The Trinity College B1 exam topic form, and how to prepare

Grade 5 study options compared

Option	Price	Free to use	Links
Official and free
Trinity GESE Grade 5 guide and activitiesOfficial guides and worksheets, PDFWritten for Grade 5 by Trinity. The candidate guide walks you through both parts of the exam and the language you need, and the activities sheet has self-study exercises.	Free	The Guide and Preparation for Candidates, the Preparation Activities worksheet, the Grades 4-6 guide for teachers and three classroom activities	Trinity College London: Study help (B1) ↗Trinity College London: Guide and Preparation for Candidates (PDF) ↗Trinity College London: Activities GESE Grade 5 (B1) ↗
Trinity Grade 5 exam videos and webinarsOfficial sample exams and video lessonsThe quickest way to see what the examiner does and how long each part feels. The webinars are on YouTube.	Free webinars, no fee listed for the videos	Videos of four candidates taking the Grade 5 exam, and webinar recordings on each part of GESE	Trinity College London: What happens on the day (B1) ↗Trinity College London: How to prepare for GESE webinars ↗
Trinity GESE specificationsOfficial exam specifications, PDFThe rulebook for the exam. Trinity points Grade 5 candidates to pages 20, 21, 26, 27 and 62 for the language skills they need.	No fee listed	The full specifications from January 2026, for every GESE grade	Trinity College London: GESE specifications (PDF) ↗
From Trinity, paid
Trinity GESE Study AppOfficial study app for iPhone and AndroidThe Grade 5 version has an exam prep book, a Get Started book with a quiz about the test day, and three Study Plus books. It records your voice so you can listen back. Your login lasts a year from first use, and it doesn’t work on a computer.	£15, added when you book or by phone	Nothing free	Trinity College London: GESE Study App ↗
In person
Trinity Approved Service Provider coursesPreparation courses at colleges and training providersTrinity’s map lists providers across the UK that run preparation courses for Trinity’s visa English tests, for example Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College near the Hammersmith centre. Trinity says it doesn’t accredit or endorse them, so check a course yourself before you pay.	Set by each provider	Not listed	Trinity College London: Preparation course providers ↗
General English practice
BBC Learning EnglishEnglish lessons, videos and podcastsGeneral English practice from the BBC. It isn’t built for Trinity’s exam, but its lessons cover speaking, listening and pronunciation.	No fee listed	Easy, medium and hard courses, a level test, pronunciation lessons and 6 Minute English	BBC Learning English ↗

Prices and ratings checked November 2026.

How do you fill in the Trinity College B1 exam topic form?

Trinity’s Grade 5 form has a space for the title of your topic, and you add five discussion points around it. You can use Trinity’s form or make your own. Trinity’s GESE specifications set these rules:

• Write five discussion points, each a short sentence or phrase.
• Make every point about a different side of your topic. The examiner picks them in no particular order, so general points such as ‘Introduction’ or ‘What I did next’ aren’t allowed.
• Someone else can write the form for you, because writing isn’t assessed, but the ideas must be yours.
• Prepare enough to talk for up to five minutes, but no more.

Trinity’s example form, on the topic ‘My career’, has points such as why the person chose their career and what they plan to do in the future. Bring the form with you. Without it the Topic phase can’t take place, and Trinity’s specifications say that if you haven’t prepared a topic at all, the phase is voided and you fail the whole exam.

Getting ready for the conversation

In the second part, the examiner chooses two of these Grade 5 subject areas and talks with you about them:

• Festivals
• Means of transport
• Special occasions, such as birthday celebrations
• Entertainment, such as cinema, television and clubs
• Music
• Recent personal experiences

You won’t know which two until the exam, so practise all six. The examiner is checking your English, not what you know about the subject. Ask at least one question during the conversation, and use the Grade 5 grammar and phrases listed on the guide page.

A simple study plan

1. Watch Trinity’s Grade 5 exam videos to see what the examiner does.
2. Read Trinity’s Guide and Preparation for Candidates for Grade 5, and try its activities.
3. Choose your topic, fill in the form and practise talking about each point out loud, without a script.
4. Practise short conversations on all six subject areas, asking questions as well as answering them.
5. A week or so before, check your booking email and your ID, and put the topic form somewhere you won’t forget it.