Speaking Sample 2

IELTS GT Test – Speaking Mock Test # 2

[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]

PART 1:

Topic: Weekends

Q. How do you usually spend your weekends? [Why?]
Answer: Well, I usually stay home on a weekend, and sometimes I go out in the evening to hang out with friends. Since my weekdays are normally packed, I try to stay home on weekends and refresh myself to take challenges of the upcoming weekdays. Once a month, I usually pick a weekend and visit a movie theatre with my friends or family. After we finish the movie, we usually have our dinner at a restaurant.

Q. Which is your favourite part of the weekend? [Why?]
Answer: I would say that the whole weekend is my favourite. However, if I have to pick a preferable part from my weekends, I’d pick the evening. This is the time when I get outside to hang out with friends or take my family outside. In a regular evening, I get tired to some extent and I rush to reach home from the office amid heavy traffic. However, an evening on a weekend is far more relaxing and fun.

Q. Do you think your weekends are long enough? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: I get two days as the weekend in a week and I think it is fair enough. I know some countries where employees have only one day as their weekend. If I think about them, I feel that I am getting enough time to spend with my family and finish some personal tasks. But, metaphorically speaking, weekends sometimes seems to end sooner than I expect, you know what I mean!

Q. How important do you think it is to have free time on the weekends? [Why?]
Answer: Well, I believe weekends should be relaxing and focused on family. From this regard, having a free and relaxing time on weekends is quite important. Weekends are meant to be refreshing so that we can spend quality time with our family and friends and get revived to take responsibilities for the coming week. I often spend relaxing times on the weekends and that’s helpful for me to perform better throughout the rest of the week in my office.

PART 2:

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Describe someone you know who does something well.

You should say:

• who this person is
• how you know this person
• what they do well

and explain why you think this person is so good at doing this.

Cue Card Answer:
I can think of a few people whom I personally know and are quite adept in whatever they do. However, I reconsider my mum a wizard who quite efficiently manages her family as well as her other responsibilities. Thank you very much for this nice cue card topic and I would like to explain why I believe my mum is really good at what she does.

My mum – Rebecca Portela, is a full-time housewife and she is in charge of our family. No doubt my father has a huge responsibility as a breadwinner and as a major decision-maker for the family, but my mother takes care of everything else.

To answer the question ‘how I know this person’, I would like to say that I have known her my whole life. She brought me to this world and had been a great supporter of mine throughout my life. She taught me the most important life skills like reading, writing, walking, swimming, talking and so on and as a child, I had her with me through all the ups and downs.

She is an exemplary person and she never neglects her responsibilities. Taking care of a family isn’t an easy task, especial when this family has six family members and a tight budget. She wakes up early in the morning, before we can even notice, and cleans the house, does the washing and prepares the breakfast for us and her days has, in fact, just begun! She has a unique ability to remember everything we need and wish for! For instance, on my exam day, she remembers what I need to take with me and she gets them ready so that I don’t have to waste time. She remembers my exam schedule better than I do. She does that for every single member of our family including my grandmother who lives with us.

We do not always remember to appreciate her devotion and hard works and sometimes we forget to say simply ‘thank you’ as we often take her tasks as granted. But I realized for the first time in my life how immaculately she does everything for us when she got sick and was taken to a hospital. I was 14 years old then and it turned out that none of us can endure without the supervision and help of our mum.

I believe my mom’s devotion and love for her family makes her so capable of taking care of us and performing her other duties. She often says that her family is the centre of her universe and I believe that this mentality makes her so great in everything she does for the family and others. At a time, we had financial hardships, but she managed everything so well that we never had to feel the burden. She works the whole day and I have never heard her complaining about that. Only true devotion and commitment can make it possible.

Before I end, I would like to say, ‘I wish you could meet my mum to find out how amazing she really is and how well she manages everything!’

PART 3

Discussion topics: Skills and abilities

Q. What skills and abilities do people most want to have today? Why?
Answer: Well, I believe the expectation and desire to develop skills and abilities by people vary to a great extent. For instance, someone who is willing to build a career in the financial sector would like to enhance his or her analytical, and accounting skills while someone who is graduating in computer science, expects to improve his programming and technology related skills. Interestingly, the expectations may vary from country to country as well.

From my personal experience, I can say that one of my sisters always wanted to be a great singer. So she definitely wants to improve her singing skills, and her ability to play different musical instruments. Interestingly, another sister of mine wants to become a doctor and she is focusing on her academic performance and emphasizing her skill development in biology and zoology.

Generally speaking, technology-related skills are globally accepted and that is why so many people around the world are trying to enhance their skills and abilities in technology. I believe this has something to do with the career prospect and job promotion. Finally, technical and mechanical skills have always been important to people and are prevalent even more in this modern era.

Q. Which skills should children learn at school? Are there any skills which they should learn at home? What are they?
Answer: Well, when it comes to the skill development of children at school, I believe teachers should focus on teaching them how to be a good team member and interact with others. This is an important soft skill that they will need throughout their life. Besides, they should be taught how to be more tolerant and respectful to others. Finally, teachers should supervise and act to develop the academic skills of the children.

I personally believe that every child in a school is unique. So the masters should focus on understanding their passion and talent and then guide them to develop their hidden potential and abilities. For instance, if a child feels passionate about arts and drawing, she or he shouldn’t be forced to develop his skills in sports.

Parents, on the other hand, have a great responsibility to nurture the talents of their kids at home. They should primarily focus on developing their children’s psychological and cognitive development. Besides they should teach their children how to utilise their time, be punctual, and most importantly follow their dreams and work accordingly.

Q. Which skills do you think will be important in the future? Why?
Answer: I believe technology-related skills will be highly important in the future. We already live in a world which is surrounded by technology and without these skills, it will be difficult for us to find a job or to do better in academic life.

Having said that, I also believe soft skills like communication skills, interpersonal skills and time management skills will have a great demand in the future. As hard skills like someone’s designing, technical and development skills can be enhanced through training at a short span of time, employers in the future will look for people with greater soft skills which takes several years to develop.

Finally, money management is a skill that we all will need in the coming future. The global population and the competition are rising faster than ever before while the global resources are shrinking rapidly; so without this skill, a large number of people won’t be able to become financially successful.

Discussion topics: Salaries for skilled people

Q. Which kinds of jobs have the highest salaries in your country? Why is this?
Answer: In my country, software developers, investment bankers, doctors, university professors, engineers, dentists and marketing managers receive the highest salaries. I believe the primary reason these professionals earn a huge sum of money is that those are all special kind of skills and expertise that a very small percentage of people have. A successful investment banker or a dentist in my country earn at least 5 to 10 times higher than the average wage earners.

I also believe the rumination of a professional depends on the profitability of the job sector. For instance, a skilled software programmer works for a company that earns in millions and even sometimes in billions, while an expert tailor or a fashion designer works in a company that doesn’t have that type of turnover at the end of the year. So naturally, the wage gap is huge.

Q. Are there any other jobs that you think should have high salaries? Why do you think that?
Answer: Yes, I can think of a few other jobs that are really important for our society and the country as a whole, and I strongly believe that they should have higher payrolls. For instance, a school teacher is doing a really great job to build an enlightened society, but it’s a pity that their remuneration isn’t lucrative at all. Similarly, the police officers, cleaners, border security personnel, and the nurses in hospitals should have higher wages.

The police officers and the other security personnel are taking great risks to maintain the peace in our society, the cleaners are doing a tough job to clean our neighbourhood on the other hand, and finally, the nurses are taking good care of our sick relatives in hospitals. The jobs they do are extremely important for us and for our country, so it’s natural that they should be adequately compensated and rewarded, I believe.

Q. Some people say it would be better for society if everyone got the same salary. What do you think about that? Why?
Answer: I think that’s a good idea in theory as it would eliminate the discriminations from our society. However, it’s a faulty hypothesis and not practical.

If every profession has the same salary, no one would do the job that involves risks, hard work and challenges. It would, in a sense, collapse the society. From the very beginning of our life, we would start choosing the easiest tasks and academic subjects and not study or work hard to have a highly rewarding profession in the future. Why should a student study more than 12 hours a day to become a doctor or a researcher when he can spend his time doing whatever he wants and become a salesperson to earn the same salary? I think it does not make sense.

Having said that, I also believe that salary discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and religion should never be tolerated. The same salary should be offered to employees, regardless of their sexes and origins, who are working in the same position in a company or organisation.