Hi everyone! Welcome back to IELTS daily,
your one-stop-shop for everything IELTS.
I'm Jay, and this is Chris.
Hi guys!
How are you doing?
I'm very well.
So today, we're going to be looking at
part three of the IELTS speaking test.
Let's get started!
So, in today's lesson,
we're going to look at some questions
from part three of the IELTS speaking exam.
Now, a few days ago,
I answered some questions from part two.
And they were focused on various topics.
Well today, some of those topics
are going to be talked about today, in this lesson.
So, topic one is toys.
If you remember from the video,
where I talked about a toy,
I referenced Optimus Prime.
And Optimus Prime was my favorite childhood toy
that was a Transformer.
The second topic was boredom.
And in that question,
I talked about being bored in the current COVID-19 situation.
We're constantly being socially isolated.
So, today, we're going to be answering questions based on those two topics.
Chris, are you ready?
I am.
Don't forget, students, that part three
is always a continuation.
The topic will be around the same ideas.
So today's toys and boredom.
So, I'll start off with you,
and we're going to ask you some questions related to toys.
Sure.
Ok.
So, which toys do children enjoy playing with nowadays?
Nowadays, definitely electronic gadgets.
All the time.
I think kids are obsessed with screens.
And it's a pity, really.
Because when I grew up,
all the toys
would be things that we would do outside.
It would be sports-related.
Or maybe some activities, board games.
But now, kids want to play everything that's...
colorful on a screen.
Yeah.
Is it good for children to have many toys?
Personally, I think kids should be limited
with a number of toys when they're bored.
Because I don't want them to be spoiled.
I think the biggest problem nowadays is that
there are so many...
the variety of toys is so great,
that parents have a difficult decision to decide which one they're gonna choose for their kids.
I don't think it's a good idea for them to have many, many toys.
Finally, do you think that toys have any educational purpose?
Nowadays, lots of toys will be built for educational reasons.
So, learning numbers,
letters,
it could be conversations,
whether they have to match things together.
Lots of apps nowadays,
I said before that
it's a shame, it's a pity that
we have electronic devices.
But I do think that there are some educational parts
of a device.
You could download an app
that teaches kids a new language,
or that could teach them numbers, letters.
So there are some educational value...
So there is some educational value
in some toys.
Ok. Alright.
Well, Chris did a really good job answering these questions.
And they're difficult questions to answer.
Remember, with part three,
you just have to keep talking
and think of as many things to say with...
you know...
I gave you gadgets.
Yeah.
Gadgets, so that was a good one.
Obsessed with or
obsessed by.
What does that mean exactly?
Something that you have a lot of passion for.
If you're obsessed by something,
you're really passionate about something.
But can obsessed be negative as well?
Because if you're passionate about something,
that's usually a good thing.
But you can also be negatively obsessed.
Exactly.
I began one of my sentences with the word, "personally".
"Personally".
That's just showing that I have an opinion about something.
You could say, "in my opinion",
or "from my point of view",
or "personally".
Chris, you also mentioned, or used the phrase, "limited by".
Yeah. So
kids shouldn't be limited by
the number of toys that they have.
Or parents should not limit the number of toys
that they buy their children.
That was my view.
Ok, so let's move on to your topic which is boredom.
Boredom, to be bored.
And you talked about being bored in social isolation.
Yeah.
How do people nowadays keep themselves interested?
I think the biggest thing that people use now is social media.
Using social media constantly, being on their device.
Looking for likes,
sharing ideas,
messaging each other,
keeping in contact,
sharing stories,
that is probably the number one way
that people stay interested or not bored in today's climate.
Should meetings at work be limited to a maximum of 15 minutes?
That's a really good question.
Recently,
I have been having more and more
meetings at work.
And I find
that my productivity
and my efficiency
has gone down
because of all of these meetings.
Because if you think about it, when you're in a meeting,
you cannot work.
You're limited.
So the more meetings you have,
the less work you're going to be able to finish.
So I think it would be a good idea to
reduce meetings to fifteen minutes.
I know a number of corporations from the United States
are having meetings whilst standing now.
So when people come to meet,
instead of sitting down in a boardroom where you can be comfortable,
they're actually standing.
And when you're standing,
you become less comfortable quicker.
And so maybe that meeting will be shorter.
And how can managers make meetings more interesting?
Well, I think one thing they can do is
to change their powerpoints.
Powerpoints can be quite boring.
They're usually filled with lots of text.
Very limited in terms of pictures
and visual cues.
The human brain responds better to pictures
than it does to text.
And if anyone has been in a meeting
where someone is in front of the room,
giving a PowerPoint, droning on and on
about the content that's on that PowerPoint,
you will know that's very boring.
So,
changing the PowerPoint I think,
would be the first step to making a meeting
a little less boring.
Interesting.
Do you think that IELTS Daily videos are interesting?
Or do you think they're boring?
Please leave comments in our comments section.
And tell us,
how can we make our videos more interesting?
What do you want to see?
How can we help you pass your IELTS test?
You gave some wonderful answers there, Jay.
And my recommendation,
my advice to you guys is:
try to listen to Jay's answer.
But don't expect that you can answer just like him.
He's a native speaker,
I'm a native speaker.
You're not aiming for that.
We have to set our expectations.
You have to expect that you can take some of his language,
and try to use that yourself.
You're not going to copy what he says.
You're not going to memorize what he says.
You just have to take parts of it
and think, "Ah! that's interesting".
I'll use that as an idea.
Jay gave some wonderful ideas about powerpoints,
about standing up in meetings.
And it's those ideas that you can use during your test.
I used an expression: drone on and on.
What does that mean, Chris?
It means to talk in a really boring way without stopping.
To drone on.
And I'm sure many of you can think of a teacher that might have done that.
I hope it's not us.
Yeah.
It's been a pleasure talking to you today.
I hope you found it interesting.
Please tell us if you find it interesting in our comments.
I look forward to seeing you in the next video.
I do too.
See you soon.
Take care