Speaking Sample 37

IELTS GT Test – Speaking Mock Test # 37

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

PART 1:

Topic: Health

Q. Is it important to you to eat healthy food? [Why/ Why not?]
A. They say that what you eat is exactly what you really are, so eating healthy is absolutely important to me because it makes us healthy and helps us feel better. And if we feel better about ourselves, chances are we will perform better in our life.

Q. If you catch a cold, what do you do to feel better? [Why?]
A. No matter how hard I try to maintain my health, there will always be a “naughty boy” named “cold” around the corner, waiting for me, to give me a headache (literally speaking), a runny nose, and probably more sneezes than I can bargain for once in a while. So, if I ever end up catching a cold, or “cold” is strong enough to catch me (however you want to look at it), I just keep eating hot soup and drinking hot tea/coffee along with some occasional honey and lemon juice mixed in hot water to make me feel better.

Q. Do you pay attention to public information about health? [Why/ Why not?]
A. I guess that I have just about enough information to keep me healthy, but it always helps to pay some attention to public health information for the purpose of receiving some important health tips once in a while, especially, when I am not in a mood to waste my time and money by running to a doctor more than I really have to.

Q. What could you do to have a healthier lifestyle?
A. Remaining healthy doesn’t just mean to me that I only eat healthily, but it would also mean that I maintain a healthier lifestyle by sleeping enough and taking enough rest while also remaining physically active enough at the same time. I can add some outdoor activities in my daily routine which I believe would help me greatly. Besides, I would love to drink more water daily and play football at weekends.

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 an occasion when you had to wait a long time for someone or something to arrive.

You should say:

• who or what you were waiting for
• how long you had to wait
• why you had to wait a long time

and explain how you felt about waiting a long time.

Cue Card Answer:

Call it bad or undesirable, but I have a terrible distaste for waiting a long time for anything unless I have a very – I mean “very”- valid reason to do so. But, no matter how “ill-equipped” we really are to deal with this kind of “unpleasant” situation, the reality is we do deal with it from time to time. Today, I am going to talk about such a situation, involving my final semester result for one of my courses at my university, when I had to wait for almost an extra day.

It was about 10 years ago, and I had finished taking all of my tests. After that, the only thing I could do was to wait for the final results which were scheduled to be published exactly after one week, from the date of my final test, online on our university network system. So, it wasn’t exactly supposed to be a matter of great concern for me unless, of course, I was “failing” the subject. But, that wasn’t a possibility either as I was pretty confident about my performance on all of the tests. In fact, I was aiming to finish my university studies with a top-class result.

Anyway, the “big day” finally arrived, and I headed to my university campus with anticipation of top-class performance as far as my final semester results were concerned. And, after reaching the university, I immediately logged on to one of the computers at our computer lab in order to view my final grades, only to find out, of course, that the results had not been published yet, and the message on the computer system was “the final grades will be published soon. Please wait”.

So, there I started to wait, sitting on a chair while looking at my computer screen. Initially, I told myself that it wasn’t a big deal since the results were going to be published soon even though I was a bit surprised, I must say. But, after waiting for a couple of hours, when my computer gave me the same kind of message as the last one, I started to become frustrated. Then, after waiting for another couple of hours while staring at my computer screen in an anticipation of some positive news, I wasn’t frustrated anymore. Instead, I actually became really annoyed since I wasn’t getting any definitive news about my final grades.

However, finally, when I got the message that said – “the final grades will be published tomorrow due to some system errors” on my computer screen, I became really, really confused and mad (with a capital “M”) at the same time. Then, I also started to worry about the possibility of getting “wrong grades”, and I must say that I wasn’t really feeling very well after thinking of that “scary possibility” for rest of the day. In fact, the remaining hours of that day suddenly felt like a “year” to me, and the same feeling carried on until the moment I finally got to see my results the following day.

PART 3

Discussion topics: Arriving early

Q. In what kinds of situations should people always arrive early?
Answer: In life, it always helps to prepare better and arrive early in every kind of situations unless, of course, there is a possibility of getting penalized for such actions. So, whether we are attending an important meeting, going to a job interview, appearing for an examination, or just going to meet our friends and families on time as promised, it is always better for us to arrive early than to be late.

Q. How important is it to arrive early in your country?
Answer: Arriving early and doing things on time requires a certain degree of planning and their proper execution, but, unfortunately, none of it seems to receive enough attention from the people in my country these days unless, of course, there are some “extra” incentives for doing so. So, they almost always choose to arrive “on time” instead of arriving early, of course, only to become “late” in the process.

Q. How can modern technology help people to arrive early?
Answer: I am not too sure if modern technology can really help people that much to arrive early. Again, arriving early requires some extra efforts as in leaving early for the destination or choosing faster vehicles (if not walking) for a ride. But, above all, one has to be really committed and respectful to his/her commitments in order to arrive early on any occasion. Of course, if you are using private transportation, and a mobile phone with certain types of applications installed in it, it is possible to get information on the traffic situation on a certain road and thus changing the route for quick commuting. But, other than that, I don’t really see much of the role of modern technology in helping people to arrive early.

Discussion topics: Being patient

Q. What kinds of jobs require the most patience?
Answer: In my opinion, medical doctors or physicians require the most patience. A doctor has to be really lenient in understanding the needs of his/her patients even if it means he/she has to observe the suffering person for days, month or even years, especially when the “symptoms” are not so obvious. Then, and only then, the doctor is able to prescribe the right medicines or the right treatment to a patient. Other than that, a computer programmer and a designer have to show endurance to do their jobs effectively.

Q. Is it always better to be patient in work (or, studies)?
Answer: The general rule says that it is better to be patient and encourage patience with whatever we do in our lives. But, does that mean it is “always” better to be patient regardless of our situations? My answer would be a “no”. When it comes to working, if we see that we are not getting the benefits of our hard works and sincere efforts that we deserve at our work, it is probably better to find a different job and move on with our lives. But, as for the studies, it is always better to be patient until we can do it no more. After all, studies are all about having the highest degree of patience and concentration without which we won’t be able to learn the things that we need to.

Q. Do you agree or disagree that older people are more patient than young people? / Do you agree or disagree that the older people are, the more patient they are?
Answer: Yes, I would agree with the view that the older people are more patient than young people in general since the older ones usually have got more time and opportunities to learn a few more “tricks” about life and the world than their younger counterparts. So, it is fair to assume that the older people, more often than not, know when to exercise their patience, and when not to. But, of course, my view holds true only up to a certain age, because, as my experience shows, once a person becomes older than 65, he/she starts to grow impatience gradually with the things that he/she was once mostly patient.