can you anticipate what questions you're gonna be asked in IELTS speaking yes to some degree
what I'm talking about is neither magic nor cheating rather it's an understanding of how
this exam works and what questions are used where we'll also have a look at the topics used in real
exams recently this should give you a good picture of what to expect it's Asiya let's get started
once you enter the room and sit down you're here I'm going to record this exam for marking purposes
is it okay this is the official beginning of your test once I had an examiner who had a little chat
with me before that but others got straight to the point in any case everything that is recorded is
assessed first of all your examiner needs to check your identity it takes about 30 seconds give short
concise answers what is your name it's assemiad or my name is what should I call you you can just
repeat your first name you can call me Asia or give your nickname or another name if for example
you prefer to use your middle name just call me Liz can I see your passport please sure here it is
where are you from this is not the place to describe your town this is your identity
verification give a short answer I'm from Delhi that's enough everyone knows where this is or
I'm from Almighty the former capital of Kazakhstan next you're here now in this first part I'd like
to ask you some questions about yourself so this is the first part and there are just four topics
examiners use to begin this exam family the first question will be do you have a large or small
family home where do you live in a house or flat hometown what is your hometown and your hometown
is where you were born or lived as a child for example I've been in London for over 10 years but
my hometown is Almaty and finally work and studies do work or study after that you get a couple of
deeper questions on the same topic and you can download these questions and Sample answers in the
PDF guide linked below next The Examiner will ask you questions on two more topics from the list up
to four questions per topic for each of them they may ask you why or why not to make you expand your
answer generally all the topics are about you your experiences and opinions however some of
the topics are a bit easy to answer than others I asked our telegram group about questions they were
asked recently so here are the topics that were mentioned weekends social media Sports singing
languages fitness and exercise writing and typing snacks Parks weather neighbors tidiness Maps names
puzzles I guess you won't have problems talking about your weekends or social media questions
about puzzles however are more unusual here are some of them did you do puzzles as a child
what kind of puzzles do you like solving now are puzzles good for elderly people
when you are preparing for your exam practice answering these questions at home paying
particular attention to the topics you find more difficult I try to monitor IELTS topics and make
videos about the most challenging of them that may require some specific vocabulary so here are the
challenging topics we've covered so far not all of them are used right now but IELTS topics tend
to be reused for example I talked about farming last year and this week there were questions about
farming in part three by the way you can download all these questions for the topics with links to
videos with sample answers and vocabulary on our telegram Channel linked below remember that for
each question you on average have 20 25 seconds for some you can give shorter answers well for
others longer generally try to give an open answer to each question your answers don't have to be
smart just be talkative and say whatever comes to your mind part two is where you'll be given a
cue card with a topic and several bullet points one minute to prepare and two minutes to talk
although the instructions read talk between one and two minutes one minute doesn't really
give you much time to show that you can speak at length or demonstrate your vocabulary and grammar
try to talk for two minutes until your time is up and the examiner stops you if you don't finish the
talk by then that's fine we can split all part two topics into four groups the first is where
you are required to describe a person so here are some of the topics used recently uh the wording
is not exact describe a friend you went to school with a family member you would like to work with
a person who became famous on social media there are a lot of questions about celebrities or famous
people or people you admire so it's definitely worth having someone in mind you could talk about
describe a person who enjoys growing plants so that's a tough one a sample answer is coming soon
you may be asked about objects describe a story you have read recently that made you think a lot
a photograph you're proud of an unusual house someone you know lives in
a new law or regulation that was introduced in your country you may be asked about
occasions describe an occasion when you went shopping and faced a problem when you had to
share something when you had to wait for a long time describe a time you missed an appointment
there are also questions about experiences describe an English lesson you enjoyed an activity
you do regularly to keep healthy and fit a day out that didn't cost you much what you should
really know before your exam is that you don't have to follow the bullet points on the cue card
those points are there to give you ideas and help you talk for longer your goal is to talk about
the main question and tell a story when you're telling a story it's much easier to talk at length
and definitely practice at home with the timer set it to two minutes and talk until your time is up
at the end of part two your examiner will ask you some follow-up questions
if you talked for two minutes and was stopped you'll get one question and can just give a
short answer but if you struggle to speak at length and finish quite early your examiner
may ask you several questions in this case try to give longer answers then you're here in part two
you've been talking about and now I'd like to ask you some questions about this means you've
made it to part three part three lasts between four and five minutes just like part one but
there are big differences first of all part one is about your life and your experiences part three
is about other people and more abstract Concepts examiners get topics and sets of example questions
but they can change questions to facilitate a more natural discussion and ask you follow-up questions
generally you'll get up to six main questions in five minutes so try to give an extended
answer to each question part 3 is related to part two here's how it works let's assume
your part two topic is describe an occasion when you went shopping and faced a problem
then in part three you may be asked questions about refunds and customer service and there
is one interesting thing you should know about let's have a look at the questions the first topic
is offering a refund example questions why do people sometimes return products they have bought
are there things that people cannot return once they bought them both these questions are factual
they just ask you to give some information about returns and refunds but the next one is different
do you think that returns are good for both Shoppers and companies this question asks for
your opinion and it's usually easier to just agree but surely returns are bad for companies
so you can't just agree you're probably partly agree and partly disagree and the examiner would
like to see how you can do that then you get the second subset of questions about customer service
what do you think it might be like to work in a customer service job the chances you haven't
worked in customer service the question asks you to hypothesize to imagine something you
haven't experienced yourself and that's another language skill do you agree that customers are
more likely to complain nowadays here you're required to compare the past and present how
important is it for companies to take all customer complaints seriously this question takes us even
further from your experience of being a customer and asks about companies and how they do business
answering this question requires more abstract vocabulary than talking about your own experience
of going shopping I've just shown you two sets of questions I functioning part three questions
are divided into three sets and the examiner will choose two of them depending on how you perform so
far basically the more advanced you are the harder the questions are and if you hear something really
tough this is a good sign here are some of the topics reported in recent exams they all come in
pairs as each student got two sets of questions the were the third sets but we don't know them
supermarkets and advertisement online reviews and why people buy certain products books made into
movies and TV industry how children should be encouraged to stay fit and the roles of
government and individuals helping friends and relatives or countries helping countries
farming methods and they grow in population and food security pros and cons of learning
foreign languages and artificial intelligence in language learning social media and our
dependence on smartphones teaching children how to share and sharing information on the internet
you should definitely practice answering part three questions at home again use a timer and
aim for about 45 seconds per question or over 5 minutes for six questions
and now I'd like to return to one point I mentioned earlier this is whether you are
required to follow the bullet points in part two I think that doing so might actually reduce
your score and I've explained why and gave a demonstration in this video check it out and
don't forget to download the sample answers to the topics used at the beginning of your exam
right now thank you so much for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye