Impromptu Speech Topic Generator

Easy

• Is it better to arrive early or exactly on time?
• Should every home have a pet?
• Are paper books better than e-books?
• Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?
• Should weekends be three days long?
• Is it better to live in a city or in a small town?
• Are video calls better than phone calls?
• Should everyone learn to cook before leaving home?
• Is a handwritten note better than a text message?
• Are morning people more productive than night owls?

Medium

• Should schools replace homework with a longer school day?
• Is it fair to tip when the service was only average?
• Should social media have a minimum age of 16?
• Do open-plan offices help or hurt good work?
• Should public transport be free in big cities?
• Is a university degree still worth the cost?
• Should voting be compulsory?
• Are group projects a fair way to grade students?
• Should employers be allowed to contact staff after working hours?
• Is it better to rent a home or to own one?

Hard

• Should people be able to erase what they posted online as teenagers?
• Is it ever right to break a promise?
• Does a four-day working week benefit everyone, or only office workers?
• Should cities ban private cars from their centers?
• Is anonymous speech online worth the harm it makes possible?
• Should parents be able to see everything on their child's phone?
• Can an economy keep growing while protecting the environment?
• Should juries be replaced by professional judges?
• Do zoos do more good than harm?
• Should a country accept everyone who wants to move there for work?

Easy

• Tell us about the best meal you have ever eaten.
• Describe your first day at a new school or job.
• Talk about a teacher who changed how you think.
• Tell us about a trip that did not go to plan.
• Describe the place where you feel most at home.
• Talk about a hobby you picked up in the last few years.
• Tell us about a gift you still remember receiving.
• Describe a tradition your family keeps.
• Talk about the first thing you bought with money you had earned.
• Tell us about a time you laughed until it hurt.

Medium

• Describe a time you changed your mind about something important.
• Tell us about a mistake that taught you more than a success did.
• Talk about a time you had to ask for help.
• Describe a moment when a stranger was kind to you.
• Tell us about a risk you took that paid off.
• Talk about a skill that was much harder to learn than you expected.
• Describe a time you were completely out of your depth.
• Tell us about a piece of advice you ignored and later wished you had taken.
• Talk about a goal you gave up on, and why.
• Describe a day you would happily live again.

Hard

• Tell us about a time you had to deliver bad news.
• Describe a disagreement that ended a friendship, or nearly did.
• Talk about a belief you held at 18 that you no longer hold.
• Tell us about a time you stayed silent and regretted it.
• Describe the hardest decision you have made about your career or studies.
• Talk about a time you were wrong in front of other people.
• Tell us about the moment you realized you had grown up.
• Describe a failure you have never fully explained to anyone.
• Talk about someone you misjudged.
• Tell us about a time you had to choose between two people you cared about.

Easy

• If you could have dinner with any person, living or dead, who would it be?
• If you won a year of free travel, where would you go first?
• If you could master one musical instrument overnight, which would you choose?
• If you could live in any decade, which one would you pick?
• If you had to eat one cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• If every day had one extra hour, how would you spend it?
• If you could try any job for a single week, what would it be?
• If animals could talk, which one would you interview first?
• If you could redesign your home town, what would you change?
• If you could wake up fluent in a new language tomorrow, which one would it be?

Medium

• If you were given a million dollars that you had to give away, who would get it?
• If you could un-invent one thing, what would it be?
• If you ran your school or company for a month, which rule would you change first?
• If you could send a one-minute message to everyone on Earth, what would you say?
• If you had to teach a class tomorrow, what would the subject be?
• If you could learn the answer to one question about your future, would you ask it?
• If the internet went down for a month, how would your life change?
• If you could swap lives with someone for a day, who would it be and why?
• If you had to move abroad next month, where would you go and what would you take?
• If you could add one subject to every school timetable, what would it be?

Hard

• If people routinely lived to 150, how should work and retirement change?
• If you could read minds but never switch it off, would you accept?
• If a machine could do your job perfectly, what would you do with your time?
• If every phone could keep only three apps, which three should stay?
• If lying became physically impossible, would society be better or worse?
• If you could guarantee one outcome for the next generation, what would it be?
• If your country had to give up one public holiday, which should go?
• If you could see how many hours each decision would cost you, would you want to know?
• If every adult had to do a year of public service, what should it involve?
• If memories could be recorded and replayed, who should own them?

Easy

• Introduce yourself to a new team in one minute.
• Describe your ideal working day.
• What makes a meeting worth attending?
• Talk about the best manager or team lead you have had.
• What is one tool you could not do your job without?
• Describe a project you are proud of.
• What is the best piece of career advice you have received?
• Remote, office or hybrid: which works best for you?
• What would you tell someone starting their first job?
• Describe a colleague you learned a lot from.

Medium

• Give a two-minute update on a project that is running late.
• Convince your manager to give the team a training budget.
• Explain to a new hire how decisions really get made on your team.
• Your team missed a target. Open the meeting where you discuss it.
• Argue for or against keeping cameras on in every video meeting.
• Recommend one process your team should stop doing.
• Thank a colleague who is leaving after five years.
• Pitch an idea for improving how your team welcomes new people.
• Explain why a deadline has to move, without blaming anyone.
• Describe how you handle two urgent requests that arrive at once.

Hard

• Tell your team that a project they love has been canceled.
• Ask senior leadership for two more people on your team.
• Respond to a client who says your price is too high.
• Give feedback to a peer whose work is slowing everyone down.
• Defend a decision you made that turned out badly.
• Explain to non-specialists why a technical problem will take three months to fix.
• Disagree with your manager's plan in front of the team, respectfully.
• Announce a reorganization when you cannot yet share all the details.
• Answer the question: why should we promote you this year?
• Persuade two teams with competing priorities to share one budget.

Easy

• Explain how to make your favorite sandwich.
• Explain the rules of a sport you enjoy to someone who has never watched it.
• Explain how to get from your home to the nearest shop.
• Explain how to look after a houseplant.
• Explain what your job or course involves to a ten-year-old.
• Explain how to pack for a weekend away.
• Explain how to play a board game or card game you like.
• Explain how to make a good cup of tea or coffee.
• Explain how to choose a film that everyone in the room will enjoy.
• Explain how to ride a bicycle.

Medium

• Explain how a bank loan works.
• Explain why the seasons change.
• Explain how to prepare for a job interview.
• Explain what inflation is and why prices rise.
• Explain how a search engine decides what to show first.
• Explain how a vaccine prepares the body for an infection.
• Explain how to make a budget and stick to it.
• Explain how elections work in your country.
• Explain why airplanes stay in the air.
• Explain how to give feedback that someone can use.

Hard

• Explain compound interest without using any numbers.
• Explain how a message travels from one phone to another.
• Explain what a tax bracket is to someone who has never filed a tax return.
• Explain the difference between weather and climate.
• Explain how a court decides whether someone is guilty.
• Explain what makes an argument logically valid.
• Explain how an AI chatbot produces a sentence.
• Explain supply and demand using only examples from a school cafeteria.
• Explain why time zones exist and who decides them.
• Explain a concept from your field that most people get wrong.

Easy

• What is the best snack for a long journey?
• Cats or dogs: make your case.
• What is the most useful item in your kitchen?
• Describe your perfect lazy Sunday.
• Which song can you not help singing along to?
• What is the worst flavor of ice cream?
• Which fictional character would make the best roommate?
• What would your superhero name be, and why?
• What is the best thing about your least favorite season?
• Which food do you think is overrated?

Medium

• Sell us an umbrella on a sunny day.
• Give a weather forecast for your mood this week.
• Convince us that Monday is the best day of the week.
• Deliver a formal apology on behalf of your alarm clock.
• Review the last thing you ate as if you were a restaurant critic.
• Explain where socks go when they disappear in the wash.
• Announce the opening of a museum dedicated to something ordinary.
• Give a motivational speech to a houseplant that is struggling.
• Describe your commute as if it were a nature documentary.
• Make the case for a new public holiday of your own invention.

Hard

• Argue that the pineapple is the most important fruit in history.
• Give an acceptance speech for an award you have just invented.
• Narrate the last five minutes of your day as a sports commentator.
• Defend the person who talks during films.
• Pitch a film in which the hero is a parking attendant.
• Retell a famous story with every detail slightly wrong.
• Persuade us to move to a town that does not exist.
• Deliver a eulogy for a phone battery at one percent.
• Present the annual report of a household with one cat.
• Convince a room of adults to bring back afternoon naps.

Easy

• What is the best thing that happened to you this week?
• What is a small thing that always improves your day?
• What did you want to be when you were ten?
• What is your favorite way to spend an evening?
• Which season do you look forward to most?
• Which place would you recommend to someone visiting your town?
• What is the most recent thing that made you smile?
• Who would you like to thank today?
• What is one thing on your desk right now, and why is it there?
• Which meal reminds you of home?

Medium

• What have you changed about your routine this year?
• What does a good neighbor do?
• What is a rule you think more people should follow?
• When did you last do something for the first time?
• What is a compliment you still remember?
• What would you do with an unexpected free afternoon?
• Which book, film or song do you keep returning to?
• What is one thing you wish you had learned earlier?
• What makes you trust someone quickly?
• What does success look like for you this year?

Hard

• Which quality do you admire in others but find hard yourself?
• What would you like to be remembered for?
• What is a question you wish people asked you more often?
• When is it right to quit?
• What have you stopped apologizing for?
• What is the difference between being busy and being useful?
• What does courage look like in everyday life?
• What does your generation get wrong?
• What is worth being bad at?
• What do you owe the people who taught you?