Speaking
Describe a sporting event you have been to is the cue card that panics candidates who have no interest in sport, and it should not. The model answer below is given by somebody who openly does not care about sport, and it fills two minutes comfortably. Enthusiasm for the topic is not assessed. Only the English is.
Describe a sporting event you have been to
You should say:
and say whether 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 am not actually very interested in sport, but there was an occasion a few years ago when I went to a football match in a town about half an hour from where I live. It was a charity match — I think they were raising money for the local school — and it was extremely well attended. There must have been five thousand people there, which is not bad at all given that there were no recognisable players involved.
I only went because a friend of mine wanted to go and did not want to sit through it on his own, so in the end a small group of us went together. One of the others was going anyway because his brother was playing in one of the teams, which made a considerable difference, because it meant we had a side to support. Without that I do not think I would have minded either way who won.
I did enjoy it, although it has not made me want to go back and watch another one. It was good fun mainly because of the people I was with. We were only half watching, honestly — we spent most of the time talking or eating, since we had brought a picnic and it turned out to be a beautiful day. Afterwards we met a lot of new people in the park next to the ground, and most of the crowd stayed on for hours simply because the weather was so good.
As I said, sport is not really my thing, but I do watch some of the major international tournaments when they are on television. There is far more going on around those than around a domestic match, and the crowd is a large part of it. The last World Cup final, there was a group of supporters in my town who ran a party that went on the best part of twenty-four hours and invited anybody who walked past. The atmosphere was extraordinary, and I could not tell you the score.
Opening with a lack of interest is not a weakness. It sets up everything that follows, and it means the speaker never has to pretend to a level of enthusiasm they would struggle to sustain for two minutes.
The card asks about a sporting event; the answer is about the people, the weather and the picnic. Nothing is lost. There is no requirement that the content be conventional, only that it be relevant and clearly organised.
Simple past, past continuous, past perfect and several modals of speculation appear across the four paragraphs, all produced naturally by the shape of the story rather than inserted deliberately.
Not remembering the score reinforces the whole argument of the answer and rounds it off. A closing line that does some work is far better than a summary of what has just been said.
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 an event you attended with friends.
and say whether it met your expectations.
Describe a time you were part of a large crowd.
and say how it felt.
Describe an activity you do not enjoy but have tried.
and say whether you would try it again.
Describe an outdoor event you remember.
and explain why you remember it.
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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