CAMBRIDGE IELTS COURSE

Lesson 5: Skill practice 3 – ‘Speaking’

Section 1: Speaking questions and ideas.

 Describe an exciting event you've had

Describe a time when you were excited
You should say:
You should say:
 Where you had it
 Where you were  When you had it
 When it was  Why you had this event
 Who you were with
And explain why you felt excited.
And explain why you were excited.

I am going to talk about the time I invited my whole extended family to a dinner at a luxury restaurant.
That was the occasion I got really excited.

- As far as I remember, it was some time around my 11th birthday.

- My family and I went to ______ restaurant.

- All of my aunts, uncles and cousins attended the birthday party, and what made me happy the most
about is the very presence of the uncle who is an overseas Vietnamese working in Korea. He tried his best
to arrange time to fly to Vietnam to join with us so I felt extremely grateful.

- The dinner was in a grandious, cozy Japanese restaurant, which created a pleasurable atmosphere for its
customers. 

- We tried sushi, pizza, barbecue and salmon with tomato sauce which are all delicious. I love salmon the
most. The tomato sauce is extremely wonderful and the taste of the salmon was perfect.

- This dinner means a lot to me, as it not only marked my 11th birthday with my beloved ones, but it was
also a family reunion.

 Describe a goal you set that you tried your  Describe a difficult challenge that you met.
best to achieve.
You should say:
You should say:
- What it was?
- What it was?
 - When/where you met it? - When/where you met it?
And explain why you think it is a challenge. And explain why you think it is a challenge.

I’m the type of person who never likes to rely on luck. I believe that everything can only be achieved
through hard work and determination, and my final year in primary school was one of the times that
I spared no effort to achieve my goal.

At that point, like all the other students, passing the Primary entrance exam was my main goal. But for
me, I felt that the pressure was even higher since the teacher said that I had to do the best in our school.
She believed that I could done the exam very well. That made me felt stressful.

In order to do well at the exam, every day I would spend hours in the library to read as many books as
possible and to learn as much as I could. And even after school, I usually stayed up late to review
everything I had learnt that day. It was a long process with a lot of hard work but I didn’t feel tired at all
because I also wanted to be the best student in my school. I was willing to put in a lot of hard work and
effort for that goal and to not let anything stop me from achieving it. I also knew that there were also
many great students in my school. They learnt very well.

So in the end, all the hard work paid off, and I passed the entrance exam with outstanding results. When I
received the results, I was so happy that I burst into tears. All of my hard work for the year had helped me
achieve one of my big goals.

Section 2: Homework and hints.

Describe an occasion when weather prevented your activity.
You should say:
- When it was
- Why it prevented your activity
- What you did
And how you felt about it.
SAMPLE.

I'm going to tell you about the terrible trip to Hoi An that I had with my family last year. That was the
time when the weather ruined my plan. 

Hoi An is a small ancient town, around 40 km away from Da Nang city, and located in central
Vietnam. This place is extremely famous for its distinct cultural and historical characters, so my family
and I decided to have a 2-day trip there last year. However, the trip was not as exciting as I expected. The
weather forecast told us that the weather conditions in Hoi An on that day would be nice, but everything
was so different. I remember on the day we came to Hoi An, the weather was so terrible with the sky
being changeable and heavy, together with cold winds. As a result, my family and I couldn't take a walk
along the roads in Hoi An town as we planned. Furthermore, the plan of having nice river boat dining was
also canceled because there was a heavy rain in the evening of that day, making the water level in the
river go up and the river banks unstable. Because of these reasons, my parents complained a lot about the
weather and they blamed me for choosing the destination. They also criticised that there was nothing
special about Hoi An and spending money to visit there was such a waste. I got sick of their constant
nagging and had to bear with it until the end of the trip. It was a luck that the trip only lasted 2 days.