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.
