This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1558, Band 9 Speaking Vocabulary for Disappointment.
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Today, get sample answers and high scoring vocabulary when the examiner asks you to describe a disappointing moment.
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Hello, Aubrey.
How's it going?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Really good.
I have a question.
Aubrey, have you ever been excited for an experience and then It's turned out to be really disappointing?
Or you were disappointed.
Yeah, I was really disappointed once.
I went with my sister and all of our kids to.
It was this sort of hotel resort that had a giant water slide.
And the pictures looked amazing.
And my kids were so excited.
And then it was so terrible.
It was like dirty and dingy and old.
And the tallest water slide, you had to go up these spiral stairs inside...
There was no window, no air conditioning.
It was so humid and muggy with all of the wet kids going up there and waiting in line.
The line was coming all the way down the stairs.
You couldn't breathe.
It was awful.
It's horrible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
These small hotels, you know, they get fancy marketing and then they can't back it up, right?
They just need to add.
There was like a tiny window at like the fourth flight that everyone would be hovering around trying to get fresh oxygen through this little window.
Crazy.
Oh, no.
Oh, my gosh.
So we're getting into some good stuff today.
What are we talking about today, Aubrey?
Disappointment.
Yes.
Yes.
We recently shared about impeccable hotel stays.
And today, you are getting vocabulary for more economical hotels and also disappointing experiences.
So stay to the end for details, if you missed part one.
You need that vocabulary as well as this to describe both amazing, luxurious experiences as well as those that aren't quite so amazing.
Yeah, if you travel at all, you've had both experiences right, um?
And if not, we can always make up answers.
The examiner doesn't care whether we lie or embellish.
They don't know.
More likely, They don't know.
They don't care.
They just want to hear you speak so they can give you a score.
And we hope it's a good score.
Right.
So Aubrey, we want to pull in a poll result, though, before we go any further in the episode.
Yes.
So, if you are answering our polls on Spotify, we love seeing the results for episode 1545, which was how is IELTS writing task two similar to speaking, part three.
Oh, what a great episode.
We asked in the poll, do you think there are more advantages or disadvantages to social media?
Yeah.
So something that we sort of brainstormed about in the episode.
And what were the results, Lindsay?
Interesting.
Right down the middle.
Split right down the middle.
So 50% of you said there are more advantages and 50% said more disadvantages.
So interesting.
Oh, I would love to have conversations with everyone who answered that poll.
I wish I could.
Guys, make sure you're listening over in Spotify, because that is how you get to participate in these important polls.
So you get to make your voice heard.
Yes.
Go answer the Spotify poll.
We will have another one.
Stay to the end at the end.
And we really love seeing what our audience thinks about these things.
Yeah.
So let's go into some vocab that we might think about using when we talk about disappointing hotel stays or stays.
Yes.
So the first three terms we're going to teach you are high scoring ways to just talk about like budget friendly, inexpensive hotels.
And then we'll teach a few that are high scoring ways to talk about something being disappointing.
Okay, yeah.
So we go from just average to worse, right?
Yes, exactly.
Progressively worse here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Write these down, guys.
You're going to want this on test day if this question does come up.
And this is going to be great for your practice sessions.
No frills.
No frills.
Love it.
Yes, this means simple, basic, no extra features or luxuries, really.
Doesn't have to be bad, necessarily. just doesn't have any extra perks.
Yeah.
So, for example, we stayed in a no frills hotel near the airport that had everything we needed and nothing more.
I love that.
And nothing more.
Nothing more.
No pool, no gym, just like a clean room and a bed.
Yep.
Or the hostel is no frills, but it's clean and conveniently located.
So sometimes that can be good, right?
Or sometimes it's It all depends on your expectations in life.
This really reminds me.
I stayed in a hostel in Venice, Italy, where it was like a convent of some kind.
It was run by Catholic nuns.
And it was women only, but girls only.
And you would go and stay.
And it was the most no-frills experience I've ever had.
It was like just a very plain room with these very plain bunks, nothing on the walls, kind of like a stone room, stone wall.
But it was exactly what I needed.
It was very inexpensive, clean, well run.
I loved it so much.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And cleaner than a hostel for sure.
I'm sure.
The most clean hostel I ever stayed in.
But I think you had to be in early.
If I remember right, there was sort of like a curfew.
That was reasonable-ish for someone like me especially, who wasn't partying.
You had to be in by like nine or 10.
I didn't mind at all.
Yeah, no, that's good.
Venice can be a hard place to find a place to stay.
Really expensive.
I think it was like $5 a night.
It was fantastic.
I know, crazy.
Okay, I love that.
So it also sounds like it was a little unpretentious, right?
Which is our next word.
And it just means simple and modest, right?
Not trying to impress anyone.
Exactly.
That place was or you might say the guest house was unpretentious, with a relaxed atmosphere and friendly staff.
So, yeah, like you said, not trying to impress anyone.
It's just, you know, practical.
Exactly.
Or we enjoyed an unpretentious seaside town that felt authentic rather than touristy.
You can still find these places, right?
This is like Cape May.
Remember in a couple episodes ago, we were talking about Cape May.
I would call it unpretentious.
It's not overrun by tourists.
It's this quaint little town, beautiful and fun to visit, but definitely not pretentious.
I love places like that, where my parents used to live on the south shore of Boston was like that too.
It wasn't touristy like the Cape, like Cape Cod, but it was on the way to Cape Cod.
So you had mostly locals.
You know there's less going on naturally in this kind of town, but it's such a cool place to spend your time, you know.
Yes.
But this is definitely band nine.
I don't know that I've ever heard a student refer to something as unpretentious.
You can also call a person unpretentious if they aren't trying to impress anyone.
They're just being themselves.
Especially if you expect them to maybe be pretentious, like if they're a Hollywood star and then you know them or something.
Right.
Um, Economical is our next winning word.
This is cost effective, provides good value without being expensive.
Yes, exactly.
And it's not just about hotels, right?
You could say public transportation was the most economical way to get around the city.
It means there was some cost savings there.
It was cost effective.
Yeah, or staying in a shared apartment proved to be an economical choice for our trip.
Yes.
Ooh, and I love this chunk, proved to be, instead of was, right?
You could say staying in a shared apartment was an economical choice, but the examiner really focuses in on things like that.
You say proved to be, and they're like, ooh, yay.
Ooh, they like that.
That'll wake them right up.
Don't be average, right?
Be above average on IELTS.
And the next two we're going to give you are going to be higher scoring ways to say disappointing.
So we're really going from okay to bad.
Okay.
Yes, exactly.
This first was inspired by a recent episode we did about part one essays.
Scroll up if you missed that.
Lackluster, meaning, you know, just lacking real excitement, quality or energy.
It's disappointing.
Yeah.
The museum was lackluster with few exhibits and minimal information.
We've all had those lackluster experiences.
Oh, yeah, it's happened for sure.
Or despite the high price, the hotel service was lackluster.
Even worse when they charge you a lot, but it's very average or bad.
So if you're at a restaurant and the food is not as good as you expected or the service, use this adjective.
Say it was lackluster.
Yes.
And then underwhelming is also kind of saying something very similar, right?
It's less impressive or enjoyable than we expected.
Exactly.
The famous landmark was underwhelming once we saw it in person, especially if you expect it to be impressive and then it's not.
We would call it underwhelming.
Yes.
Oh, man.
All right.
So lots of vocabulary words that our listeners now have to answer these questions, Aubrey.
Shall I ask you a part one question?
Do you want to do that?
Yeah.
Give me a part one and I'll try to use some of this vocab.
All right.
So Aubrey, what type of hotel do you choose when you travel?
It really depends on the trip.
Usually I opt for an economical, no-frills hotel, and I don't even mind if the room is a bit underwhelming.
However, if I'm traveling with my family, location is of paramount importance.
I try to book a room close to the beach or any attraction we're visiting.
That really makes the trip more enjoyable and stress-free.
If I have all my kids, anything I can do to simplify plans is well worth it.
Nice.
So that was a part one answer.
So it was maybe three or four sentences, right?
In terms of the length.
Okay.
Yeah.
I got three to five sentences is what you're aiming for.
And I said, economical, an economical, no frills hotel.
And then you said, I don't even mind if the room is underwhelming.
All right.
Yeah, right.
This is a good way to say it.
You don't have to be describing a room that was underwhelming.
You can just be saying like, I don't really mind something that's lackluster or underwhelming.
Right.
Yeah, that's good.
It's another way to pull that word in.
Right.
Then you said you said stress free, which is a good one.
It's a good expression there.
I love this chunk to say that something is of paramount importance.
Most people say, oh, this is really important.
You know, this and this is a much higher scoring.
And even though it's a part one answer.
You can use some chunks like this that are a little more formal.
Often we'll do this in regular conversation to emphasize, right?
I love that too.
You could also say it's super important, but you could say it's of paramount importance.
I love the way that sounds.
It's got a certain ring to it.
I might adopt that into my daily speech.
Sounds good, right?
Yeah.
And it will definitely wake up the examiner.
Get them on your side, on your team.
Get the marking down on their on their notes to look towards that.
Band seven eight, nine.
Love it.
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Okay.
So Aubrey, now I get to do a sample answer off the cuff.
Love it.
Yes.
We're going to have Lindsay answer a part two question here.
So remember that normally for part two you have one minute to take notes and think about what you were going to say.
So I gave Lindsay that, but she's going to answer spontaneously here.
I'll time you for two minutes.
Remember some of our strategies, Maybe tell a story.
Go off topic, as long as you directly answer the question.
All right, let's do it.
I will do my very best.
Awesome.
Okay.
All right, Lindsay, describe a time you were disappointed.
Oh my gosh.
I can think back to a time about two Christmases ago that would have been December of 2023 when all of my in-laws and I rented an Airbnb in San Marco Island, Florida.
Now I had super high expectations for this Airbnb because you think about like a vacation resort island in Florida.
You expect just a very nice, shiny place.
You expect it to be all the best amenities.
But what I found, honestly, was just the opposite.
It was very no frills.
It was unpretentious, but in kind of in a negative way.
So we walked in the door.
We show up, we walk through the door and you could see everyone's heart kind of sink and think oh, this is not what we were expecting.
I guess it was a little more economical than other options.
I mean, it's not cheap when you rent a house for eight people for a week.
So I think we went for a slightly more affordable option, but it was simply lackluster.
As I started walking through the house, when you do the first walkthrough, I looked at the walls.
They looked a little just dated.
The whole thing honestly looked incredibly dated.
The lamp shades were old.
The decor was past its prime.
There were blank sheets of wall that needed decor.
It was awkwardly set up.
Um wasn't happy with the room.
I got in the house as well.
The pool was kind of dirty and had to be maintained.
We had to call the pool guy, and that was underwhelming because I was expecting to just jump right into the pool.
I mean, it was Florida, after all, and even though it was December it was quite, quite warm.
It was, you know, easily in the 80s.
So overall honestly, this was a lackluster experience and I wouldn't recommend it again to anyone.
So what we ended up?
That's dangerous to say overall.
And you're summarizing and you feel like it's been two minutes, but maybe it hasn't.
Sometimes it feels so long.
And right before you said, okay, thank you.
I was thinking, where am I going to go?
So I was going to transition to, we started to spend a lot of time outside of the house.
That would be perfect.
Yeah, yeah.
And you could even if you've given sort of that summary sentence, right?
Overall, it just wasn't great.
Then you could right start talking about what else you did that trip?
What did you know?
Yes, that would be perfect.
Oh, I was writing furiously the whole time.
There was so much a great vocab here as well as great strategies.
So I loved that you said two Christmases ago.
Yeah.
This is so fun.
And native speakers do this a lot.
We won't always say two years ago.
My husband does this funny thing where he says two haircuts ago.
And I'll be like, three haircuts ago.
That's funny.
It reminded me of that when you said two Christmases ago.
Definitely do this, guys.
Two birthdays ago, two Christmases ago.
Sure.
Because we mark time that way a lot.
Yeah, that's fun.
It's very native and natural, right?
Love it.
Yes.
And then so you were talking about this.
You said very no frills, unpretentious hotel.
Great vocab we taught here.
And then I love that you said everyone's hearts sunk.
What a great idiom.
When you're disappointed, we say our heart sinks.
My heart sunk.
And then you narrated your thoughts in the past, you said.
And we thought, oh, this is not what we were expecting.
This is so high level to narrate thoughts like this.
So guys, take note of that.
Do this in your answers.
It also fills time, right?
You're adding interesting details and it pushes you to use interesting intonation like Lindsay did.
You wouldn't say this with a monotone.
She was like, oh, this is not what we were expecting.
Yeah, I know that narrating internal dialogue is something we go into in our C1 course, Aubrey.
So that shows you just how high level it really is.
And how that's going to push up your score.
Absolutely.
Practice doing that.
It will definitely improve your scores, pronunciation and vocabulary.
And then some other great vocab, you called it lackluster and dated.
This means like just old, right?
Things are out of date.
It needs to be modernized.
It needs to be remodeled.
And then you said the decor was past its prime.
What a great expression.
Say like, you know, it was just old, but you can't say old over and over.
So Lindsay used all of this other band nine vocabulary to describe that.
You said it was awkwardly set up.
Right.
So this would mean sort of like furniture in the wrong place or maybe giant armoires in the way I was imagining.
Yeah.
And then you said it was underwhelming.
That's just so much great vocab.
I'm really curious, Lindsay, were all of these details true and accurate?
Did you make up or embellish anything?
I didn't make up anything, except for the piece that I made up was that we, I think I said we had to have the pool service before we, before we went in.
And that wasn't true.
But the pool wasn't like, yeah, it was just yeah, it just wasn't.
I don't know.
It was just the whole thing was just not what I was expecting, as you said.
Yeah.
But I kind of love that, even just that you made up that detail, because that gave you another what 10 or 20 seconds sharing that you know?
Oh, before we got in we had to have them come and maintain it, clean it.
So you definitely can add details that didn't happen or maybe what you wish you had done.
The examiner is not going to know.
And it's all.
Giving you that two minutes, giving you interesting vocabulary, helping you use this high scoring vocabulary you have learned.
Yeah, really.
And it's always important to, I guess, try it.
I mean, unless you literally have zero experience with the question, try to root it in a real story if you can.
That's what I would say, because it just gives you more material to work with.
Right.
But then taking the real story and then embellishing is such an easy thing to do.
Exactly.
Exactly.
The more you can provide real details that really happen, that's probably going to be easier.
But it's no it's no joke to fill two minutes.
So definitely feel free to exaggerate, embellish, add details to fill that time.
And, of course, by the time you get to test day, you understand what two minutes feels like, because you practice this over and, over and over.
I mean, in our course, three key styles.
We give you the templates, we give you the everything you need, to be ready to practice it on your own or wherever it is, whether you're working with a coach.
We give you the information in our course, right, Aubrey?
Exactly, right?
So if you have not yet, you can sign up at allearsenglish.com slash keys.
And then don't miss that part one with vocabulary for nice, luxurious stays, right?
This was episode 1556, scroll up, speaking part one answers about impeccable hotel stays.
I'd rather talk about those.
It's kind of more fun, though, to talk about terrible experiences.
It can be.
I agree, actually.
All right.
Good stuff today, Aubrey.
We'll see you in the next episode.
Guys, hit the follow button if you love our style right here on IELTS Energy.
All right.
See you next time.
Bye.
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