IELTS Speaking: The most important 60 seconds in IELTS
IELTS speaking test will be on a different day than other sections i.e. listening, reading and writing sections. It will be either 7 days before or after the test date that the candidate will register for. This section will be of approximately fifteen minutes, a face to face interview with a certified IELTS examiner. There will be three rounds in this test, the first round will be an introduction round where the questions will be related to the test taker only, then the next round will be a cue-card round in which test taker will have to prepare a monologue on a given topic of at least 2 minutes, and in the last round there will be questions related to the topic that he/she will get in cue card round.
In the speaking test, the examiner assess the test-taker on the basis of the following criteria:
- Pronunciation
- Fluency
- Coherence
- Grammar
These four criteria are very important from a candidate's point of view also, he/she should keep these points in mind while answering the questions in front of the examiner.
In round 2 of the Speaking test, the candidate will be given a card with a topic, and 60 seconds to prepare for that. He/she then have to speak on the topic for at least two minutes. This one minute of preparation time is precisely essential, and can make all the difference in achieving the score that they need — or not able to achieve it.
What kind of topic can the candidate expect?
The topic on the cue-card will be something that anyone can generally talk about. It will not need any professional knowledge. The candidate may be asked to talk about a friend, a possession, a place, an advertisement or an invention. Here is an example:
Describe something you own which is very important to you.
You should say:
- where you got it from
- how long you have had it
- what you use it for; and
- explain why it is important to you.
You will have to talk about the topic for 1 to 2 minutes.
You have one minute to think about what you’re going to say.
You can make some notes to help you if you wish.
How can a candidate be ready in 60 seconds?
First, he/she should focus on the topic and underline it. In this case, they would underline ‘something you own’. All of their talk must be about this item; they will get no marks for talking about something else. Now they must decide exactly which item they will talk about. An obvious example in this case is the mobile phone.
The task card helps them to prepare to talk about their phone by providing a structure. The card above has four bullet points. Generally, they will allocate three ideas to each point, and this will give them plenty to talk about for two minutes. As he/she thinks of these points, remember that there is no need to tell the truth.
So, for bullet point 1 on the task card they might make the following notes:
present from parents
bought in US
big surprise
This gives you three things to talk about:
Firstly I’m going to tell you about where I got my phone. It was a present from my parents for my eighteenth birthday. My mother had been on a business trip to the US, and she bought it there. It was a fantastic surprise to me because I’d never had such an expensive present before.
Now let’s move on to bullet point 2:
8 mths / since bday
last phone 5 years
5 years is max
Again, you have three points to make:
As I mentioned before, I was given the phone for my birthday which was eight months ago, back in September. It was just in time because my last phone was five years old, and had almost stopped working. I think five years is the maximum for a phone. That means that this one should be good for about another four years, which is great.
Preparing language you can use
Did you notice that there are useful phrases that you can prepare in advance, and that can be used for any topic. Here are three examples:
Firstly, I’m going to tell you about…
As I mentioned before…
As a result…
Having this language at your fingertips gives you two advantages. Firstly, it sounds impressive to the examiner. Secondly, pre-prepared language gives you that little bit of extra time to focus on topic.
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