Understanding IELTS: Speaking

USING YOUR MINUTE

Making notes for Part 2

There are many different ways to use the one minute preparation time in part two of the speaking
test. Let’s look at this sample question

You need to make sure that you address all the key points in the task so one possibility is to write
down notes for each point like this

Wild animal – wild pig/boar

1. Appearance
• Dark colours – brown/black fur
• Size – similar to a large dog but fatter
• Teeth or fangs coming up out of its mouth
2. Habitat
• Lives in forests near Barcelona
• Sometimes goes into city
3. Like/don’t like
• Can be dangerous
• People hunt them
• Nocturnal – looks scary at night

© British Council 2019

 • Great! City wildlife in 2019

Some people prefer to use mindmaps or spider-graphs like this:

While others prefer just to make a list of some key words they plan to use in their talk.

• brown/black fur fangs

• nocturnal
• hunt
• forest

There is no one best way – the important thing is to try different methods and find the one that
works best for you.

© British Council 2019