filler word counter. If the count is high, stopping "um" and "uh" and stopping "like" each have their own drills.

Then answer the same prompt again with that one fix. The second take is where the improvement happens. If you move on after one go, you have heard the problem but not practised the solution.

A four week plan

• Week 1, 30 second answers. Three prompts a day, five minutes in total. Stick to the opinion and story groups. The only goal is to open with your point and finish on purpose.
• Week 2, 60 second answers. Two prompts a day, same prompt twice. Add the explain group.
• Week 3, 90 second answers. One prompt a day, taken twice. Add persuade and the work group. Longer answers need an example that has detail in it, so think of a specific name, place or number.
• Week 4, the ones you dreaded. Go back to any prompt that made you freeze in the first three weeks and answer it again. Compare the recordings.

If you freeze

It will happen, even with practice. The way out is to use the question itself as your opening: "I think the answer is yes, and here is why." You have started speaking, which is the hard part, and your brain has the length of that sentence to find the reason. If you really have nothing, say so in one sentence and move to a related thing you do know about. Silence for two seconds is survivable. Apologising for two minutes is not.

Practising with an app

A list, a timer and a voice memo are enough for everything on this page, and they cost nothing. Where an app helps is the scoring and the record. RankedSpeak, the iPhone app we make, gives you one prompt a day, the same for everyone. You see the topic first and the question stays hidden until you tap Reveal, then a prep clock starts, like a real Table Topic. You answer for 30, 45, 60 or 90 seconds depending on the prompt, and a few seconds later you get a score out of 10 for clarity, flow, structure, substance and delivery, with your pace, pauses and filler words measured from a word by word transcript. The report leads with one thing to fix, and you can try the same prompt again.

The daily prompt is free, with its score. Custom prompts, which let you type in any question from the list above, are part of Pro. Ranked duels match you with a real player who answered the same prompt. They are not live, so a result can take a while. Feedback comes back as written text. Nothing speaks to you.

An app does not replace a room. If you can get a turn at a club or a meeting, take it, and use the daily practice so that the turn is not the first time you have answered a question you did not see coming.