100 impromptu speech topics (and how to answer any of them)

An impromptu speech topic is a prompt you see seconds before you have to talk about it. The 100 below were written for this page and run from easy to hard: personal icebreakers first, then quick choices, opinions, objects, one-word topics, proverbs, work questions and creative challenges. Each group names the structure that suits it. If you remember only one, make it point, reason, example, point: say your answer, give one reason, prove it with one specific example, and say your answer again in new words. Every topic is short enough to read aloud or copy onto a slip of paper.

Easy topics for first-timers

Personal topics are the gentlest start because you are the only expert in the room. Use story, lesson, link: begin in the middle of the scene, say what it taught you, and connect it to the people listening. One story, told with a name and a place, is plenty.

1. The best thing you have ever eaten that cost less than five dollars.
2. A smell that takes you straight back to childhood.
3. The most useful object in your bag right now.
4. A skill you taught yourself from online videos.
5. The worst haircut of your life, and who was responsible.
6. A house rule from your childhood that you now secretly agree with.
7. The last time you laughed so hard you had to leave the room.
8. One place within ten miles of here you would show a visitor, and one you would steer them away from.
9. Something you collected as a kid. Where is it now?
10. The chore you would pay someone else to do forever.
11. A teacher or coach who changed your mind about something.
12. Your ideal Saturday on a twenty-dollar budget.
13. The best gift you ever gave, not received.
14. A word or name you mispronounced for years.
15. Something you were sure about a year ago and no longer believe.

Would-you-rather and quick choices

Pick fast. The audience cares less about which side you choose than whether you commit to it. Use two sides, then a verdict: give the losing option one fair sentence, then spend the rest of your time on why the other one wins.

16. Would you rather know the ending of every film before you watch it, or never see the last ten minutes?
17. Would you rather have a ten-second rewind button or a pause button for the world, each usable once a day?
18. Would you rather give up music or your phone's camera for a year?
19. Would you rather be the funniest person in the room or the smartest?
20. Would you rather have one free flight anywhere each year or free coffee for life?
21. Would you rather speak to a thousand strangers or to ten people who know you well?
22. Would you rather work four ten-hour days or five eight-hour days?
23. Would you rather be famous for a week or quietly respected in your town for life?
24. Early or exactly on time: which is more polite?
25. Paper books or e-books, for the rest of your life.
26. Text or call: which is the right way to share good news?
27. Cats or dogs. Defend your choice without using the word "cute."

Opinion topics: agree or disagree

State your answer in the first sentence and use point, reason, example, point. One reason with one real example beats three reasons nobody remembers: the reason carries the logic and the example carries the feeling, which covers two of the three classical appeals in under a minute. For opinion topics you have time to prepare, see 150 persuasive speech topics.

28. Homework should be optional.
29. Every student should hold a part-time job before graduating high school.
30. Group projects should be graded individually.
31. Phones should stay in lockers during the school day.
32. It is better to be a big fish in a small pond.
33. Reviews from strangers are more useful than advice from friends.
34. Everyone should be able to cook five meals before leaving home.
35. Failing a class can be the best thing that happens to you.
36. Restaurants should drop tipping and raise menu prices instead.
37. A four-day school week is a good idea.
38. Competitive video games are a sport.
39. Public libraries matter more now than they did twenty years ago.
40. Kids should be paid for good grades.
41. Cursive handwriting should still be taught.
42. You learn more from a bad boss than from a good one.
43. Downtown streets should be closed to cars on weekends.

Objects to explain, defend or sell

Pull an object out of a bag or use the one named. Selling it calls for problem, solution, benefit. Describing it works well with past, present, future: where it came from, what it does now, what happens to it next. These are the most fun to watch, so they suit a nervous class.

44. Sell this pen to someone who only ever types.
45. Give a retirement speech for a stapler that has served the office for twenty years.
46. Explain a vending machine to a visitor from the 1800s.
47. Make the case that the umbrella is the most underrated invention.
48. Pitch a new potato chip flavor to a room of investors.
49. You are a sock that has lost its pair. Address the dryer.
50. Sell an empty cardboard box as this year's best toy.
51. Describe the inside of your fridge as if it were a museum exhibit.
52. Defend the spoon against the fork.
53. Pick up the nearest object and explain why it deserves a statue.

One-word topics

The hardest kind for most people, and a staple of competition practice: the National Speech & Debate Association lists abstract ideas among the sources for its Impromptu prompts, alongside nursery rhymes, historical figures and current events. Turn the word into one thing you can picture, then use past, present, future. "Bridges" becomes the footbridge you crossed to school, and "silence" becomes the car ride after a bad game.

54. Doors
55. Maps
56. Silence
57. Leftovers
58. Receipts
59. Ladders
60. Rain
61. Mirrors
62. Bridges
63. Keys
64. Noise
65. Second chances

Proverbs and quotations

Agree, disagree, or say "it depends" and explain exactly when. Proverbs work because everyone has heard them and almost nobody has tested them. Use point, reason, example, point, or what, so what, now what if the saying is really a piece of advice.

66. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Do they?
67. “The early bird catches the worm.” Is early always better?
68. “Don't judge a book by its cover.” Then why do books have covers?
69. “Brevity is the soul of wit.” (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
70. “Well done is better than well said.” (Benjamin Franklin)
71. “Simplify, simplify.” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)
72. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
73. “All the world's a stage.” What role are you playing this week?
74. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Does that apply to friends?
75. “Practice makes perfect.” Or does practice only make permanent?
76. “Curiosity killed the cat.” Defend the cat.
77. “Hope is the thing with feathers.” (Emily Dickinson) What is yours?

Work, interview and club topics

A job interview is impromptu speaking with higher stakes, and so is the moment in a meeting when someone asks what you think. For "tell me about a time" questions, use story, lesson, link: the situation in two sentences, what you did, what changed. Match your tone of voice to the room: an interview wants calm specifics, a team toast wants warmth. Toastmasters clubs practice this in Table Topics, where a Topicsmaster assigns short talks on the spot to members without another speaking role that meeting.

78. Tell us about a time you disagreed with a decision and went along with it anyway.
79. What would your last manager say you should work on?
80. Describe a project that failed and what you saved from it.
81. Explain your job to a ten-year-old.
82. The best meeting you ever attended, and what made it work.
83. A piece of feedback that stung and turned out to be right.
84. If you had to teach a one-hour class tomorrow, what would it be on?
85. What would you change in your first week as the boss here?
86. Introduce the person to your left as if they were the keynote speaker.
87. The one habit that saves you an hour a week.
88. Raise a toast to a team that just finished a hard project.
89. Pitch your hometown as the site of next year's conference.

Advanced and creative topics

For experienced speakers and competition practice. Each asks you to hold a position you may not believe or to speak under a constraint, which is where structure earns its keep.

90. Argue sincerely, for one minute, for a bad idea of your choice.
91. You are the wolf's lawyer in "The Three Little Pigs." Make your closing argument.
92. Humpty Dumpty's fall: accident or negligence?
93. Accept an award for something you are bad at.
94. It is 2050. Tell a class what people in the 2020s got wrong.
95. Speak for one minute without using the word "I."
96. Persuade the audience to take the stairs, without a single statistic.
97. Announce a new public holiday and explain how to celebrate it.
98. The headline you would want written about your life, and the story under it.
99. Argue both sides of "school should start later," then choose one.
100. Pick the topic on this page you would least like to draw, and answer it.

How to answer an impromptu topic

You might get thirty seconds to think or none at all. In the NSDA Impromptu event, students get seven minutes in total, with a 30-second grace period, to choose a topic, prepare and speak without notes, so every minute spent planning is a minute not spoken. Either way, the planning is the same four decisions.

1. Decide your answer in one sentence

   Yes or no, this one or that one, or the single meaning of the word you will talk about. "Phones should stay in lockers" is an answer. "Phones are complicated" is a way to talk for two minutes and say nothing.

2. Pick a structure

   Choose from the table below. If you freeze, default to point, reason, example, point. It fits almost anything.

3. Choose one example you can see

   A specific memory with a name, a place or a number in it. The more specific the example, the easier it is to talk about for thirty seconds, and the more the audience will remember.

4. Know your last line

   Your closing is your answer again, in new words. Decide it before you start so you have somewhere to land, and stop when you get there. The guide on how to end a speech has more closing moves.

Structures that fit any topic

Two worked answers

Both answers below are original and short enough to say in about a minute. The labels mark the beats. You would not say them aloud.

Notice what neither answer does. Neither repeats the topic as its opening line, neither apologizes, and neither promises three points. The first sentence is already the answer or already the story, which is the whole trick behind starting a speech well when you have had no time to plan one.

What helps and what sinks an answer

Practice alone or run a round

On your own, pick a number from 1 to 100 without looking, give yourself thirty seconds, and speak for one to two minutes while your phone records. Listen back once for two things only: did the first sentence answer the topic, and did the last sentence land? Ten rounds spread over a week do more than an evening of reading about public speaking.

If you teach a class or lead a club, copy a section into a document, print it and cut the topics into strips. Let each speaker draw two and keep one, which lowers the panic without lowering the challenge. Give first-timers a minute to think and experienced speakers thirty seconds, and keep the feedback to one point per speaker. "Your first sentence was your answer" is worth more to a nervous student than a page of notes.

If you practice often, keep it all in one place. In Strokes, a single document can hold your story bank, the topics you have drawn and a line after each round on what to fix, as a file on your own computer. When you run out of topics, ask the AI Assistant beside the document to brainstorm fifteen new ones in any group above, or paste in a typed-up answer and ask whether it makes one clear point. When an impromptu answer turns into a talk worth giving properly, move it into the speech outline template.