IELTS Speaking: The Ultimate Guide to IELTS Speaking Part 2

IELTS Speaking: The Ultimate Guide to IELTS Speaking Part 2

Part 2 of the IELTS speaking exam seems to worry students the most. This ultimate guide provides both beginners and experienced students with the expert tips you need to do well. 

1. Beginner’s Guide

If you clearly know the test format you can skip this part and jump straight to the Expert Tips below.

What will Happen in Part 2?

For those who aren’t so confident, let’s quickly run through the basics:

  • You will be asked to talk about a personal topic for 1-2 minutes.

  • You can’t see the clock during the exam, but the examiner will check the time.

  • The examiner will give you the question booklet, a pencil and some paper.

  • The examiner will read out the question then start the time.

  • You will have one minute to make notes.

  • After one minute the examiner will ask you to start speaking.

  • Most examiners will give you the whole two minutes to speak.

  • If you stop speaking very early, the examiner will ask if you’ve finished, or they will ask you to talk more.

  • If you stop speaking slightly early, the examiner may wait silently until the two minutes is finished.

  • You will be asked one or two follow up questions after you’ve finished the two minutes.

What Kinds of Topics?

Part 2 topics are usually personal so it could be:

  • an object e.g. a gift you bought someone

  • a person e.g. someone famous who you admire

  • a place e.g. somewhere you know where people go to read

  • an event e.g. a time you worked in a team

Some Part 2 topics are about your country rather than about you personally:

  • an environmental problem in your country

  • a traditional product made in your country   

The topic could be in the past, present or future:

  • Past e.g. a toy you had when you were a child.

  • Present e.g. an activity you usually do to keep fit

  • Future e.g. a country you would like to visit

Sample Question 

Each question card always contains one main topic and four question prompts. Here is the topic and the four questions for the example below (taken from Cambridge 10):

Main Topic:  a local shop you sometimes visit

Question Prompts

1. What does it sell?

2. What does it look like?

3. Where is it?

4. Why do you go there?

2. Expert Tips

Note-taking 1 – Copy the Questions from the Booklet

You should think of your part 2 as a two minute ‘story’ about the main topic. You should stick closely to the topic (e.g. a local shop) but you DON’T need to answer the four question prompts, as they are just there to help you. 

However, some grumpy examiners might get annoyed if you ignore the question prompts completely, so my advice is quickly cover these points first before moving on to other aspects of the topic. 

One note-taking strategy is to spend the first 20 seconds of the one minute note-taking time doing the following:

  • Read the question card

  • Drawing a spider diagram / mind map

  • Make notes (in your own words) of the four question prompts.

You can write whatever kind of style of notes you want (writing in English or your own language), so long as you understand your own notes. Number these prompts or underline/circle them to remind you to do them first.

The notes below relate to the following questions:

1. What does it sell?

2. What does it look like?

3. Where is it?

4. Why do you go there?

Later, when you start speaking you DON’T need to spend A LOT of time talking about these 4 things. You can just talk about them quickly and move on to other parts of your ‘story’, but it’s a good idea (re: grumpy examiners) to try and cover these first.

Note-Taking 2 – Write More Questions!

Here’s one strategy to make sure you NEVER run out of things to say. For the next 20-30 seconds of your note-taking time, think about as many different questions that the examiner could ask you about the topic (your local shop).

Write down these questions and quickly think of the answers (in your head). See the example below which relate to the following questions:

  • Who works in the shop? / Who are the staff?

  • When/What time do you usually visit the shop?

  • How do you usually get there?

  • Who do you go to the shop with?

  • What is your favourite thing about the shop?

  • How long has it been open?

This strategy will give you lots of things to talk about. You don’t  need to talk about all of them – Just choose them one at a time and talk about each one for as long as you want.

Don’t worry if you pause for a few seconds between ‘questions’. That is a natural thing to do. The examiner doesn’t expect you to talk constantly for the whole two minutes.

Here’s another example with an event (Taken from Cambridge 12), rather than a place:

 

Note-taking 3 – Write down the Verbs

An alternative strategy for Part 2 topic that are in the past (which is very common), is to write down all the past simple verbs that you might want to use.

See an example question (taken from Cambridge 12) and notes below. Check out more information about this strategy here.

Go Back to an Earlier Point.

Following these note-taking tips, it’s very unlikely that you will run out of things to say, but if this does happen, then naturally go back to something you said before and talk more about that.  

So if you have been talking about a trip to Singapore with your sister, then tell the examiner more about your sister. You could use ‘As I said earlier’ to reference back to that point.

“As I said earlier, I went to Singapore with my sister. She’s a really good person to travel with because…”

Talk for the Whole Two Minutes!

As with all parts of the speaking exam, the examiner is assessing four parts of your speaking: fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

You are asked to speak for 1-2 minutes, so if you dry up completely (stop speaking) in the first minute then your fluency score will be affected (this doesn’t affect your vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation scores), so the best thing to do is just keep talking for the whole two minutes, until the examiner stops you (apart from natural pauses or to quickly look at your notes).

Don’t worry if you’re at the beginning, middle or the end of your story when the 2 mins is up. It doesn’t matter – just keep talking until the examiner stops you so they can give you a good score for fluency.

Don’t repeat the topic. Start simply and confidently

In all my experience as an IELTS examiner, I noticed that students always struggled with starting their part 2 in a natural way. For the local shop topic students would say

“I’m going to talk to you about a shop near where I live that I sometimes use.”

By repeating the topic in this way, you are starting your part 2 in kind of a boring way, which won’t impress the examiner at all.  The examiner knows the topic (they have a copy of the question booklet and they read the topic to you), so you don’t need to repeat it. It would be much better if you started like this:

“I’m gonna talk to you about a shop called Home Mart.”

“I’m gonna talk to you about Home Mart, which is a shop near my apartment.”

I’ve never been to a shop!!!

The Part 2 questions are designed in a way that they should be suitable for everybody, but what if the questions don’t relate to your experience.

For example, what if you live on a mountain, in the middle of the countryside with no shops, or you have spent your entire life in bed on Facebook, and you’ve never been to a shop in your life?….WHAT DO YOU DO?

You can’t change the topic, so just be honest and talk for two minutes about why you’ve never been to a shop, and then talk about one you saw on TV or heard about from a friend.

Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments.

Try out some of the expert tips and strategies with the question above (taken from Cambridge 12). Let us know how it goes.

How to learn IELTS… faster!

How to learn IELTS… faster!

I recently came across this great video by Brendan Burchard about how to learn…faster! Catchy title, but was there anything to back it up? Lucky for you, there was. 

We get a lot of messages from stressed-out students saying they need to improve quickly. But often these students don’t know much about IELTS, and have no study plan. If this sounds familiar, then you need to get serious.

This article will show you how to master your IELTS preparation.

Read more here about the difference between successful and unsuccessful students.

Be sure to avoid the mistakes that most students make on writing by signing up for my exclusive IELTS Ebooks here on Patreon.

Dave

#1 Make Clear Life Goals

In order to improve fast, you’re gonna need to work hard every day, putting in the hours day in, day out.

But the problem is that without sufficient motivation, most students are not able to work hard for long periods day in, day out.

And to be sure, you’re going to need some very good reasons why you should be doing a listening test on a Saturday afternoon rather than hanging out with your friends.  

What you need is a clear vision for who you want to be and what you want to do with your life and how achieving your target IELTS score will contribute to that.

According to Brendan, once you have that purpose, you will start to learn much faster.

#2 Follow Good Advice

Imagine two students. One is studying alone, the other is being tutored by a friend who already got a good score on the IELTS exam. Who is going to progress faster?

It’s a no-brainer right? The slowest students are those who start from scratch, with nothing. The fastest students are those who try to copy the best and learn from them.

Another example is students who try to prepare for the writing exam without studying model essays or looking closely at the official band descriptors. They are almost certainly going to lose marks.

Let’s talk more about band descriptors. These are documents produced by Cambridge (who make all the IELTS exams), that tells you exactly what the examiner wants.

If you want a copy of them, check out the links here for IELTS writing Task 1, Task 2 and Speaking.

So you will improve your scores much faster if your writing and speaking practice follows the band descriptors. And this is why all of the advice that we give you at How to do IELTS is based on these documents.

So whichever source of information you use – a course book, a teacher, a website, make sure they refer to the band descriptors. If you’re not sure about whether they’re giving you good advice, please message us and we’ll let you know.

Also be careful not to use sample essays from too many different sources. There is more than one right way, and you may get confused which will slow down the learning process.

#3 Everyday, you’re studying

So once you know what you need to do, the next step on your journey to becoming a master student is consistent practice.

Day in, day out, you need to put in the hours (remember those Saturday afternoon listening tests?).  For example, if you want to improve your speaking score quickly, only practicing with your friend one hour a week isn’t going to work, is it?

Instead you need regular, focussed, repeated practice e.g. talking to yourself at home for an hour every day. Talking to yourself? Yes, that’s right! You should record yourself, listen back and think about how to do it better (choose one area at a time – fluency, grammar, vocab, pron), then try the same question again, and repeat, and repeat…

If you’re thinking “I don’t have time to study for hours every day.”, then you need to go back to point 1 and think about how important IELTS is to achieving your life goals. 

You need to be honest with yourself about how much time you can/need to put in to achieve your target score in the timescale you want.

If you can only study a few times a week, of course that’s fine, but you need to recognise that your progress is going to be much slower than students who are studying every day.

But it’s more than that. Practising in the right way is a habit. The more you do it, the better you will get, the easier it will feel, and the more effective your studying will become.

#4 Get Feedback

If you want to learn fast, you also need feedback, so you need to find a suitable tutor. This could be a friend, classmate, teacher, or your friendly online IELTS expert….

But the better your tutor, the better feedback they can give you, so the faster you can improve. And again, if they don’t base their advice on band descriptors, ask them why.

And don’t worry if you are someone who isn’t very good at taking criticism. Just sleep on it and think about it the next day. If the feedback is from someone whose opinion you trust, then it’s important you look carefully at all their feedback and all your mistakes, so you can continue to improve as fast as possible.

#5 Set a Realistic Deadline.

A lot of students seem to book their IELTS test earlier than they need , and before they’ve even started studying for the test.

You should set a clear deadline based on what score you need and when. Then estimate how many hours of study you need to do every day to achieve this.

Talk to your classmates and teacher about your study plan and decide how realistic your deadline is, and whether you need to adjust it.

IELTS Writing Task 2: How to Write a Clear and Simple Conclusion

IELTS Writing Task 2: How to Write a Clear and Simple Conclusion

The conclusion should be the easiest part of your IELTS Writing Task 2 essay.

You’ve done all the hard work – you’ve come up with all the ideas, the structure, your body paragraphs – and now you just have to finish off the last paragraph.

It’s like a footballer who’s run the length of the football pitch and now they are facing an open goal. They just have to put the ball in the back of the net.

However, the conclusion is where a lot of IELTS students fail to score a goal. They make a simple mistake and get an automatic 5 for Task Achievement!

Read some full writing task 2 sample answers from the real test here.

Be sure to avoid the mistakes that most students make on writing by signing up for my exclusive IELTS Ebooks here on Patreon.

Dave

Review – What should a conclusion contain?

First let’s look at an example question:

Some people think that all university students should study whatever they like.

Others believe that they should only be allowed to study subjects that will be useful in the future, such as those related to science and technology.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

A simple conclusion should include the following:

– A clear overall opinion or ‘position’

“In conclusion, I feel that there are clear advantages of allowing students to choose their own subjects.”

 – A summary (paraphrase) of your main and supporting ideas

 “The main benefits are students who are more motivated, successful and creative. This outweighs the drawback of a lack of students in core subjects.”

 – A final thought (for bands 7+)

“The question reminds us that we must always make sure our Universities are flexible enough to meet the challenges that society will face in the future.”    

But actually the most important is including your position/opinion, because without it you will get a 5 for Task Achievement.

This is the big mistake that holds back too many students from getting the score they deserve: no clear opinion/position.

Clear overall opinion or ‘position’

The first thing to remember is that for nearly all IELTS Task 2 questions you need to choose a side.

If you don’t choose a side and support that ‘position’ clearly, you will end up with a 5 for your Task Achievement.

Ideally, you should state your position in your introduction and confirm it in your conclusion.

But even if you don’t include it in your intro, it should definitely be clear in your conclusion.

So our example position is as follows:

“In conclusion, I feel that there are clear advantages of allowing students to choose their own subjects.”

Some students fail to do this and say “Both X and Y have advantages and disadvantages.”

That is not a clear conclusion, so you will definitely lose marks for your task response.

If you don’t have a clear opinion you can only get a maximum of 5 for task achievement, no matter how good the rest of your writing is!

Also, you shouldn’t say “Overall I think X and Y are important so we should allow both.”

Technically this is OK as your opinion is clear, but some examiners might not agree so this is risky.

Therefore if your position is to sit on the fence you might lose marks for your task response.

So the safest strategy is to choose a side, even if that isn’t your real opinion.

Summary of your main and supporting ideas

For this one, just re-state all of your main ideas from your two body paragraphs and the most relevant supporting ideas.

Position:  students should be allowed to chose their own subjects

Main idea for first side (body 1): Students will be more motivated

Supporting ideas (body 1): they will work harder, achieve more and be more creative

Main idea for other side (body 2): A lack of students in core subjects

Supporting ideas (body 2): less skilled labour force, negative impact on economy.

Therefore your paraphrase of your main ideas is as follows:

“The main benefits are students who are more motivated, successful and creative. This outweighs the drawback of a lack of students in core subjects.”

Adding a final thought

Some IELTS examiners feel that to achieve a 7+ for task achievement you should have some new information in your conclusion.

This is one of the few, tricky areas where different examiners will give you different scores. Some don’t care about this. Others will not give you above a 7 for task achievement if you don’t have some new information in your conclusion!

One common way to add an extra comment is to draw out something about the general topic related to the future.

“The question reminds us that we must always make sure our Universities are flexible enough to meet the challenges that society will face in the future.”   

Model conclusion

Here are all three elements together:

Clear position                         Summary of ideas                        New information

In conclusion, I feel that there are clear advantages of allowing students to choose their own subjects. The main benefits are students who are more motivated, successful and creative. This outweighs the drawback of a lack of students in core subjects. The question reminds us that we must always make sure our Universities are flexible enough to meet the challenges that society will face in the future.    

Remember: the opinion/position is the most important part. Include that to make sure you get at least a 5 for task achievement.

Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments

In some countries, governments are making some criminals do voluntary community work rather than being put in prison.

To what extent do you agree with this?

Brainstorm your main ideas and position for the question above and write a conclusion. Put it in comments.