Speaking
Describe a subject you enjoyed at school is a cue card almost every candidate can answer, which is precisely why it is worth preparing. When everybody has something to say, the marks separate on how it is said. The model answer below chooses an unexpected subject and uses the choice to structure everything that follows.
Describe a subject you enjoyed at school
You should say:
and explain why you enjoyed 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 was never very fond of school, so this is a slightly difficult one. I was not strong academically, and I enjoyed sport more than any of the actual subjects, partly for the obvious reason that the sports classes never seemed to involve formal tests. I liked most of what we did, but I preferred the outdoor ball games, and soccer above all of them. At my school you had to take part at least once a week, usually on a Friday afternoon, and I did that right through to the end. I do not think I missed a single game, although plenty of my friends left early to make the weekend longer.
There were three sports teachers. Mrs Brownslow mostly took the girls, and the boys had either Mr Hendricks or Mr Smith. Mr Smith was the one I liked best, and he was the one who ran the soccer. He was encouraging towards anybody who made an effort, regardless of how good they were, but he had very little patience with students who stood around doing nothing, and everybody knew where they stood with him.
There are a few reasons I enjoyed it, beyond not having to sit an exam on a Friday afternoon. The main one is that I was reasonably good at it, and it is much easier to enjoy something you have some ability in. The atmosphere in those classes was good, and we had a decent team — we won the competition against the other local schools three times while I was in it. The other reason is that after an hour of running around I always felt sharper rather than tired, and I seemed to have more energy for the rest of the day.
That is probably why I have stayed fairly active since. I do not play soccer any more, but I run most mornings and it still does the same thing for me. I cannot really imagine not doing any exercise at all — it is a good way to start the day, and it is obviously worth doing for your health as often as you can manage it.
Rather than pretending to have loved a traditional subject, the speaker admits to disliking school and answers with sport. That reframing is done explicitly in the first sentence, so the examiner is never confused about what is happening.
Encouraging towards anybody who made an effort, very little patience with students who stood around is far more effective than a string of adjectives, and it produces relative clauses and contrast structures for free.
The main one is… The other reason is… That explicit signposting is worth a great deal under coherence, and it costs nothing to learn.
The final paragraph brings the answer up to the present day and explains a habit that survives from it. Cue cards about school are past-heavy, so this move is what supplies the present tenses.
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 lesson you remember well.
and explain why you remember it.
Describe a skill you learned outside the classroom.
and say how useful it has been.
Describe a subject you found difficult.
and say how you feel about it now.
Describe a school you attended.
and say whether you would send a child there.
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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