Speaking
Describe how to cook a meal you like is the second of the process cue cards, and candidates consistently underestimate it. Food is comfortable, so the first minute comes easily and then the instructions arrive in a flat sequence of and then, and then, and then. The model answer below is deliberately about something simple, because a complicated dish is harder to describe, not easier.
Describe how to cook a meal you like
You should say:
and explain how to make it.
Before you read any further, do the task properly. One minute of notes, two minutes of speaking, recorded. A model answer is far more useful once you have produced your own and can hear the difference.
Read this aloud once you have recorded your own attempt, ideally recording the model as well. Listen back to both and compare your pace and your intonation rather than your vocabulary. The gap is usually smaller than candidates expect on words and larger than they expect on delivery.
I am not much of a cook, honestly — I can manage eggs and bacon and not a great deal beyond that — but the one thing I do like making is Welsh rarebit. It is a traditional snack from the part of the world my family comes from, although I gather there are different versions of it in most towns in Wales and in other countries too.
There are two reasons I like cooking it. The first is that it is genuinely simple and takes only a few minutes. The second is that you can eat it at any point in the day. Most people I know have it for lunch, particularly in winter alongside a stew or a thick soup, but I often have it for breakfast in the colder months because it warms you up almost immediately.
Fundamentally it is cheese on toast, but with a few changes that make a considerable difference. The main ingredients are flour and eggs, mixed together with melted cheese. The trick is to make sure the flour and egg are properly combined but not beaten for too long. Once it is mixed through, you put it on the stove and start heating it gently, adding grated cheese as you go. You can add as much as you like — personally I use a lot, so that the egg and flour mixture is about half the total and the cheese is the other half.
At that point you toast your bread. You can also add spices to the mixture, and I use a good deal of black pepper and a little paprika. I like paprika, although since I hardly ever cook I almost never get through a jar of it. Once the toast is ready, you pour the mixture over it and put it under the grill for a few minutes until the top browns. You can add more cheese on top before it goes under, which I always do.
Establishing in the first sentence that the speaker cannot cook removes any expectation of a sophisticated dish, and it produces natural, idiomatic language: not much of a cook, not a great deal beyond that.
The first is… The second is… This is one of the easiest coherence markers to deploy and one of the least used by candidates. It also stops the answer wandering.
Once it is mixed through… At that point… as you go… before it goes under… Compare that with four sentences beginning then, which is what most candidates produce.
The remark about never finishing a jar of paprika is irrelevant to the recipe and useful to the answer. Small asides are what make a process description sound like speech rather than a recipe read aloud.
Take the structures, not the content. An answer copied wholesale is audible within a sentence, and examiners hear memorised material constantly. These patterns can be attached to anything.
Describe a meal you remember.
and explain why you remember it.
Describe a food that is popular in your country.
and say whether you like it.
Describe something you would like to learn to make.
and say how difficult it looks.
Describe a restaurant you enjoyed.
and say whether you would go back.
Quick question, 10 seconds
Where do you want to study or move to?
When are you planning to go?
How far along are you?
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