IELTS SPEAKING TEST

- 3 PARTS:
+ Part 1 = Introduction and general questions
* 3 topics
--> Topic 1: your background, e.g. work or study, family, hometown …
--> Topic 2: your hobby/interest, e.g. music, television, sports, leisure activities, friends/friendship …
--> Topic 3: general knowledge; e.g. weather, shopping, mobile phones, fashion, flowers …
* 3-4 questions each, total: 10 - 12 questions
* Time: 4-5 minutes
!Maximum number of questions = 12
Minimum time = 4 minutes = 240 seconds
--> A question-answer: 20 seconds
* Focus: fluency
This means you are able to answer all the questions in a NATURAL way without much hesitation,
repetition and self-correction.
+ Part 2 (short presentation)
* You are given a cue card with a topic and 4 suggested questions
* One-minute preparation
Two-minute presentation
1-2 follow-up questions
* Time: about 4 minutes
+ Part 3 (discussion)
* You are to discuss some (usually 2) UNFAMILIAR topics related to the topic in part 2 with the
examiner.
* 3-6 questions in 4-5 minutes --> longer answers
* Focus = structure i.e. general answer - explanation - example …
- Your performance is assessed by four criteria.
1. Fluency and coherence
2. Lexical Resource

3. Grammatical Range and Accuracy

4. Pronunciation
Pay attention to five main pronunciation features:
* Individual sounds, e.g. voiced and voiceless consonants, long and
short vowels, clusters, silent sounds …
* Word stress
--> Two-syllable words
--> stress pattern can change when added a suffix
e.g. photograph, photography, photographic
* Sentence stress
Stress the keywords = those conveying the main ideas
* Intonation i.e. rising or falling tone
* Chunking = how to group words together
Fluency and coherence

Lexical resource

grammatical range and accuracy

pronunciation

TIPS TO ANSWER PART 1 QUESTIONS

1. Understand the question
+ Type of question: WH-question, yes-no question or choice question
--> what information and how to answer the question.
E.g. Do you like listening to music?
What type of music do you like listening to?
+ Topic of the question
This would decide your use of vocabulary i.e. you are to use some
words related to the topic.
E.g.
Do you like sports?
Do you like shopping?
2. Answer the question directly.
+ Avoid repeating the keywords in the question.
+ Use some redundant language or buffers to make your answers sound
more natural.
E.g. well, to be quite honest, In fact, I'd have to confess that, in
a way, frankly speaking, you know …