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IELTS Speaking

 

SPEAKING Models

Please read carefully the following Speaking questions, so as to understand exactly how it is done.

 

The Speaking Section

The speaking section is divided into 3 sections. It lasts between 11 and 14 minutes, with individual

candidates being interviewed by one oral examiner.
 

Part One is a general conversation on familiar topics, while Part Two requires the candidate to talk on

a particular subject which they have been given time to prepare. The candidate speaks for one or two minutes

and the examiner will ask two or three questions at the end of the talk. Part Three is a discussion on more

abstract topics which are connected to the subject matter of the student’s talk in

 

Part Two. This section of the examination lasts between 4 and 5 minutes.
In the Speaking component, the candidate is assessed on their skills in communicating in English and is

graded according to their abilities in fluency, vocabulary, grammatical range, accuracy and pronunciation.
 

Two samples of the Speaking test are given below. Please read them carefully.

 

Sample Test 1

Note: Teachers questions in blue colour.

           Sample answers in black colour.

I’d like you to tell me something about your family.
Is your family large or small?

We are quite a small family. Myself and two sisters.
 

What do other members of your family do?
Maria, my eldest sister, has a weekend job working in a paper shop but Anastasia doesn’t work

She’s too young. My father works, of course — he is a manager in a cotton factory in Lamia.

My mother doesn’t work now, although she used to be a teacher.
 

When was the last time all your family were together?

We were together at Easter. We did what we Greeks usually do at Easter, which is to roast a whole

lamb on a spit on Easter Day. Then we shared it with all our friends in the village. It was lovely. We really enjoyed it.

 

What do you do as a family on special occasions like weddings or feasts?
Easter is the main feast where we do something special For weddings we dress in our best formal clothes for t

he wedding ceremony. There’s a tradition I don’t think you have in Britain where after the priest declares

the couple married he leads them around the altar 3 times and everybody throws rice and rose petals over

the couple. It’s very good fun. Then we go to a reception and have a meal.
 

Is there a member of your family you are especially close to?
I’m very close to my sister Maria.

 

Why?
We grew up together. We’ve always gone to school together and done everything together.

If I do go to study in Britain, I’ll miss her dreadfully.

I’m going to give you a subject to talk about. You have to talk about it for about two minutes.

Before you start talking I’ll give you about one minute to think and to write down some notes.

Do you understand what you are going to do?

Yes, that’s fine.

 

Here’s a pen and some paper to write on.

 

This is your subject. I’d like you to speak about a trip or holiday which you have taken recently.

 

You only have a short time to speak, so I will stop you after a while. Don’t worry about that. You can start talking now.

 

Well, I’d like to talk about the holiday I took last summer with my sister Maria, when we went to the island of Corfu.

We had never been allowed to go away on holiday without our family before, so it was very exciting.

We had a room in a hotel in a resort called Ipsos. It was very busy and full of other young people on their-holidays

There were lots of bars and restaurants to visit there, and we met a lot of people from Britain and Germany.

 

At first we didn’t like it because it was so noisy — the discos are so loud and they continue all night! And it was

all so strange and different, not having Mum and Dad with us. But then we made some friends and took a bus into Corfu

town itself and that was lovely. The buildings are all Italian in style and quite different from Athens, where everything is 1960s concrete.

It was so pretty. And we visited the church of Saint Spiridon and were allowed to see the body of Saint Spiridon himself.

His body is preserved in a special casket and you can see his face and at special times they uncover his feet,

which have special slippers on, and you can kiss them and say a special prayer for help. The church was full of small silver

gifts from people Saint Spiridon has helped

 

Thank you.

Had you been on a trip like this before?
We’ve been on holiday to the islands before. We’ve been to Santorini and to Kos. But, as I said, we’d never been alone before.

It was very different being by ourselves like that.

You’ve been telling me about a trip you’ve made. I would like to talk to you about some questions related to travel.
Do you think travel broadens the mind?
Oh, yes, I think so. I mean, I know that the world is getting smaller and we all watch the same films and TV programmers,

but you still meet people who do different things, like different things and speak in different languages from you.

And when you meet them and get to like them, you like some of the new things you meet. I think it makes you more tolerant Y

ou know more, so you can understand and accept more variety.

Describe how the tourist industry has grown in your country.
It’s grown enormously in Greece in the last twenty years. An island like Corfu which had very little industry only 20 years ago

is now quite rich. Whole new resorts and villages have grown up on the coast to cater for tourists and they only work during

the summer. In a town like Corfu itself the tourists mean that there is good business for restaurants and bars and so on.
 

Describe what things your area offers tourists.
In Greece we offer tourists guaranteed sun, beautiful beaches and a very relaxed lifestyle.

We love children in Greece, so for families there is always a lot for them to do and there is no problem taking them

to restaurants and so on. Also, Greece has a long history, so there are many different historical sites to visit if that’s

what you want.
Evaluate what type of tourists it brings to your area.
I think it probably brings two main types. Firstly, there are the young people who come for the sun, the sea, and the bars.

Then there are the families. They will also like the sun and the sea, but will also want the fully-catered holidays that

modern hotels can provide.

 

Evaluate how tourism is good for the economy.
Tourism brings in money. We are an agricultural country, so we don’t have industrial products to trade.

Tourism must be the most important foreign currency earner in the economy. Hotels and bar owners

obviously benefit, but so do a lot of other people. The people who work in the hotels, those who run

the tourist shops, the restaurant owners — they all make a good living out of tourism.

Speculate on what other benefits might tourism bring to a country.
We think that the tourist trade has brought us closer to the heart of Europe and made us more European.

For a country that is on the edge of Europe this is very important
 

How has tourism changed your area/country for the better?
So many people were very poor a generation ago and tourism has changed so many peoples’ lives with

the money it brings. Larger houses, running water, electricity and cars.
— there are so many ways we have all benefited.

 

How has tourism changed your area/country for the worse?
I believe it has damaged the ecology a great deal Near my village, we used to have seals which would

share the beach with the villagers in summer. We had one end and the seals had the other. Now the seals have gone and

I guess they will never come back There are too many people, too much noise, too much rubbish for them to tolerate. It’s a great pity.

 

Discuss whether the tourist trade is a good thing or a bad thing.
There is no simple answer to this question because it is both good and bad, of course. The wealth which tourism brings

doesn’t just make us personally richer but also provides us with hospitals, better education and so many good things.

But there is a price to pay for all this. The lifestyle is changing and so is the environment I would think that, on balance, tourism is a good thing.

But we can do more to make sure that tourism doesn’t take away all the things that we love about Greece.
Thank you. The Speaking Test is now finished.

 

 

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