Kevin,

you just finish your test.

How was it?

It was...

it was okay, I guess.

Oh no...

Do you think that the IELTS

speaking test is difficult?

Well, I agree with you.

The great news is that

we've made some

fantastic mock exam videos

with a real practice exam,

with real students,

and a real practice examiner.

During these videos,

I'm going to be looking at

what the students do well,

how they can improve,

and also,

how you guys can use

some of their tips,

techniques and ideas

in your speaking test.

Hello people!

It's Chris from IELTS daily!

And you're back

for another

mock exam session.

I hope you find

these sessions really useful.

Today,

we have Kevin.

Kevin's from China,

and he is not originally

a native speaker.

So we're gonna talk about

what Kevin does well

in his sample test,

how can he improve,

and we'll also be sharing

some ideas of

what you guys can use

in your speaking test.

So if you're ready to go,

let's go and watch Kevin.

Hello!

And welcome to this practice exam

conducted by IELTS Daily.

My name is Maddy,

and I'm your practice examiner.

The questions in this test

are designed to simulate

the IELTS speaking test.

Let's start!

What's your first name, please?

Ho Ling.

H-O-N-G-L-A,

but you can call me Kevin.

Thanks, Kevin.

Did you notice that

Kevin gave his native name?

And he said,

"But you can call me Kevin".

This is common

if you have an English name.

In the test,

they will probably want to hear

your original, native name,

and the name which you prefer.

So you can say:

You can call me,

in this case,

you can call me Kevin.

At the beginning of the IELTS test,

you'll be required

to provide some ID,

but as this is a practice test,

we don't need to do that today.

I want to begin

by talking about you.

Do you work or do you study?

I'm a full time university student

at the University of Melbourne.

Studying the bachelor of bio medicine.

And you just told me

about what do you study.

Can you tell me

a bit more about that?

I do a Bachelor of bio medicine.

It's a pretty much set course,

on either research,

scientific research

or medicine school in the future.

But I still haven't decided

which path I might take.

But at the moment,

I'm majoring in genetics,

and I have a particular

interest in genetics,

and especially CRISPR technology,

which allow us to add the genes

and maybe cure disease

like cancer did...

like cancer in the future,

and all sorts of diseases,

that we aren't able

to cure at the moment.

Kevin makes a great start here,

a couple of points

that I want to really

be really picky on.

So he said:

Which pass.

It's a common mistake

for people who don't

have the "th" sound.

He should be pronouncing the word:

Path.

So be careful

if you don't have the "th"

sound in your language.

He spoke about his

full time university degree

in bio medicine,

and gave some extra evidence.

And he elaborated on his answer,

which is really great,

he improves his fluency mark.

Why did you choose this subject?

I always...

I'm just gonna pause Kevin here.

Did you notice that

he struggled a little bit

to think of an idea,

and he hesitated.

If you want to score a band 9,

you can hesitate,

but don't hesitate too much.

If you're looking for ideas,

that's normal.

But he,

I noticed that he was

looking up at the sky,

and he was, "uh... uh"...

So just be prepared

to speak as much as possible,

as quickly as possible.
It's not bad here,

but I noticed that he did

struggle a little bit.

So, it was...

I was introduced to this topic

by a Netflix documentary.

I think it's called "Unnatural Selection".

And it talks about gene drive

and a lot of the ethical issues,

surrounding genetics.

But it also talks about

the potential and

the exciting new area

that CRISPR have brought to us.

So I always thought,

"this is a very interesting topic",

I wanted to know

more about it.

So I took some subjects

in genetics last year,

and I really enjoyed it,

so I decided to continue on.

And do you enjoy the place

where you study?

I have to say,

not the best... this year,

because it's all online,

but usually,

at university campus,

it's always exciting because

from lectures to lectures,

we go to different buildings.

And it's always good to see,

meet other people

and see different...

especially...

if we have lectures in the...

What's it called...

the design school

and the building is really nice,

and the lecture theaters are really...

big and modern,

and I enjoy having classes

in there.

Did you notice again

that Kevin struggled

a little bit with

finding a word,

and he was looking

for the word, "design school"?

If you want to score

a band eight or above,

In the Lexical Resource Mark,

you can't really be

thinking too much for words.

And this will affect

your fluency and coherence as well.

So the hesitancy...

Making hesitations

will really affect your mark.

If you're looking for words,

I think in this case,

he would probably

be limited now

to a band 8

in the Fluency and Coherence mark,

because he couldn't find

the word, "design school".

And he also said,

"I have to say",

I have to say

it's not the best year.

"I have to say",

is a great fill of phrase

which you could

use in your test.

Ok.

Let's move on to

the topic of clothes.

Is what you wear important to you?

Well...

I actually spend

way more than average time

that I would spend

on clothing today.

But usually I don't

really care too much

about clothing,

as long as it's comfortable.

And as long as

I'm not in my pajamas,

I can just go to uni...

I spend a day there or at library.

And then come home,

and then it'll be easy,

and it won't be.

I don't care too much about fashion,

but as long as

it doesn't make me look bad,

or it's comfortable,

I'm fine with it.

And do you prefer wearing

formal or relaxed clothing?

Relaxed for sure.

I...

don't particularly enjoy wearing jeans.

Because sometimes, like,

after a whole day

wearing it,

it's a bit tight

and things might

get uncomfortable.

So I do enjoy wearing,

like exercise,

like sporting pants,

and it makes things

easier for me.

And as I have said,

I don't really care

too much about fashion.

Maybe I should,

but I don't personally.

So I don't mind

wearing comfortable things.

Great!

Excellent!

Kevin's doing a great job here.

Pronunciation of the word clothing.

Clothing,

very difficult for people

from countries without

this "th" sound again.

I know Kevin's from China originally,

and Chinese doesn't have

the "th" sound.

So clothing,

clothing.

Not closing.

Clothing.

He said,

"I don't care too much about fashion".

He just goes to Uni

He contracted the word, "university",

so university
is "uni".

I usually don't care too much...

He said, "For sure".

For sure means definitely,

and...
he gave great answers,

I'm not concerned too much,

just a couple of areas now

that probably are going to limit him

from getting a band 9.

But he's on track

for a band 8

at the moment.

Does your country have any traditional clothing?

I think we do.

But...

Yeah,

but I think it's more of...

there's something called "Qipao",

which is mainly weren't worn by...

I think female?

Oh, look,

I'm horrible at
Chinese history,

but I think we do have like

clothes, traditional clothes, but...

I've personally never won them because

I've never found the Occa....

the right occasion to wear it.

But mainly in a formal event,

we stop using

traditional Chinese clothes.

It's more Westernized,

and we wear suits and ties

just like everyone

else.
Okay,.

Now are some particular

pronunciation problems.

And it goes back again

to this "th" sound.

Kevin is struggling a little bit

with the "th" sound.

So I know this word

is really difficult

for Chinese speakers.

Clothes.

Clothes.

Kevin says, "clo-thes, clo-thes"

The correct pronunciation is "clothes, clothes".

if you can see my tongue,

Clothes, really, really difficult.

He said, mainly worn by female.

Female would be singular,

and you should say females.

So a couple of mistakes

starting to creep
through here.

He's still doing really well,

I'm giving him

at the moment,

a solid band 8.

And has your style

changed over time?

Oh yeah.

I used to enjoying wearing... sneakers

like to school and to everything.

But I think after I've study here

and in UNI, Melbourne,

especially staying in the college,

My style has slightly changed,

and I've started

wearing slides everywhere.

A better thing

where I'm not very stylish,

but I don't mind

as long as they're comfy.

So I've been wearing slides

everywhere to uni,

even to exams,

which is questionable decisions,

but as long as

it's comfy again.

Kevin did really well here,

he's talking about

how his style has changed.

He did say,

I think,

and I might have misheard him:

My style has slightly changed.

I think he needs

to say "changED, changED".

He used the word comfy,

comfy is the contracted form

of the word comfortable.

So he said,
"I don't mind as long as it's comfy".

He did say,

"as long as",

"as long as" is a complex grammar form.

So really well done in here,

and he's showing that

he has a variety

of complex grammar forms.

Now I want to talk about recycling.

Do people recycle

in the place where you live?

It's actually implemented last year,

I think in Shanghai,

specifically, which is the city

I came from.

So now you have to

sort in the block of apartments 

that we live,

there, are specific places

that have four

different kinds of bins.

And you have to do

different types of garbage separately,

and you have to be

responsible for the 

environment.

And for the ecosystem,

I think it's good

that we're catching up

on all the issues
because of global warming.

It's no small deal,

and it's the fate

of the entire humanity.

So I think it is important

that we are implementing

these new rules about

recycling and garbage disposal rules.

We moved on

to a new topic now,

which is recycling.

Remember,

you might have two topics.

During part one,

you might even have three,.

In this case,

we had clothing,

and we've moved on to recycling.

Ok.

Now the topic of recycling

is a common topic,

and you should be

prepared for it

during the test.

In this case,

Kevin made a 
couple of mistakes.

He said,

"It is actually implemented last year".

I think he should have said,

"It was implemented last year",

because it's in the past.

And he used words like:

specific places,

which was great.

You have to be responsible.

And he used a.collocation.

He used a phrasal verb:

We are catching up on.

To catch up on,

really great language there.

I'm very impressed.

And he said something

with the fate of humanity.

Kevin's doing a

really good job here.

He's still at a really solid band 8.

why do people recycle?

I think a lot of people

don't know too much

about this topic.

and they do it because,

well, the government or like...

the officials tell them to,

and it's sort of,

almost like a law,

and that we have to obey.

But I think personally it's,

as I've said,

it's about our future,

unlike something like corona virus,

like it's a pandemic

that all they will haunt us all

for three, two, three years,

and it will pass.

But with global warming,

it's an issue that

is linked very closely

to our future entirely.

So if we don't do anything now,

It means our future generations

won't have a viable earth to live on.

So I think it's important

that we start

changing the way we live

and doing things sustainably

so that we can have,

we can provide a future

for our generations to come.

Again.

Did you hear Kevin's pronunciation

of the sound, "th"?

He said, "whiz".

And he said, Earsss.

With

and

Earth.

Really, really, if you don't have

this "th" sound in your language,

be careful.

Make sure you spend some time

focusing on that particular sound.

Kevin had some

really great answers here:

"And it's a law that they have to follow."

He said,

"A pandemic that will haunt us".

To haunt somebody,

high-level language.

For me,

Kevin is sitting between

a band 8 and a band 8.5.

He's doing exceptionally well.

A strict examiner will

probably give him an 8,

but today,

I'm gonna give him a band 8.5

as we go along.

Hopefully nothing will change.

Do you reuse items?

Like, what kind of items?

like?

Like you use it twice.

Yeah,

I-mean,

I try to stay away

from disposable stuff,

because you use them,

you throw it away,

and it's not...

The quality of is not really

designed to be used

a second time or multiple times.

So I,

for example,

chopsticks, and bowls, and things,

I tend to want to use

actual plates and bowls

so that I don't have to

use disposable ones,

so I can clean them up,

and I don't have to

waste all these things.

And also,

I think a lot of

big companies such as

coca cola and even

B-A companies,

they've started to

do these recycling things

where you finish the bottle

and you can

give it back to the company

for a little bit of money back.

And I think it does encourage

people to recycle things

instead of throwing it everywhere

and not using it after once.

No major problems here

I think he spoke at length

about this particular topic,

why people recycle,

what his feelings

about recycling are,

he prefers not to

use disposable items.

There's a good word for you:

Disposable.

He prefers not to.

He talked about sustainability

and it encourages people,

I strongly advise you,

go and listen

to some of his language.

He did really well here.

Right.

I'm going to give you a topic,

and I'd like you

to talk about it

for one to two minutes.

Before you talk,

you'll have one minute

to think about

what you're going to say.

You can make notes

if you wish.

So here is a paper

and pencil for making notes.

And here is your topic.

You have one minute

to make notes.

All right.

So this particular topic

could be something

that you experience

during your test.

We've got a tradition

from your country.

Think about any tradition

that you might have.

It could be

a historic tradition,

or it could be

a more modern tradition.

Let's see what

Kevin's going to talk about.

Maybe he's going to talk about

a tradition from the country

where he lives now,

or he might

talk about something

from his native country.

That's okay.

So remember you have

one to two minutes,

after this.

So don't worry
if I stop you.

I'll tell you

when the time is up.

I would like you to describe

a tradition in your country.

You can start speaking now.

As the spring festival

is coming up,

I was thinking about it.

And so I'm gonna talk about

this tradition where

on the spring festival,

which is the Chinese New Year.

Chinese people come together

and families reunion.

And it's a fantastic time

for everyone, for the kids.

It's...They're having

a lot of fun

because they receive red packets,

which is money

in an red envelope

which is given to them,

for them to use.

And for the adults,

It's a time where

Big family come together,

cook food together,

they can chat,

they can play

with poker or mahjong,

and they can enjoy

their times together.

It is a tradition

that mainly involves

the older generation.

So for us,

I think it's sad,

sad that we're losing

this sort of tradition.

because the young people

will now spread all

over the country, working,

or even in the world,

we're working in

different places.

So we don't have

the luxury of coming back

together to meet the family,

to spend the time together.

Especially for me this year,

I'll be stuck here in Melbourne

instead of going back

to reunite with my family.

I think it is a

quite an important tradition,

because it sort of symbolizes

the new year.

And we used to do fire crackers

and fireworks to symbolize

The disappearance of the last year,

or the bad luck

and bad things

that happened last year

have disappeared

in the sound

of the fireworks.

And we

embrace the new year

and embrace the new things

that are to come.

I think,

especially in a time of 2020

with Coronavirus

and a lot of

bad things happening,

I think we definitely

need this
tradition this year

to bring people together

and sort of provide them

with the future that

everyone can look forward to

and think about

the good things

that will come in the future.

And will you still celebrate it here?

Oh yeah, for sure

I'll go with my friends.

We're thinking about

renting a place

and then cooking

and having fun together.

So we can still

feel like home together.

Did you notice that

right at the end,

after the time had finished,

the examiner asked

a very short question.

You might have that in the test,

so be prepared for that.

Now,

in the exam,

you just have to be prepared

to speak at length

for over 2 minutes or

up to 2 minutes.

Kevin did a great job here.

A few things that

I just want to

pick out again.

Again,

his pronunciation

of the sound, "th".

He said, "whiz",

and not with.

He talked about

spring festival and one word

which he used,

he didn't 
use it quite right.

He said,

"The families reunion".

Now the word,

"reunion" is a noun.

You can't say,

"families reunion".

You would need to use the verb.

So families reunite.

Families reunite,

which means, "come together".

So he made

a little bit of a mistake there.

And he also said,

"Red packets",

which is...

packets is plural.

So we need to say,

"red packets",

which are...

I was really impressed.

Again,

Kevin,

for me,

is at a solid 8.

He speaks at length.

He has lots of good language

with occasional mistakes.

Pronunciation and grammar here

are the two areas

that he could

probably work on the most.

We're moving into part three,

I'm excited to hear

what he's gonna

talk about in part three,

and what the topics are.

come on.

Now,

let's talk about

traditions and customs.

Is it important for a country

to maintain

its traditions and customs?

In the speaking test,

part three will always

be related to part two.

You can hear Maddy,

our practice examiner

moving on

to the topic

of traditions and customs.

This will be a broader topic;

it could be

any type of question.

which relate to global issues

or something which affects society,

not necessarily affecting you.

There will be more abstract questions.

For sure,

I think this is about,

like histories and culture,

I think it's very important,

not in a sense- traditional sense,

that it symbolizes who we are,

because I think

we're always making

progressing to the future,

and sometimes

it's important to not linger

on things from the past

and accept things

that are coming.

So for example,

maybe in the past,

we have the habit

of using disposable things

and not recycle.

But because we know

about the science

and we know about the ecosystem,

we know we have to change

the way we do things,

and that's important

in a sense

that we should move on.

But there are certain things

that we need to remember

about the history

and about our culture

that are unique to us,

because it sort of

symbolizes who we are

as a group of people.

And it can also provide us

with sort of a lesson

to prevent us

from making the 

same mistakes

from the past again.

A very interesting thing is

if you go to the bund,

which is like a river and

a tourist attraction in Shanghai there,

you can see

a lot of buildings

designed by foreign countries.

And this was because

I think the opium war

and world war 2,

and a lot of people in

a lot of foreign countries

invaded Shanghai.

And so they built

all these embassies

for themselves.

We kept that tradition

not because

we want to keep rem...

well, we, we want to keep

remembering the tragic past

but it's already

a tourist attraction.

Sorry, I digressed.

So we want to keep it

because it reminds us

of the past

and what happened

in the past

because we got too 

arrogant in a past,

and we forget that

there are other people.

We thought that China

was the center of the universe

and everything surrounds us,

and we became too powerful

that we forgot that

there can be,

if we stop moving forward,

then we will be backwards.

I'm just going to

interrupt Kevin here.

Now he spoke a lot here,

and he said

something like,

"I digressed",
and I think he did digress.

That means

he's gone off on another topic.

Now, that's not a bad thing,

because you can

go off on different topics.

Just make sure

you're not speaking too long.

You may find that in part 3,

an examiner might interrupt you.

That's part of part 3

that the examiner

has the opportunity

to come in

and question something

that you've said.

So why do you think that?

Or what makes that the case?

It will happen in the test,

if they want to ask you

about your thoughts

and your opinion on something,

they will jump in

and ask you.

Kevin,

again,

pronunciation of the sound, "whiz",

and it should be "with".

And he said,
"There are certain sings"

and not things.

So I'm focusing

a little bit

on his pronunciation,

because I know that

he can do better.

Overall,

lots of great language,

but I do agree

that he digressed

a little bit.

Be prepared to stop yourself

and just wait for these.

I'm going to ask you

the next question.

Overall,

really good.

And this is

the consequences

of our arrogance.

And I think

it definitely pays
remembrance,

or a alarm clock for us

that we need to

keep moving forward

and embrace new stuffs.

Is globalization changing our traditions?

For sure.
I think globalization

doesn't necessarily mean

that we have to change

the way we are.

We have to embrace

other cultures,
for sure.

But it doesn't mean that

we have to accommodate,

we have to accommodate

to other cultures,

but it doesn't mean

that other cultures

have to change.

Like it doesn't mean

all cultures

have to
come together

and only becomes

a universal one.

Did you notice here again,

Kevin is hesitating

a little bit

to find ideas?

That's normal

for a band 9.

You can do that.

It was a difficult question.

He's trying to find time

and find ideas

by talking about
a topic more generally.

He's really struggling

for an idea here,

but that's okay.

He's filling his time

with phrases and words

which are filler phrases,

and using it

as a way

to generate ideas.

I think that's the tragedy

of a lot of invasions and colonizations

and thinking about

wiping an entire culture out

to replace them

with the invaders, once.

The idea in our minds should be

to see what the good things

about other cultures are.

And maybe even...

I just convert to them

in a sense that

you join them

into celebrating their holidays,

their culture,

so that everyone

can feel welcome

and comfortable 
sharing their own cultures

and living together even,

despite the differences in culture.

Thank you very much.

That is the end

of the speaking test.

Super!

Thanks, Kevin!

I really enjoyed that!

I hope you did too.

If you liked it

and if you've got

any ideas of your own,

please leave them

in the common section below.

We read them all,

and we're really interested

to hear what you think.

So on the right,

you can see

that I've given Kevin

an overall band 8

with a solid 8

in each section.

I do think that

he might be able

to score a 9

in the Fluency and Coherence section

because he spoke at length,

and he didn't have

too much hesitation

looking for words.

His hesitation was only for content.

However,

in the other three sections,

he probably just had

a couple of few too many mistakes,

particularly in the

grammar and the pronunciation section.

So I would award him

an 8 in all those three sections

for grammar,

lexical resource,

and pronunciation.

So that would leave him

an overall band 8.

A really solid band 8,

and I think there would be

lots and lots of language,

ideas and techniques

that you could learn from

in this test.

Right.

Well,

that's the end

of today's class,

I hope you enjoyed it.

Don't forget

to share these videos,

come and join

us on Facebook.
Subscribe to our Youtube channel.

We love to hear from you.

We'll be back

with another student,

a different student,

a different test

which we hope

you can learn from.

I think these videos

are super useful,

and I really enjoy

offering them to you guys

so that you can improve

your test skills.

See you soon.