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Hello, hello dear listener and welcome into IELTS speaking part 2.
Describe a competition, music, cooking or sports competition you took part in.
You should say what the competition was, when and where it was held, what you did in this competition and explain what you learned from the competition.
Rory here is super competitive.
I am the least competitive person on the planet, and I'm being asked to talk about a competition.
He is super educated.
He can lie in a band 9 way.
Well, I didn't lie.
I just had to think back for a very long time.
Yeah. Rory, give us your story.
Well hardly ever have I competed in anything, frankly.
The only exception I can think of is the one time at primary school when we had something called the rotary club quiz, or at least I think it was called that.
We are talking about something that happened almost 30 years ago now, so my memory is not the best, so I apologize for that.
However, as near as I remember, this contest was between local school teams, the teams were of about four students and they had to answer general knowledge questions posed by the leadership of Dundee's Rotary club, which is a sort of social club or association crossed with a charity organization.
You have them in different parts of the UK.
Fortunately for our team, the big event was held at our school so we didn't have to travel very far for it.
I think it must have been a Friday, though that's just a guess based on how cheerful everyone was and the fact that they would have had to clear their schedules, which is easier to do on Fridays compared to busier school days.
I was picked for the quiz along with my teammates because we read and knew a lot, and demonstrated that in different classes.
I've no idea how many rounds there were but it seemed go on forever.
We actually did quite well!
We came second, and only because we messed up a question about the capital of Australia.
I was convinced it was Melbourne, and no one challenged me on it, so we went with that.
Of course, it's actually Canberra, but none of us were the wiser at the time, so we missed out on the trophy and the prizes by one point.
That was a bit sad, but it was hardly the end of the world.
Coming in second is still pretty good, think.
And after that whole experience I never forgot the Australian capital again!
And if I hadn't entered the quiz, I'd be just as ignorant of that fact now.
Thank you, Rory, for your story!
No worries, thank you for listening.
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See you soon. So dear listener...
Describe a competition.
Competition is, you know, like a race.
Like a sports competition or when you compete against another team you want to win, you cook some biscuits and then you want your biscuits to be the best. or for example, there's a music competition.
You compete and you come in like the champion.
So we take parts in competitions and it could be any competition.
Remember something from school or university or make it up.
Or reach back into the mists of time like I did.
Oh, wow. So you can see that once I took part in a sports competition at school, or I took part in a drawing competition, so you drew some flowers and then you won, or you composed the poem and then you won.
So, in a competition in the past I won a competition, so I was the winner, and competition was held.
So, it took place in New York, for example.
So, where the competition was held means where it was, where it happened.
Rory had a very strong Band 9 start.
Rory, what did you say and how did you say it?
Your first sentence.
mm -hmm well hardly ever have I competed in anything bad non grammar but dear listener it's used accurately emotionally and correctly Rory used inversion C structure Rory is quite emotional and he means like whoa I kind of I've never competed in anything so we are emotional We can say like hardly ever have I competed in anything, you know?
I should point out I've been on a mission to use Inversion in every single one of my previous answers as well.
Why am I doing that you might ask?
Well, you will find out.
Maybe, but not today.
You can say that I've never competed in anything or I've rarely competed in anything presentation perfect and then turn to the past. The only exception like only once I took part in ...
okay? Or when I was at primary school or secondary school or high school I took part in ...
quiz and quiz is just like you are asked questions, you are you answer questions, so yeah and then you can say that it happened more than 30 years ago, it happened a long time ago and my memory isn't the best so I forgot pretty much everything and I'm gonna just lie to you dear examiner.
And then you go like as far as I can remember or as near as I can remember like I can't remember everything but Well, I have some memories...
A good synonym for a competition is contest. And Rory, what kind of contests can we have?
Like a musical or a music contest?
What do we say? Musical music?
I have absolutely no idea, because I don't take part in many competitions.
I don't know! What are musical competitions called?
Let's have a look. At Google is our friend.
Oh, there you go. Writing contest, photo contest, selfie contest. Selfie contest. Yeah, kind of.
Writing competition, writing contest. Oh, a tournament.
A championship. A match. Oh, I like that.
That's cool. Okay, so we have some alternative words that I didn't think about before.
Yeah but the safest word is competition because it's good to go for any context.
Well, that's the word in the text, isn't it?
Yeah, you can use like a contest, cooking contest, cooking competition, tournament… yeah.
And this contest was between my school and other schools.
Or between…. The competition was among 5 teams, for example.
And what did you have to do?
I had to answer questions.
I had to cook. I had to run.
To draw. To, I don't know… Do a test. Yeah, but what about these, you know, like tests that students do at school and then they compete whom is the smartest?
Oh, are you referring to Olympiads?
Olympiads. Yeah. Oh, okay.
Yeah. Although I don't think we really have them in Scotland originally.
Let's check. Maybe I'm just not clever enough to be in one.
You know, do you listen like that a state tests that you do?
And the government chooses the smartest people from this school.
I honestly cannot see any at all.
Oh, wait, no, there's a Scottish University's Mathematics Olympiad.
So there are Olympiads, in fact, but they're for universities.
Oh, no Junior Mathematical Olympiad.
But what a weird thing to have. Anyway, um, but that's me talking as the least competitive person ever, so don't listen to me if you are competitive good for you.
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And then you say this event, another synonym.
This event was held at our school or was held in another city or it was held...
I don't know... at a restaurant.
In a city hall? In the town hall?
I'm trying to think where else you can hold events.
In the middle of nowhere?
At school or outside for example, if it was like a sports competition and everyone was cheerful, everyone was happy.
It couldn't be a Scottish event if everyone was cheerful.
Just kidding. Well, it was a busy school day and we had to compete.
So the verb is to compete.
Different teams compete against each other.
My teammates, so my friends from my team, we call them teammates.
If the event went on forever.
So it was very long or if you still want to use that idiom you could talk about the opposite.
It only lasted a day so it didn't go on forever.
Although from the perspective of nine year old me I felt like I was going to die of boredom at least if I remember it correctly.
My team did quite well and then you should say like did you win or did you lose.
You can say we lost we lost this competition we didn't win or we can say we came second so we won the second place yeah or you can say place yeah you could talk about the scale of the loss as well we lost by one point or we lost by one minute something like this how much did you lose bye if I say I was a runner -up what's that that's the people that come well that don't come first in general it's sometimes used to refer to the person that comes second.
But if you did win, you could say I did win this competition or I was the winner or I won, I got the first place.
If you did a really good job you could say we won hands down.
Which means absolute victory, clearly observable.
But is it correct to say I won the first prize?
If there is a prize, yes.
If you lost, you can say oh my team messed it up, we messed it up, we lost, we were wrong, we made mistakes so we were losers, it was challenging for me or it was very easy for me, it was exciting, it was terrifying I was really nervous I was anxious, and you can say like uh coming in second was pretty good.
and you can lie dear listener okay so you can say like yes i won it even if you didn't win it just say that you won it right you want to to seem to be good in front of the examiner so tell the examiner yeah i won it i got the first place or make them feel sorry for you and say I've lost everything, I need a win, like a band 9 level win.
I felt like a loser and then kind of you start crying and like eeehh.
Then the examiner throws you out for being a drama queen.
What helped you organize this answer, Rory?
And what cohesive devices linking words have you used naturally and accurately?
Well, having a meltdown at the beginning helped, just saying hardly ever have I done this kind of thing.
And then highlighting.
something, the one thing I can think of and then just saying, listen, this is a long time ago, so my memory is not the best. And then you go into more detail as near as I can remember for introducing, well, I used it to introduce the point about where it was and what the common test was, but you could use this for anything.
then we linked with Fortunately for our team to talk about where the place it was was and so it was fortunate because the place was where we usually were.
I didn't do much to introduce why I was picked to be honest, but I did use some organizational phrases to give more details.
For example, I said it must have been a Friday and then I explained why and then everyone had to clear their schedules which is easier to do.
And again thinking about linking, I've no idea how many rounds but it seemed to go on forever and then thinking about giving the answers I said of course it's actually to highlight the fact, and then drawing to a close I said that was a bit sad but it's hardly the end of the world which is good when you're talking about a competition in a primary school that no one is going to remember until 30 years later when they have to talk about it on a podcast and then to end I said and after that whole experience this is what I learned and I tried my best to end with a conditional if I hadn't entered this quiz
I'd be just as ignorant of that fact now.
Actually to be honest it's still a struggle for me to remember capital cities of different countries.
Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our Speaking Path 3 episode about competitions.
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Describe a competition, music, cooking, or sports competition, you took part in.
you should say what the competition was, when and where it was held, what you did in this competition, and explain what you learned from the competition!
Well, hardly ever have I competed in anything, frankly!
The only exception I can think of is the one time at primary school when we had something called the Rotary Club Quiz, or at least, I think it was called that.
We are talking about something that happened almost 30 years ago now, so my memory is not the best. So I apologize for that.
However, as near as I can remember, this contest was between local school teams. The teams were off about four students, and they had to answer general knowledge questions posed by the leadership of Dundee's Rotary Club, which is a sort of social club for association crossed with a charity organisation, you have them in different parts of the UK.
Fortunately for our team, the big event was held at our school, so we didn't have to travel very far for it.
I think it must have been a Friday, though that's just to guess, based on how cheerful everyone was and the fact that they would have had to clear their schedules, which is easier to do on Fridays compared to busier school days.
I was picked for the quiz along with my teammates because we read and knew a lot and demonstrated that in different classes.
I've no idea how many rounds there were, but it seemed to go on forever.
We actually did quite well.
We came second, and only because we messed up a question about the capital of Australia.
I was convinced it was Melbourne and no one challenged me on it, so we went with that.
Of course, it's actually Canberra, but none of us were the wiser at the so we missed out on the trophy and the prizes by one point.
That was a bit sad, but it was hardly the end of the world.
Coming in second is still pretty good, I think.
And after that whole experience, I never forgot the Australian capital again.
If I hadn't entered the quiz, I'd be just as ignorant of that fact now.
Thank you, Rory, for your story.
No worries. Thank you for listening.
