Speaking
IELTS speaking Part 1 lasts four to five minutes and is the most predictable section of the whole test. The examiner asks you questions about yourself and about ordinary, familiar subjects, and almost every candidate has seen the topics before. That predictability is exactly why it is worth preparing: the examiner is forming a first impression of your level here, and short answers waste it.
After the identity check, the examiner begins with two or three questions about your home, your work or your studies. These are fixed and every candidate gets them. The examiner then moves through three further topic areas, asking up to four questions in each. The topics are chosen at random from a large bank, so one candidate might get holidays, cooking and public transport while the next gets music, birthdays and the weather.
The questions are read from a script. The examiner is not allowed to rephrase them or explain what a word means, though they can repeat a question if you did not catch it. If a question genuinely makes no sense to you, say so in English rather than guessing in silence.
Your hometown and where you live now
Work, study and daily routine
Food, cooking and eating out
Free time, hobbies and sport
Weather and seasons
Music, films and reading
Travel, transport and holidays
Shopping, clothes and technology
Part 1 is the informal end of the test. Think of it as two acquaintances chatting over lunch rather than a job interview. Contractions, everyday vocabulary and a relaxed tone are all appropriate, and forcing academic language into a question about your breakfast sounds rehearsed.
That does not mean casual to the point of carelessness. You still want accurate grammar, some variety in your structures and a few less common words. The difference is tone, not quality.
Nothing you say has to be true. If you are asked whether you read newspapers and you never do, answering as though you were someone who does is entirely legitimate. You are being assessed on your English, not on your habits, and an invented answer you can develop beats a true answer you cannot.
The single most common Part 1 problem is the answer that finishes before it starts. Compare these two responses to the same question.
Examiner: Do you enjoy cooking?
Candidate: Yes, I do.
That is grammatically perfect and worth almost nothing, because there is no language in it to assess. Now the same answer with the follow-up questions the examiner would have asked, answered before they are asked:
Examiner: Do you enjoy cooking?
Candidate: I do, yes, though I only really got into it a couple of years ago when I started living on my own. Before that I ate whatever was put in front of me. These days I find it quite relaxing after work, and there is something satisfying about eating something you have made yourself rather than reheating it out of a packet. The one thing I am hopeless at is baking, which apparently requires you to measure things properly.
The technique is simple: ask yourself why, when, what else and compared with what, and answer those before the examiner has to. Around thirty seconds per question is the target.
Answer each question aloud, recording yourself if you can, and aim for thirty seconds. Then open the model answer and compare, not to copy it, but to see where extra sentences could have gone.
Definitely evenings, and I have given up pretending otherwise. I am not one of those people who can get up at six and go running. It takes me a good hour and two coffees before I am any use to anyone. In the evening though, I get a sort of second wind around nine and that is when I do anything that needs actual concentration. It is not ideal, because most jobs are built around people who are sharp in the morning.
Almost every day, actually, since I do not drive. There is a bus that runs from the end of my road into the centre and it takes about twenty minutes, which is not bad. The main problem is the frequency in the evenings, when you can be waiting half an hour. I would not say I enjoy it, but I do get a lot of reading done, which I would not if I were driving.
It is not something I would move here for, put it that way. The winters are grey rather than genuinely cold, which somehow feels worse, and it rains a fair amount from about October onwards. The summers make up for it though. It stays light until quite late and everybody suddenly becomes much more sociable, so I suppose I appreciate the good weather more than I would somewhere it was guaranteed.
My taste is fairly broad, which is another way of saying I have no taste at all. Mostly I listen to whatever suits what I am doing, so something with a bit of energy if I am cleaning the flat and something much quieter if I am trying to concentrate. I went through a phase of only listening to older music, which I think was mainly nostalgia, and I have come out of that now.
Phrases like Well, that is a very interesting question in response to Do you like sport? sound learned, and examiners hear them dozens of times a week.
Candidates who have prepared a topic sometimes deliver it regardless of what was asked. The examiner notices, and coherence suffers.
If you need a moment, buy it out loud: That is not something I have thought about much, but I suppose… Silence is assessed. Thinking aloud is not.
Part 1 has a fixed number of questions and a fixed time. A ninety-second answer means fewer questions, which means fewer chances to show range.