Speaking
IELTS speaking hometown questions appear in Part 1 more reliably than any other topic, usually within the first ninety seconds of the test. That makes them the first real impression the examiner forms of your English, and it makes the standard three-word answer — naming the town and stopping — unusually expensive. This page shows what a full answer contains and gives you three worked examples.
Notice that half of those are not descriptions at all. They ask you to compare, evaluate or speculate, which means the answer needs an opinion and a reason, not a list of landmarks.
Three ingredients, and you can assemble them in any order:
Where it is relative to somewhere the examiner will have heard of, and how far.
Two adjectives, honestly chosen. Quiet, industrial and unremarkable are all legitimate.
Something particular to the place. This is what makes the answer memorable rather than generic.
Whether you like it, and why. This is what turns a description into an answer.
All three describe places in New Zealand, but the pattern transfers to anywhere. Read each one aloud, then produce the equivalent for your own town.
I am from Henderson, which is a suburb out to the west of Auckland, about twenty minutes from the centre if the traffic behaves. It is quiet, and I would not pretend otherwise — people who grow up there tend to move closer in. There are a couple of things it is known for, though. There is a polytechnic campus, and a surprising amount of film work has been shot in the area, including parts of some very well-known productions filmed within walking distance of where I lived. I would probably not move back, but it was a straightforward place to grow up.
I am from Invercargill, which is the southernmost city in the country, and it is more interesting than people expect. It was originally settled by sheep farmers who came down from Dunedin, and it was named after a Scottish administrator who ran the region at the time. When it was laid out, the streets were made unusually wide, and there are still some rather grand buildings from that period, including the old railway hotel and the water tower. It is not a large place, and that is either the appeal or the problem depending on your age.
I am from Wellington, which is the capital, although a surprising number of people assume that is Auckland. It sits between a large natural harbour and a ring of green hills, so the city itself is extremely steep — you get used to walking uphill everywhere. There are several distinct quarters, and my favourite is the Lambton area, which has the densest concentration of shops in the country. The one thing everybody mentions is the wind. It is genuinely relentless, to the point where the city has a nickname for it.
This is the most common worry candidates raise, and it rests on a misunderstanding. The examiner is not assessing your town. A fluent, well-structured answer about a dull place scores higher than a hesitant one about a famous city, and the honest evaluation is itself good language.
There is very little to say about it, honestly. It is a small industrial town about forty minutes outside the city, and most people who live there work either at the plant or in the schools and shops that exist because of the plant. Nothing has ever happened there. What I would say in its defence is that it is unusually easy to live in — everything is ten minutes away, nobody locks anything, and you cannot walk to the shop without being stopped twice. I would find that suffocating now, but it was a good place to be eight years old.
If you have moved and no longer live in your hometown, say so and cover both briefly. The examiner may follow up on either, and having decided in advance which one you would rather talk about will save you a hesitation.