So you said, "Har work", okay. And it's really common for the Singaporeans to not say the last letter of "hard". The sound, "d", needs to be pronounced. So, "hard work". Hard work. If you did it normally, you would say, "hard work". Don't say the d. You also said, "at the brink off", and it should be, "on the brink of". Yeah, I realize that mistake, but I had already said it and I just wanted to keep going on. Wonderful. And you said, "it's more of", and you were talking about something. I would say, "it's more about". But overall, you had so few mistakes, you would be on the brink, you'd be on the brink of an 8.5 or a maximum of 9. So that's really, really excellent. You spoke wonderfully throughout this and I think lots of students will take away some of the things that you've said and they'll be able to learn from it. So, thank you for your time, Elisha, today. Thank you so much. Hello and welcome to this mock exam session. I'm so happy to have you back. Today we have the wonderful student, Elisha. She's from Singapore and she has a couple of areas where she could improve. I also want to think about and what you would do if you had an examiner who is really friendly or if you had an examiner who was a little bit more serious. Maybe they didn't give you anything back in terms of body language. We hear from students all the time that some examiners are really friendly and some examiners are a little bit miserable. They don't smile, they don't give you anything back. So be prepared for both. Are you ready to begin this video? Come on, let's go. Hello and welcome to this practice exam conducted by IELTS daily. My name is Maddie, 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? Alright. I'm just gonna stop there because this is quite important. In one of our previous videos which you can see that Saskia and lots of you were giving feedback on our Youtube channel that the examiner was really friendly. Now for some of you, that's really surprising because in your country, maybe your examiner is quite serious. Maybe they don't have any emotions on their face. It really depends on the examiner and it depends on the day. So if you have a friendly examiner like Maddie, that's normal. Also if you have a serious examiner, don't be put off. Just keep talking as though you're talking to a friend. So in this case, we have Maddie. She's really friendly. She smiles and she nods along which is really helpful. it's more like a real conversation. I really wish all examiners did that. My first name is Elisha. Thanks Elisha. At the beginning of the IELTS test, you will 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 currently studying right now. I'm studying in the University of Melbourne and I'm majoring in psychology. Do you enjoy what you study? Yes I do enjoy it, and I've always had like this fascination about psychology and about understanding people, and learning about the different theories, and how the brain works, and how you can apply that to reality, and how you can communicate and understand people better. Do you want to study more in the future? Yes. I'm actually thinking of doing a masters. I'm a bit unsure whether I want to go into the business side, so I might study on consumer behavior. So you learn about people and how they react to different, different things, so when you're trying to sell the product, you got to understand the consumers and what they like, what they don't like, so I'm a bit I'm confused. I might actually pursue clinical psychology. So doing an honors in psychology, so that I can become a psychologist. Okay. I'm just gonna stop here and talk a little bit about pronunciation. Now clearly, Elisha spoke at length. She didn't stop speaking and spoke really, really well. Lots of complexity in her grammar, but I want to focus on pronunciation because there's a feature of her pronunciation called, "The Glottal Stop". The Glottal Stop. Now for those people who know about anatomy and physiology, the epiglottis is the flap which moves when you want to speak or if you want to eat. And it stops the air from going into your lungs and it allows the air to go into your lungs, opens and closes. Now in speech, there is the glottal stop and the glottal stop is used really commonly with native speakers. Look at the sentence below, and notice how I pronounce it. What time? What time? Did you notice that I didn't say, "WhaT time?", so "what", the air continues. What. And it finishes here because you can hear thaT. whaT. What time? But I don't say that. I actually say, "what time?". And you notice that the air comes up, "what", stops at the epiglottis and does not continue. And this is a feature called, "The Glottal Stop". And Elisha used it a couple of times. She said, "Abou(t)". Abou(t). Instead of abouT. AbouT. And it really is a feature that native speakers use. And in order for you to reach higher levels of pronunciation score in the IELTS speaking test, you need to be thinking about these types of techniques. They don't come naturally; you have to practice. And you have to listen to native speakers. It's a really useful feature for you to think about. So, yeah. Currently deciding whether I want to pursue a master's in consumer behavior or I wanna, I wanna continue doing honors in psychology. Did you also notice that in this part of the speech, Elisha says, "I wanna"? I wanna. Now, I had this question from our other videos. Students are not allowed to contract speech or they're not allowed to use slang. Well, first of all, wanna is not really slang. Wanna is just contracted speech. "I want to", "I wanna". And it is absolutely normal for you to use that during IELTS speaking test. You have to speak naturally. So for those people who are a little bit dubious or if you're doubting this, really, really, really, it's important that you use natural contracted speech. Don't use it in writing, though. Let's continue. Okay. Let's move on to the topic of picnics. Do you enjoy going for a picnic? Yes, I think it's actually a really fun activity to do with your friends or your families. And I've actually been to, I've just recently, I had a picnic with my friends and we went to the beach to have the picnic, and I thought it was really fun because given the circumstances of 2020 year, with the whole COVID situation, I feel like, the first thing I want to do is just to have quality time with my friends and family after not being able to physically see them. So I thought, like, having a picnic is a really good time to actually talk to people again and reconnect instead of just using your phone or like , just playing video games or watching like Netflix or something. So I do enjoy having picnics especially like, when you're outside. You can really just like take it all in and enjoy the scenery and it's just a more chill vibe than just, I'm going to a restaurant and it's more personal for me. I heard Elisha say, "After not be able to". After not be able to. I don't quite think I heard, "after not being able to", and that's the correct form. After not being able to. So, after + ing. I heard, "after not being able to". But she did have some really good complexity within her grammar. So she said something like, "Given the situation of COVID last year". So, "given" is a great way to start a sentence. She probably spoke a little bit more than she needed to, but great expansion on her answers. And what types of food do you take with you? I would usually just take like, pastries or like sushi and drinks. Or even like, cheese platter. We usually just bring one item each and so, like, everyone contributes something to the picnic. But it depends on like, the day, is all, like, usually if I would have a picnic, it would be a very sunny day. So definitely, cooled drinks and sushi , like cheese platter and dessert as well. Conditional sentences. "If I were". Now many of you would say, grammatically that would be incorrect. But it's totally normal, it's called the subjunctive. The subjunctive. And look below. It's, "If I were". If I were to meet the prime minister, I would be very humble, If I were to wake up late tomorrow, I would be in trouble. So this is an example where the subjunctive, and maybe we'll talk about that in a future video, you can make, what would be a grammatical mistake. You can also say, "If I was". But in this case she said, "If I were". I also heard a few more glottal stops, which were great. We will listen very shortly to Elisha, where she maybe, uses a glottal stop where a typical native speaker would not. Let's keep listening. And do you remember the last picnic you went on? Yes, I do. I just went last week and we went to St. Kilda Beach to just have a picnic and afterwards, watch the sunset. And it was really amazing because like, I thought it was really peaceful. It's been a while since I've been out, given the whole COVID situation. But, yeah. It was really amazing to finally see my friends and to finally enjoy their company and enjoy the food, and I would love to picnic again soon with my friends, all my family. Great. Now, three words for you here. Went. And I heard her say, "We went". And that would be an example of a glottal stop. Can you hear that, "we went"? And that's typical. Many people who are native speakers would use that one. Another one was, "picnic". Picnic. You didn't hear her say, "PiCKniCK". She said, "picnic". And that's another good example of a glottal stop. One which I'm just a little bit doubtful of, but I did understand it, was "food". Food. If you listen to Elisha, she says, "foo", rather than food. Can you hear the, "d" at the end of food? So just be careful. I would say if you are from Singapore, just be careful that some of your "d" sounds are often lost. And I would argue that a typical examiner may, may, may, may mark you down, if they're very strict. New Zealand, Australia, Canada, America, the United Kingdom. These are all places where English is spoken as a primary first language and therefore, they are probably looking for this standardization of pronunciation. We'll hear some more probably little mistakes from Elisha very soon. And are there any problems which could happen during a picnic? Well, yeah. There was a problem that we were facing and that was seagulls, like they kept trying to come and get our food. So that was just one of the major problems and the sand as well, cause it gets all over as well when the wind blows and everything. But I mean, overall, there was just one of the very few annoying things that happens. Now, I want to talk about music. What sort of music do you enjoy listening to? It really depends on my mood. I would say that I listen to music everyday and it really just depends on how I'm feeling. Some days, I feel energetic and I would listen to more upbeat music like pop or ETM (Electronic Dance Music), and the ideas, well, like, I listen to indie and slower songs. And there are also days I listen to rap music. It all depends, but, yeah. Recently I've been getting into a lot more of the indie music and all. But yeah, it just really depends on my mood. And do you find that music helps you study? Yes. I actually listen to music a lot when I'm studying and I think it's very different, it really depends on the person. So, I know one of my friends, they can't listen to music at all, and just have to shut everything out. But I personally have to listen to music, so yeah. And the music that I listen to it's, I would say, not a lot of people listen to as well. Like I would listen to actually, like ETM music. So a lot of people find it extremely hard to concentrate, but I feel like it actually stimulates my brain more and it gets me more hyped up and happy, happier to actually continue studying, it like motivates me, but yeah. I have other friends that listen to music while studying and they tend to listen to classical music, which I understand it actually, well there's a lot of scientific evidence that show that classical music actually helps you like study and get concentrated as well. Okay, two things I want to talk about here. The first one is collocation. Collocation is when you fit two words together naturally. A great example would be: It gets me hyped up. It gets me hyped up. To be hyped up means: it gets me energized. The problem that I saw in this particular section of speech is that she repeated the same term a few times. I probably heard it four times and she said: it depends on. It depends on my mood. It depends on how I'm feeling. Just be careful that you do need to use a variety of different terms and phrases. Try not to repeat the same thing again and again. Are there any types of music you don't enjoy? I personally don't really enjoy country music. But it really just depends on the person and the background that you grew up in because I didn't grow up listening to a lot of country. But I know that there are people that enjoy country music that come from the countryside or different countries. They really just focus, like in America, they are quite heavy in southern states, that they are quite heavy with country music and, yeah, but I grew up in an environment where it was mostly what my friends were listening to which was mostly pop or rap music. People my age usually listen to pop and rap, and indie as well. Okay, okay. We just talked about collocation and we talked about, "hyped up". In this case, she says: They are quite heavy with. This for me, would be an example of probably an incorrect collocation. We wouldn't hear that normally. Somebody's quite heavily into something. So people are very heavily into something, but we wouldn't normally say: they are very heavy with something, particularly with music. And do you enjoy listening to live music? I personally don't really prefer listening to it live. Only because sometimes when you're watching it live like, going to concerts and stuff, it gets it tends to get a bit crowded and sometimes I can't even hear anything because they're just people around me screaming. But it really depends if the concert was held in a smaller venue and there were, and it was more personal and I would prefer that. But I was held in a stadium which I've been to, it was really key of it in the sense that I couldn't see anything, and I couldn't hear anybody, like, I couldn't hear like the actual singer like I went to a Taylor Swift concert, I went to Justin Bieber and I could not even hear them like properly because they're just like people around me just screaming constantly. Fantastic. Did you notice here, this is a really great tip for you guys: Just talk as though you're talking to a friend. She spoke really naturally to the examiner and told a story about going to a concert. She explained why she didn't particularly like this concert, but talked about why she would prefer another concert. Really great. I think, yeah, again, it really depends on the personality and what interests you. Here we go again. it depends, it depends, it depends. I've probably heard that phrase now six or seven times in the past two or three minutes. 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 and you can make notes if you wish. Here is a paper and pencil for you to make notes. And here is your topic: Let's have a quick brainstorm about this particular topic. It's: Describe a prize you've received. Now, maybe you have or haven't received a prize. If you have, great. Talk about it as much as possible. Where were you, what did you receive, why did you receive it, how did you feel when you received it. Talk about whether you still use that prize now. Do you still have it, etc? Maybe if you haven't won a prize yourself, talk about somebody who has or talk about a prize that maybe you want to receive in the future. Lots and lots of ideas for you to talk about there. And if you're really stuck, just make up anything. Pretend that you once won an Oscar or a TV award At the end of the day, the examiner doesn't know that you haven't. So be prepared to make something up. Okay. I would like you to describe a prize you have received. So just thinking back about the most important price I've received was actually a certificate and that certificate for to me was really important because it really showed, like, determination and perseverance, as well as hard work. Really does pay off. So I received this prize when I was in high school and it was after my major exams, it's IGCSE. So it was like high school exam and I received this prize for being one of the top students in physics and chemistry. And to me, that was really like, for me, I was really happy when I received it because at the start of the school year, I was just not doing well for physics and chemistry, and I was at the brink of failing the subject. And actually, yeah, so I got about fifty on the dot for the subject just before my major exams and I thought that I wasn't gonna do well. But during the last month where it was, thought there, and we were just studying and just preparing for the exams, I really just put in so much effort to really understanding and learning the concepts. I would spend the entire day, entire morning and afternoon just revising and practicing exam questions and I'm just reading the textbook and just staying back with my tutor to just ask questions and go through all of the questions I got wrong. So when I received the prize, I was really shocked at first because I didn't expect that I would do well in it. It just made me feel a lot better about myself and it gave me this drive that if you put your mind to it, you can really succeed in the things that you do. There we go. Why do you think you have that extra motivation after you were just hitting bang on the fifty? I think it was the fear of not doing well and the fear of not getting into a good university. It was the fear of my future and I was afraid that if I didn't do well, it would affect, how I, how, which university I would get in and it would affect a job that I actually wanted for a long time. I wanted to be a psychologist. I wanted to do, I want to go into that field and so I think that was my main motivation. And the fear that would fail and not do well, and disappoint my parents and myself, so I really wanted to show that you really put in the effort. You can do almost anything. I think Elisha gave a great part 2 answer here. She spoke at length and she really expanded on her answers. A few things: True. True. I think she wanted to say, "through". Through. This is common for people from Malaysia or from Singapore to say, "true". Yes, so instead of three , they might say, "tree" and through, they would say, "true". It's not a native feature of pronunciation to say "ch" for the "th" sound. So I'm just concerned that a really strict examiner would mark her down on pronunciation for this. She also said, "at the brink of failing". At the brink of failing. I would personally say, "On the brink of failing", but I think both of them are really great features of language. Great lexical resource, less common lexical item. So, at the brink of or on the brink of. Those mean at the edge. So she was on the edge or at the edge of failing. Now, let's talk about prizes and competitions. Do you think prizes are important? I think it is important in the sense that not necessarily you have to receive a medal, a big gold medal, a lot of money, cash prize. But it's more of the reward that you get and the satisfaction that you get after. It's more of, giving that, telling someone that you know you did well. So you're acknowledging the person, the person's contribution and what they did, and that can really help motivate that person to do more and to benefit in the future, and help themselves grow as a person. And do we give too many prizes nowadays? I would say yes and no. It really depends on what the situation is. I feel like there are times where there's not a lot of prize to be won. For example, like a case competition. I feel like it's really competitive and not a lot of people get acknowledged for the effort they put in. So I think on that aspect, like, there could be more prizes and more acknowledgement for their asset. Because I remember I had a friend who entered into the case competition and he just focused on it every single day and he will stay up till early morning to just complete it and he put in a lot of effort, but at the end of the day, it was really hard because like, he came in like that, but there was no like, acknowledgment for him. So I think it can be discouraging at times but, yeah. It really depends. More Glottal stops here used really well. So she said, "not a lot of". Not a Lof. Not a lot of. This is two Glottal stops there. Not a lot of. Do you notice how she drops the, "t"? Not a lot of people get acknowledged. So this phrase is great because it also uses the passive form. Not a lot of people get acknowledged. That the passive form of the verb. Also, she then starts to use flexible language and she changes the word, "acknowledged" and uses the word, "acknowledgement" in the next sentence. So she's really showing how flexible and wide her vocabulary is. Great, great job Elisha. And do competitions always have good outcomes? I don't think all compositions have good outcomes. It just really depends as well. So, for example, like winning a race and if you come in fourth for something, it can really like make you feel just really down and beat yourself up for it. So at the end of the day, it also depends on the person and how they take, like, how they take not being the winner or just how they react to it as well. But yeah, it really depends on the situation. Here's our depend friend, again, Elisha. She's used it a couple more times in the past minute or so. It really depends, it's a phrase that I think when you are nervous or when you're sitting an exam because the pressure that you're under makes you kind of forget some of the things you've said. Just be aware not to repeat the same phrase too many times. Why do some people cheat in competitions? Well, I think it's just the fear of just not getting, not being taught, it's the fear that, you don't trust yourself to actually succeed. You don't trust your own abilities and it's the insecurity that you're not good enough. So a lot of the times, personally, I feel that people do cheat because they think that they're not gonna do well and they're not going to make it so that's why they cheat. But that's for most of the time they don't rely on themselves. Thank you very much. That is the end of the speaking test. Okay. So Elisha has done really fantastically today. I would probably give her a 9. Probably. But there are some areas where a really strict examiner would listen and maybe mark her down. Tell us what you think in the comments about this because in the pronunciation section, it asks you to use a wide variety of features, but you have to use them pretty accurately all the time and I wonder about the glottal stop. She said things like: col, drink, and goo idea, rather than: cold and good. Remember the glottal stop. It stops here. Cold and good. I just wonder whether a stricter examiner may mark her down for that. I also worry that the repetition that she used, "It depends", could also be an area where they mark her down. So as a result, I'm going to be looking on this. I'm going to be erring on the side of caution. I'm going to be cautious and I'm going to score her 9 for fluency and coherence, she spoke really well. I'm going to score her 9 for grammatical range and accuracy, she used lots of different features and she was grammatically pretty correct the whole time, great job. I'm gonna score her 9 for lexical resource, because the level of her language was wonderful. She did repeat some ideas a few times. So 9 for that one, but I'm going to go down to an 8 for pronunciation because of this glottal stop error. Some of you will say, "Yes. But she spoke, most of the time was really understandable." I'm just looking at it from the point of view of a really strict examiner. So overall: 9-9-9-8 would be an 8.5 overall because remember, .75 and .25 marks are rounded down. Do we think that's fair? I don't think that's fair but that's what happens in the IELTS test. So today, we talked about how to prepare for an examiner who maybe is a little bit more serious. Just talk to them like you're talking to a friend. We also talked about the idea of the glottal stop. Try to incorporate the glottal stop into some of your speech. Keep practicing and listening to native speakers and how they use it in their speech too. Thanks for joining! It's been a wonderful session today. I hope you come back. We have lots more of our videos. You'll see them on the screen now. Come and watch the mock exam videos. I really hope they are useful for you and that you are able to learn something on how to reach a high level score. Bye for now.
