Hi there, it’s Asiya.
Today we’ll discuss what topics are popular in IELTS Speaking Part 2 at the moment, I’ll
show you some topics from recent exams and we’ll have a look at a full sample answer
and how you can improve yours.
Let’s get started.
First of all, let me show you some of the topics that students reported in recent exams.
Just to be clear, it’s not likely that you’re going to get the same question, there’re
simply too many Task 2 topics, but the style of topics is quite similar.
Let's have a look at some of them
Describe a time you had to tell your friend the truth
Describe a promise you made to a person
Describe a person who you think is open
Describe an old thing that your family possessed. Yes it's quite an unusual topic
Tell me about a time when you got lost Tell me about a time when you motivated someone
to do something Tell me about a time you had listen to somebody
when you didn’t want to Tell me about an important decision you’ve
made recently
And I actually asked you to vote for the most difficult question out of these 4
Tell me about a time you had to wait for a long time
Describe a photo of yourself that you like the most
Describe a friend who you think is a good leader
Tell me about an occasion when you received a prize
Thank you so much for taking part in this poll, the clear winner is the first topic
about waiting for a long time
You’ll hear the sample answer later in this video.
But first, what can we say about all these topics?
First of all
Most of Task 2 topics are unpredictable
I think these topics are designed to catch you off
guard and make you give an answer you haven't prepared in advance
The topic I got in my last exam was to tell about a time when I looked into the sky.
What’s the probability of rehearsing this at home?
Part 2 topics have moved away from traditional topics you may find in old books or on the
old websites, such as tell me about your favourite book, tell me about your best friend.
Those topics were general and very wide.
They were kind of tasks you could prepare in advance.
Today, it’s hardly possible and to be honest, you shouldn’t try to learn any answers because
IELTS examiners are trained to spot them.
Indeed, it’s very easy to do.
The next tip is practice answering the most difficult topics at home giving yourself 1
minute to prepare Part 2 is not just about your ability to speak
English, it's also about finding what to talk about in 1 minute and then sustaining your
talk for 2 minutes So my next tip is
Don’t be afraid to invent a story
It’s quite probable that you won’t have any real story to tell.
That’s why you shouldn’t be afraid of borrowing someone's story
IELTS examiners understand that your story may be a lie.
It doesn’t matter.
Think about movies and friends for inspiration
Before we have a look at the sample answer and discuss how
you can improve your Part 2 answers,
I’d like to tell you about a platform you can use to improve your English Speaking skills.
This is Cambly an online learning platform that allows you to practice your English with
native speaking teachers at any time that suits you.
Thank you Cambly for sponsoring this video.
On this platform, you can choose a teacher you like or book lessons with different teachers
to get used to a variety of accents.
You can suggest your own topic for the lesson or
take IELTS Speaking lessons or even a mock
speaking test.
Lessons start from just 15 minutes a day twice a week, and you can take them at any time
of the day or night if you wish.
At the moment, there’s a new exciting and very generous offer available.
You can take one 15-minute class for free.
If you like it, subscribe using the link in the description to get an extra discount.
You’ll save the most if you take a 12-month plan.
If you change your mind, you can cancel your subscription and get a refund.
I encourage you to take this free lesson while it’s available.
All the links are in the video description box below.
Now, let’s get back to our sample answer.
Here is the full topic:
Tell me about a time when you had to wait for a long time.
You should say:
where you were
when it happened
why you had to wait
And explain how this situation made you feel.
Okay, here’s my answer
I’d like to tell you a story about a time when I applied for a UK visa.
When I opened my business in the UK, I switched to an entrepreneurship visa.
It took me just a couple of weeks to receive it, so when it was time to extend my visa,
I was almost certain that it was going to happen quickly.
In fact, the information stated in the immigration rules gave me extra confidence.
It said that my visa was supposed to be processed within three months.
I applied at the beginning of summer and waited until autumn, but nothing happened.
I waited for several more months, but there was still no news at all.
Just to clarify, there’s no way to track your UK visa.
You submit your documents, and the next time you hear anything is when you get your decision
letter in the post.
So winter came.
By that point, I had spent half a year completely in the dark about when the decision would
come.
Then, in December, I discovered that my holiday trip booked for January was non-refundable.
Out of sheer desperation, I wrote a letter to the Home Office and received a very predictable
reply that a holiday trip wasn’t a valid reason to accelerate one’s visa application!
I guess at least this reply proved that my application hadn’t been lost completely.
To cut a long story short, I didn’t make it to the Dominican Republic for my winter
dose of sunshine.
Eventually, I did receive my documents back in March.
By that time, it was more than 8 months after my initial application.
I must admit that it was quite a nerve-wracking experience, but at the end of the day, all’s
well that ends well as they say.
Okay, that’s my answer.
I usually get 8.5 in my exam but this answer was prepared in advance, so it’s better
than my candid answers.
If you want to hear unrehearsed Part 2 and 3 answers, that’s the video
I tried to fit my sample answer within two minutes.
In any case, when your time is up, the examiner will stop you.
Don’t worry if you haven’t finished.
When you give your Task 2 answer, concentrate on your story.
Don’t worry about the bullet points.
This is not a writing task where you must describe each bullet point in your
letter.
In IELTS Speaking, it’s much more important to speak fluently and tell your story to communicate
in English
Those bullet points are supposed to give your ideas to talk about.
In reality, if you just give answers to those bullet points, you’ll probably finish too
quickly.
Think about your story.
Now let’s have a look at the sample answer and I’ll show you how it’s organized.
When you speak, particularly when you practice at home, make sure that you use enough discourse
markers or linking words to indicate to your listener what you’re going to say next.
IELTS examiners specifically check if you do
If we have a look at my answer, here’re all the discourse markers:
So, In fact, Just to clarify, Then, By that point, I guess, To cut a long story short,
Eventually, By that time, I must admit,
If your speech is fluent, you may get away without using too many linking words but if
you speak English relatively slowly, it’s very important to show how to transition from
one idea to the next.
Remember that your discourse markers should be quite
informal, not nevertheless, furthermore, additionally
which are formal linkers used in IELTS Writing.
Now, when you’re asked to tell a story you’re going to talk about the past and will have
to use the past tenses.
Let’s have a look at all the verb tenses in the story.
The past simple is the main tense.
You can see all the verbs in the past simple in
black and bold: applied, opened, switched…
As you can see almost all the verbs are in this tense.
Let’s have a look at exceptions:
It was going to happen quickly.
That was my expectation about the future.
Today I would say: I’m going to get my visa quickly.
And if I tell about this moment one year later, I'll use the past continuous tense.
I thought it was going to happen quickly
All the verbs in yellow are in the present simple.
There’s no way to track your UK visa.
It’s still true today, so I can use the present simply tense.
If today we could track those visas, I’d have to use the past simple.
Let’s have a look at the two verb tenses in red.
By that point, I had spent half a year
This is the past perfect tense.
If I was waiting today, I’d say I have spent – the present perfect, a result.
But I’m talking about the result that existed at a certain moment in the past.
So I need the past perfect - I had spent.
Similarly, the next verb: my application hadn't been lost
This is the past perfect tense but also the passive voice.
Home Office hadn’t lost my application by that point in the past.
So the application hadn’t been lost.
Next, in blue, when the decision would come
In the past, I was talking about the future, so I used the future in the past tense.
In short, you just add would.
I thought I would go.
I believed the decision would come.
And one more, eventually, I did receive my documents back
You can see this sentence at the end of the story in black and underlined.
You can use DO and DID to emphasize what you want to say: I DID receive my documents.
I DID call him.
I DO believe this is true.
A good exercise is to record your answer and then check if you use past tenses through
out your story
Another piece of advice I'd like to give you is this: practice
giving answers to recent Part 2 topics.
Despite the fact that they are difficult to predict, you can still develop useful skills
and
improve your answers.
The only topics which can be reliably predicted in IELTS Speaking are the first set of questions
is Part 1.
Actually, there’re just a few topics used there and you can find sample answers to most
of them
and useful vocabulary in the PDF document.
The link is on the screen and in the video description box below.
And don’t forget to check out Cambly if you want to improve your speaking skills with
a native speaking teacher.
Good luck with your IELTS preparation, thank you for watching me!