hi there it's asiya i've taken the ielts exam four times and i want to tell you what you can expect
at the beginning of this exam and how to make a great first impression okay let's get started
you might know that ielts examiners use four criteria to assess your ielts speaking answers
and you may find all of them in the ielts band descriptors but ultimately there says how well
you can communicate in english how comfortable you are expressing your thoughts in english
and how natural you feel doing that so don't think that you need to be creative or original
don't think that you need to give complex answers more complex than you would normally say and
don't think that your thoughts should be smart that is not required and that is not assessed
now let me tell you what you can expect at the very beginning of this exam and how to
behave to look natural you'll be waiting in the corridor for the examiner to call you
and invite you into the room when you enter say hi or hello these are typical ways to
greet an examiner if you say good afternoon it's a little bit too formal and people don't really
use that in english unless they're in a very formal situation like a presentation
just say hi hello some examiners start the exam straight away while others have a little chat with
you first for example once the examiner talked to me for almost a minute and he asked me about
my exam why i'm taking it what are my future plans and so on and only then
he started the exam while another examiner opened the door and said this exam is recorded and so
the exam started straight away she didn't even say hello without the record your ielts speaking exam
will be recorded and the examiner will have this little recorder in front of them
so a good indication when your exam officially starts is when the examiner presses the button
to start the recording and says this exam is recorded at the very beginning they will ask
you several questions the first one is what's your name and you can just give your full
passport name without anything else asean or it's rcm yard or i'm assuming art nothing else
next they ask what should i call you meaning what name should i use to address you some people use a
different name and some people use a short version of their name so you can say just call me asia or
call me liz if your name is elizabeth for example next they ask can i see your passport just say
sure or here it is you don't need to be wordy the next question is where are you from i could
say i'm from kyrgyzstan uh that's one of the republics of the former soviet union or i'm from
almaty that's the former capital of kazakhstan actually both are true you could say i'm from rome
i'm from the south of france or i'm from delhi but i've been living in mumbai for most of my life
just give a short answer don't try to impress the examiner these questions are simply to collect
some information about you be prepared that each examiner is different some are friendly attentive
they show that they listen to you they show that they understand what you're saying others are
completely different your examiner may not even look at you your examiner may take some notes
or look down or look out of the window don't let it get to you they can easily assess your
performance but can you perform at your best if you get distracted just concentrate on
what you need to do you need to speak and answer questions the rest doesn't matter and be prepared
that your examiner may interrupt you they manage in time so when it's time to move
on to the next question they will interrupt you even if you haven't finished your answer
in part 3 your examiner may even challenge you he or she may interrupt you and say is it always so
is it always the case asking you to prove your point of view and perhaps it's a good sign perhaps
they think that you can cope with this pressure and your english is quite good but whatever it
is these interruptions don't affect your score so don't get upset about it after the examiner
has collected all the information from you he or she will say now i'd like to ask you about on now
i'm going to ask you several questions about and give you the topic that's the beginning of part
one in part one you will get three topics and only the first one is easy to predict it will be one of
these four your hometown your home your family or your work studies and these questions are there
to warm you up so don't think that you need to give long or complex answers just give two three
sentences and again they don't have to be highly complex you may be asked what is your hometown
and some people get confused about this question basically your hometown is where you were born or
where you lived as a child i could say my hometown is almaty it's the former capital of kazakhstan
and that's where i was born this answer is long enough don't think that you need to give a very
long answer to each question no i live in london and i've been here for 10 years but london is not
my hometown because i didn't spend my childhood here you see and maybe you lived in several
different locations just pick one and talk about it it doesn't really matter which one you pick
now i'm going to show you another answer think if anything is wrong with it the question is the
same what is your hometown and the answer is my hometown is called almaty and it is a magnificent
city located in southern kazakhstan with a population of over 1 million inhabitants what
do you think is it a good answer it's much more complex than the first one isn't it the problem is
it's too formal for spoken english it sounds like it could be written somewhere it sounds unnatural
and the problem is that the examiner may suspect that that's a memorized answer it's very important
to speak naturally and it's very important not to learn any answers by heart don't try to give
answers which are artificially complex in parts 2 and 3 you will have chances to use your more
complex vocabulary and grammar much more naturally the first impression still matters and it's good
if you can answer these first questions confidently you can find out what questions
examiners typically ask you can get some ideas of what you could talk about you could learn some
phrases and some words to express yourself more precisely just don't memorize whole sample answers
and you can do all that by watching my other videos about family and home
thank you so much for joining in today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye