You’ve just finished Part 1 of the Speaking test. The first 5 minutes have gone pretty well. You talked about your job and then answered some questions about the first school you went to and then about barbecues, a slightly strange topic as you don’t eat meat that often but you’re feeling confident, all smiles so far, onto Part 2. You’re hoping the topic is going to be one you like.
The voice from the other side of the table is saying ….“here’s your topic. Please don’t write anything on the booklet.”
Your eyes glance down at the words on the page in front of you. It says:
Describe a puzzle you solved (e.g. jigsaw, crossword, ….)
You should say
- What puzzle it was
- How long it took you to solve it
- How easy or difficult it was
- Explain how you felt about it
You begin to feel a little dizzy. Your head is spinning. The examiner is looking at the stopwatch. The seconds of your one minute preparation time are ticking away. 60-59-58-57-56
Wake up! Wake up! It was just a dream. A bad dream. Your real exam is next week.
But you can’t get that puzzle topic out of your head. You keep wondering why you panicked when you read the topic.
In this tutorial, we discuss how to answer speaking cue cards you hate with ex-IELTS examiner Robert.
Listen and you will learn:
- An important tip most students ignore when they see speaking cue cards they hate
- Why some test takers who do well in speaking part 1 end up failing part 2
- A predictable pattern all speaking cue cards follow
- Why you should never use this phrase at the beginning of your answer in speaking part 2
Join many other students who have achieved success with our Speaking confidence course and Speaking feedback service.
You can download or listen to the audio version here:
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