hi there my name's Andrew and welcome to this my latest IELTS video what is the
purpose of this video in this video I'm going to show you how you can use some
more complex grammar to get a better score in your IELTS speaking exam to get a
score of 7 or above also in this video there's going to be a bit of a
competition to win a completely free half hour live IELTS speaking lesson
with me a qualified English teacher to help you with the exam. In order to enter
that competition you will have to demonstrate that you have understood
this particular lesson so there'll be more details of that later in this video
so look out for that. Now on with the video this is about a very common type
of IELTS question and the common type of IELTS question that occurs in part 3 of
the exam here are questions about change things that have changed common examples
how has your home town changed since you were a child
how has the internet changed our lives how has music art teaching travel you
name it changed in the past 10 20 30 712 years so a question which tense has been
used in these questions you can answer in a poll by clicking the letter i' that
is going to appear in the top right hand corner of the screen and i'll give you a
few seconds to do that before we move on to the next slide
did you guess correctly the questions they were asked in the present perfect
tense so here below is an answer that would
not be good enough to get you a seven the question how has your home town
changed in recent years an answer well my town is now popular with
tourists it wasn't before they built a new airport and I think that's why so
many tourists come here now so there's an answer that answer has no
mistakes in it but it's not enough to get you a seven
in your IELTS speaking exam it's not the type of answer that gets a seven and in
the next slide we're going to have a look at what's wrong with that type of
answer what was wrong with the answer well the answer was too simple in
various ways first of all it only news the present simple tense and the simple
past tense secondly the answer wasn't really detailed enough or long enough
for an answer to a part free question the examiner wants to see you develop
your answer more than that so how to give a much better answer
we're going to news the present perfect tense and the third conditional remember
these questions are asked in the present perfect tense these questions about
change so that gives you a new SFIL cue or indication that you should be using
the present perfect tense not the present simple tense to answer this
question and here I'm also going to show you how to use the third conditional
throughout this video where we're using the present perfect tense we have this
highlighted in blue and the third conditional highlighted in purple
and in this answer that is the case so the question how has your hometown
changed well the strangest thing has happened uh over the past few years my
hometown has become really popular with tourists there might be a few reasons
for this for one the Town Council redeveloped the area around the port and
there are loads of great shops and restaurants there now and secondly a new
airport was built and that's made it easier for tourists to get here the
whole thing has been a huge surprise if you'd asked me 20 years ago I'd never
have predicted that this would happen so the parts in blue has happened has
become that has made it easier all present perfect tense the bits in purple
if you'd asked me I'd never have predicted all the third conditional and
these two constructions go together very nicely to answer these kind of change
questions in part three of your IELTS exam so how to form and when to news the
present perfect tense so you should news the present tense of the verb have I
have he has we have etc and the past participle of the main verb for example
I have been to Paris I have lost my keys he has drawn a cat
you should use this tense to describe things in the past that's have a
connection to right here right now because for example something has just
finished for example the drawing of the cat he
has drawn a cat is something we might say as a little boy hands over the
picture that he just finished drawing if you're talking
about an experience for example I've been to Paris or something that happened
in the past which is still true now or relevant now or important now as it
affects situations now for example you've lost your keys in the past so you
can't get into your house now say you say oh damn damn I've lost my keys so
how to form and when to news the third conditional the form you news had and
the past participle in one part of the clause and the conditional modal verbs
such as would could should may or might plus the present tense of half and the
past participle in part two of the clause and the new such is that you use
it to talk about an imaginary event in the past which never really happened for
example if I had won the lottery or if I'd won the lottery when I was twenty I
would have drunk or I'd have drunk and gambled so much that my life would now
be ruined just like our poor Pink Panther on the screen there okay here is
another example of how we can can use the combination of the present perfect
simple tense and the third conditional to give a really good answer to this
question the question how has music changed in the past twenty years the
answer music has changed enormously mainly because of the internet if you
told a megastar like David Bowie or sting twenty years ago that all of their
music be obtained very cheaply or even 4-3 and
often illegally they'd have been horrified but that's exactly what
happens nowadays thanks to things like Spotify equally if he'd been an aspiring
pop star 30 years ago you'd have had no chance of becoming popular no chance
without being signed to a record label but now you can just stick your stuff on
YouTube and if people like it you can get crowd-sourced funding to finance
production which is an amazing change so here's your challenge the competition
for today I would like you to write your own answer to the question below and
post it in the comments section below this video make sure you use the present
perfect tense and the third conditional in the way that I have been showing you
to answer the question the question is how have smartphones changed our lives
in the past 20 years now the reward if you also email me your answer to this
address English with Andrew at virgin mediacom then if your sentence is
correct and only if it's correct I will enter you into a draw to win a free 30
minute i alt speaking lesson with me over Skype but you must also post it as
a comment below this video so finally how to get more videos help live lessons
etc subscribe here or click on my photo which should be appearing on the screen
about now to subscribe to get more videos you can see my Facebook page at
this address for daily posts about useful nouns verbs phrasal verbs and
adjectives that you could use in your IELTS exam you can contact me at the
email address I gave before or my website English of Andrew
com2 arranged live lessons if you have any questions about anything in this
video please post them as comments below this video
and I promise I will answer them all in my next video we're going to start to
look at several different common IELTS topics and we're going to look at how to
answer part 1 part 2 and part 3 questions about each of those common
topics okay so I look forward to seeing you next
time thank you for watching today and goodbye