10 Most Common IELTS Questions + Answers

you never really know what you're going to be asked in the ielts speaking test however there are certain topics that appear again and again in today's lesson we're going to be looking at 10 of the most common questions in the ielts speaking test coming up [Music] welcome my name is eli and i run the website englishprotips.com where we help students get ready for the ielts test now in today's lesson we're going to be looking at 10 of the most common questions in the ielts speaking test we're going to be looking at some model answers and some useful vocabulary and tips to help you answer these questions well now by far the most common question is about where you live so you might be asked about your home the town or city that you currently live in your hometown so where you were born or where you would like to live in the future okay now one question that gets asked a lot is this tell me about the house or apartment you live in let's watch an answer to this question tell me about the house or apartment you live in well i live in a modern apartment on the outskirts of dublin it's a rather small apartment which i share with my girlfriend there's one bedroom one bathroom and a large open plan kitchen okay i said well i live in a modern apartment on the outskirts of dublin it's a rather small apartment which i share with my girlfriend there's one bedroom one bathroom and a large open plan kitchen okay let's look at some of the vocabulary that i used in my answer i said well i live in a modern apartment so it's a good idea to think of some vocabulary that describes where you live you could say things like a spacious house a small flat or maybe you live in a tiny apartment so what kind of home do you live in find some vocabulary to describe it i also said i live on the outskirts of dublin so i live on the outskirts maybe you live in the center or maybe you live in a residential neighborhood so a neighborhood where lots of other people live and there's lots of houses perhaps you live on the east side of your city or the west side or the south side so again where is your home find some vocabulary to describe the location of your home i also said it's a rather small apartment which i share with my girlfriend you could say with my wife and children or my two flatmates so flatmates are the people that you share a home with typically friends or other students now you might want to say that i share my flat with another university student so who do you live with and how would you describe those people okay so you might need vocabulary like i live alone or i share a flat with three other students i stay at home with my parents i live in the school dormitory so if you're a high school student and you live at your school you live in the school dormitory if you're a university student you can say i stay in student halls of residence so halls of residence describes the university accommodation okay let's see how else are unanswered i said there's one bedroom one bathroom and a large open plan kitchen i could say a spacious dining room so spacious means large or big a comfortable living room so a very comfortable relaxing place a small balcony overlooking the main street so the balcony is the little part of your home that's maybe outside a door or like outside a window and it allows you to look over the street below okay how would you describe the home that you live in so find some vocabulary for this now the second question that gets asked very regularly is this how oh sorry have you lived in this home for a long time let's see an answer for this question have you lived in this home for a long time i've been living in my apartment for about two years i used to live in the city center but to be honest i found a bit loud and expensive i'm much happier in the outskirts of the city where it's quieter all right i said i've been living in my apartment for two years i used to live in the city center but to be honest i found it a bit loud and expensive i'm much happier living in the outskirts of the city where it's quieter let's look at some of the vocabulary so you'll notice this question starts have you lived so have you lived in this home for a long time now if it asks have you lived we're using the present perfect so that's have plus a past participle now we can answer with the present perfect or even the present perfect continuous and we can see that here i've been living in my apartment for about two years so the i have is contracted to i've so i've been living have plus been plus an ing verb this is the present perfect continuous i've been living in my apartment for about two years okay now when we use the present perfect continuous we often use it with words like for or since to describe the duration of time so we could say things like i've been living in my apartment for about two years or for the last two years or two and a half years or three months so we use four when we describe a duration of time however we use since when we describe a moment in time like last year or since i was born or since i started university okay i also said i used to live in the city center but to be honest i found it a bit loud and expensive so used to plus the infinitive is a very useful way to talk about actions or states that were regular in the past i used to live alone i used to spend all my time reading so that means i don't live alone now and i don't spend all of my time reading now okay we're talking about a regular action in the past that's no longer true in the present now pay attention to this when we turn it to the negative we turn it to i didn't use so we dropped the d i didn't like sorry i didn't used to like coffee but now i do i didn't use no i didn't used i didn't use so no d okay i also say i found it a bit loud and expensive so i really like this verb to find something i found it and then an adjective so in my case i found it a bit loud and expensive so you could choose other adjectives i found it exhausting or noisy or very busy so i found it exhausting noisy busy okay i'm much happier living in the outskirts of the city where it's quieter so i'm much happier or i much prefer and then an ing verb i'm much happier living alone i much prefer living in the countryside okay let's look at the third question is there anything you would like to change about your home is there anything you would like to change about your home one thing i'd like to change is the neighbors our upstairs neighbors love singing karaoke first thing in the morning and last thing at night they're very friendly and they always stop when we ask them to but they just love karaoke i said one thing i'd like to change is the neighbors our upstairs neighbors love seeing karaoke first thing in the morning and last thing at night they're very friendly and they always stop when we ask them to but they just love karaoke okay let's look at this answer in a bit more detail is there anything you would like to change about your home so you'll notice we've got a conditional so when i'm answering this question i'm going to say one thing i'd like to change is the neighbors so i'd is the same as i would one thing i'd like to change is the neighbors okay so you can have one thing i'd like to change is the size of the living room the number of bedrooms so think what would you like to change about your home now the important thing is that you elaborate on your answer so you need to answer well why why do you want to change these things so for example i said our neighbors love singing karaoke first thing in the morning and lasting at night they're very friendly and they always stop when we ask them to but they just love karaoke so i'm elaborating on my answer and that's what you need to do to get those high scores in your ielts speaking test okay now this kind of question is very common in the ielts speaking test it's is there anything you would like to change about and then it could be your home but there could be other options is there anything you would like to change about your job your studies your hometown so prepare or at least think about your answer for all of these different questions because they're quite difficult to think about on the spot you can always use the phrase one thing i'd like to change is my salary my colleagues my teacher my work life balance okay question number four have you always lived in the same town or city let's watch an answer have you always lived in the same town or city no actually i moved around a lot throughout my life i was born in london grew up in edinburgh and worked in barcelona and shanghai now i'm living in dublin in ireland so as you can see i've lived in a lot of different places throughout my life all right i said no actually i've moved around a lot throughout my life i was born in london grew up in edinburgh and worked in barcelona and shanghai now i'm living in dublin in ireland so as you can see i've lived in a lot of different places throughout my life okay let's look at this answer in more detail have you always lived in the same town or city okay you'll notice that's the present perfect again so no actually i've moved around a lot throughout my life so we've got have plus the past participle this is the present perfect so you could say things like yes i've always lived in the same city so i have always lived i the subject plus have the auxiliary verb and then lived the past participle i've always lived in the same city okay and then we elaborate we say i was born in london grew up in edinburgh sorry grew up in edinburgh and worked in barcelona and shanghai so grow up is a very useful phrasal verb it means to spend your time in your childhood until you get older in a particular place i grew up in london and went to uni in manchester i grew up in the countryside but now i live in the city center where did you grow up okay maybe you can say things like i was born in italy but when i was 11 my family moved to the philippines i've lived in london for my whole life i'm from china but i moved to manchester for university so uni is short for university okay so where have you lived prepare for this at home before you go to do your ielts test question number five what do you like about the city that you currently live in okay let's watch an answer what do you like about the city that you currently live in dublin is a great city to live in there are good public transportation links lots of great restaurants and cafes and i really like that you can drive for a short time and be in the countryside or by the sea however i would say that it's a bit too expensive for my liking right i said dublin is a great city to live in there are good public transportation links lots of great restaurants and cafes and i really like that you can drive for a short time and be in the countryside or by the sea however i would say that it's a bit too expensive for my liking so what do you like about the city that you currently live in have a think about what's good and what's not so good about the city that you live in or the town so you could say things like well i live in a beautiful city or maybe it has great public transport system or lots of shopping centers or lots of green areas which means lots of areas with grass lots of green areas however you should also prepare some things that aren't so good about your city things like maybe it's too polluted or incredibly congested which means there are lots of cars and lots of traffic jams maybe there are actually too many shopping centers maybe you don't like shopping and you find that there are too many shopping centers or not enough green areas okay so you can say things like it's a beautiful city but a bit too congested for my liking so for my liking means for my preference or there are a lot of shopping centers however i wish there were more green areas or there are a lot of green areas i wish it wasn't so expensive question number six would you always like to live in this city let's watch would you always like to live in this city actually i'd love to move to vancouver i've never been but i've heard that it's a very nice place to live friends have told me that the weather isn't great but it's a very friendly city and there are lots of beautiful places to explore nearby okay i said actually i'd love to move to vancouver i've never been i've heard that it's a very nice place to live friends have told me that the weather isn't great but that it's a very friendly city and there are lots of beautiful places to explore nearby okay would you like to sorry would you always like to live in this city so you'll notice the question starts with would so when we're answering we can say something like this actually i'd love to move to vancouver so i'd is the same as i would so i'd love to move to and wherever you would like to move to okay you could say something like this actually i'm planning to move to london next year and again in ielts it's always important to elaborate on your answers and ask to answer the question why so why do you want to move to these different cities you can say things like i've heard that it's a very nice place to live or i've been once before and i loved it because or my friends told me that the people there are very friendly okay question number seven now we're leaving the topic of where you live and we're looking at another topic that appears very regularly in ielts and that is your work or your studies now if you've done the ielts speaking test before you know that it's very common to get asked this question do you work or study let's watch an answer do you work or study i work i run a website called englishprotips.com which helps students to get ready for the ielts test okay i said i work i run a website called englishprotips.com which helps students to get ready for the ielts test okay a nice short answer and when you answer this question it probably should be short you don't need to elaborate and explain how long you've been working there or what you like about it because these questions are likely to come afterwards so if you answer this question it's most likely that you either work you're a student or you're unemployed so let's look at some useful vocabulary that you can use if you work you can say things like i work as a or and so i work as an electrician or a policeman i'm a i'm a sales assistant or i work in and then the department at a industry company so i work in in marketing at a technology company i work in the technology industry or i work in the tech industry i work in so i work in tech for example okay what about if you're a student well you can say things like i'm in high school or i study maths or i'm a computer science major or i'm in my second year of accounting or i'm doing a master's or a phd in anthropology or i just graduated with a degree in mathematics so some useful vocabulary for you but what happens if you are unemployed well you can say things like this i'm currently unemployed but i used to work as a sales assistant or i'm a housewife or house husband i don't have a formal job however before i started taking care of my family full time i used to work as a policeman for example okay now if you do say this it's likely that the examiner will ask you about the job that you used to do in the past so they'll ask you about being a policeman for example okay question number eight that appears all the time in the ielts speaking test is this have you been doing this job or this course for a long time let's watch an answer have you been doing this job for a long time not too long i started working on my website english pro tips at the beginning of 2020 so i guess it's been over two years already although it's been two years it really hasn't felt like a long time i guess that's because my work is always changing and i've had to learn a lot of new and exciting skills like how to build a website okay then i said not too long i started working on my website english pro tips at the beginning of 2020 so i guess it's been over two years already although it's been two years it really hasn't felt like a long time i guess that's because my work is always changing and i've had to learn a lot of new and exciting skills like how to make a website okay now this answer uses a special method it uses the ree method and i'll show you what that is so the ree method stands for well r e e stands for respond elaborate and then example and i'll show you what i mean take a question like this have you been doing this job for a long time we start with a simple response so something like not too long okay nice and short but then afterwards we are elaborate i started working on my website english pro tips at the beginning of 2020 so i guess it's been over two years already now we finish with an example although it's been two years it really hasn't felt like a long time i guess that's because my work is always changing and i've had to learn a lot of new and exciting skills like how to make a website okay so the ree method can help you to make sure that you answer fully in the ielts speaking test question number nine what would make your work or your studies easier a very tricky question to answer on the spot let's see an answer what would make your work easier well in my case having an editor would make my life a lot easier making these lessons takes a long time i have to plan the lesson set up the camera and all the equipment and then after all that i have to spend a lot of time editing it would be a lot easier if i could offload the editing to someone else all right then i said well in my case having an editor would make my life a lot easier making these lessons takes a long time i have to plan the lesson set up the camera and all the equipment and then after all that i have to spend a lot of time editing it would be a lot easier if i could offload the editing to someone else right okay have a think what would make your work or your studies easier maybe for example you can say my work or my studies would be easy if i didn't have to commute so far so you have to travel a long distance to get to work or i could work from home my work would be easy if i could work from home i didn't have to travel to the office my boss or teacher didn't give me so much so many assignments or so much homework okay the final question number 10 one of the most difficult questions i think and that's the reason why i think it's a good idea to prepare for it why did you choose this subject or this job why did you choose this job i've always wanted to have my own business i enjoyed working for other companies but in the back of my mind i always had the desire to work for myself throughout my teaching career i focused on ielts and test preparation and i've always been a passionate teacher so it seemed logical that i would focus on ielts preparation for my business all right then so i said i've always wanted to have my own business i enjoyed working for other companies but in the back of my mind i always had the desire to work for myself throughout my teaching career i focused on ielts and test preparation and i've always been a passionate teacher so it seemed logical that i would focus on ielts preparation for my business okay so here's some useful vocabulary you can use i chose something because it's good for my career i chose maths because it's good for my career i've always been interested in so it seemed logical to choose so i've always been interested in maths so it seemed logical to choose applied mathematics at university i've always been good at something so i decided to choose and then whatever your job or your course is so i've always been good at maths so i decided to choose software engineering for example i've always liked and then you can say what the subject or the topic that you've always liked right then i hope that this lesson has helped you and i think it's a good idea to go through these 10 questions not to memorize your answers but to prepare your answers and just to think about what you're going to say and maybe learn some vocabulary for answering it answering these questions better good luck with your ielts test and all of your preparation and i look forward to seeing you in the next lesson bye then [Music] you

Channel: English Pro Tips - IELTS Preparation

Views: 418,517

Keywords: IELTS Speaking, Most common IELTS questions, Common IELTS questions, Common IELTS topics, IELTS Questions, IELTS questions 2022, Latest IELTS questions, latest questions for IELTS

Id: jCIpVgaKosw

Length: 26min 42sec (1602 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 21 2022