I am almost done with my Powerpoint for my conference. I will rehearse my presentation soon and brainstorm some possible questions that the audience will raise. But I am afraid that the audience will ask me something that I dont know or something so difficult. What would you do if you were asked some difficult questions that you could not answer well? any advice? thanks for your help!

It would depend on the type of question, but I might just acknowledge that it was an interesting question and that it was something I hadn't come across yet, or invite them to talk to you afterwards if it's something that would need a longer discussion (or if you needed some thinking time first!)

Yeah don't pretend you know and babble (I did this once at a talk at my institute and apparently sounded impressive but my supervisor came up to me at the end and said something like 'that sounded good but you realise it was a pile of BS don't you?' hah! He said it would never hold up at a conference in my topic so now I just say 'that's interesting but I haven't covered that in my research so far but I will look into it' =)

Hi Dodottung

I'd admit I didn't know and make a note of the suggestion. That's the honest response and it's quite a common one.

Questions at conferences are often quite exploratory: 'what do you think of / have you considered x' rather than 'tell me the answer to y, now!'

People often ask questions because you've sparked their interest about something or touched on a related topic they know about. They almost certainly won't be looking to try and catch you out.

It's also fine to take a moment to collect your thoughts before answering. Noone's going to judge you for thinking at an academic conference ;)

Hope you have a great time - the first conference experience is pretty exciting.

Mark

thanks for all your useful advice! : )

You'll do fine as long as you don't over think it too much. Sometimes I've seen people (younger scholars in particular) get completely intimidated by their surroundings. Don't let this happen to you. You worked hard, and you have every right to be there! These are your peers and you don't need to feel inferior for a lack of experience. Be confident, you probably know your particular topic better than most people in the room, so be sure of yourself. Best of luck!

Definitely OK to say you don't know! Certainly better than trying to bullshit, as this will be picked up. As others have said, generally you'll know more about your topic than audience.

I just had my first ever conference 2 months ago, I was so nervous, one of my audions asked me a question that I didnt know, I said to him that its a very good question but I havent thought about it and that I will consider it!! That's it! Good luck