When You Don't Understand A Question

During an English interview, many interviewees may have difficulty in comprehending an interviewer's question.  The worst thing to do is pretend to understand and incorrectly respond or just sit there and smile and contemplate the question with a minute's silence - only with a, "I don't know."

Instead, you should simply ask them to repeat the question and/or seek clarification of the question.

As an interviewer (for English language assessment), I don't expect the interviewee to understand every question.  If he/she doesn't understand something, seeking clarification shows me that they want to understand, but just needs a little bit of additional explanation.  And most of the time, with a little clarification, the interviewee can reply to the question.

Here are some useful phrases:

"Can you repeat the question again?"
"I don't understand what you mean by, fractional?"
"Can you rephrase the question?"
"Can you give me an example?"
"When you save ten-fold, you mean ten times, correct?"

Here are some sample dialogs: (A = interviewer, B = interviewee)

(A)  Are you a charismatic person?
(B)  Can you explain what charismatic means?
(A)  Sure, charismatic means having leadership qualities that people trust and want to follow.
(B)  Oh, I understand.  Yes, I believe that I have ...


(A)  Do you work well with a team, or do you feel more comfortable doing tasks unaided?
(B)  Can you rephrase the last part again?
(A)  Let me rephrase the question.  Do you work better with a team or by yourself?
(B)  Both.  I do the work by myself or with a team, whichever is needed.