I recently evaluated a very experienced club member on her 7th pathways speech, and choose to give the spoken evaluation using the "excel", "work on", "challenge" approach from the pathways evaluation forms. (I know the other member well including outside Toastmasters). My "work on" suggestion was to refine the speech to focus more on the key message.

The General Evaluator said he liked that format but suggested I explain the difference between "work on" and "challenge".

In this case I picked the order that I because I expected that implementing my challenge recommendation would take the speaker more out of her comfort zone. But that's not something I would always like to say in an evaluation. In this particular case, the "work on" recommendation was fundamental to the speech and the challenge recommendation was something that would naturally follow after so I could explain my choice that way.

But this did make me wonder, how are other people interpreting the difference between the two categories in pathways evaluations?