High and low achievers' strategy use profiles in the speaking skill appear to be rare, with the few studies examining their strategy use profiles only in skills such as reading and writing. Another gap can be observed in the scrutiny of effective and ineffective strategy use in speaking tests. The study was carried out with thirty male and female high and low achieving test takers who engaged in the speaking section of IELTS and reported their strategy use through stimulated recalls in the Iranian context. Data collection involved two key phases: The test takers first went through a familiarization phase where they learned how to carry out stimulated recalls. This phase was followed by the main phase of the study where the test takers took the IELTS speaking exam, verbalizing their strategies after each of its three speaking tasks. The researchers used Huang's (2013) taxonomy of speaking strategies to analyze the garnered data. Results indicated high achievers' heavier reliance on strategic behaviors compared with low achievers. The findings also revealed high achievers' greater use of effective strategies than low achievers, and low achievers' more frequent use of a noticeably higher number of ineffective strategies compared to high achievers. More specific outcomes revealed that the variations between the two groups were mainly in the frequency of meta-cognitive, communication, approach, and social strategy categories. The results primarily confirm high and low achievers' varied strategic behavior profiles in test situations and the significance of effective strategy employment for higher test scores.