Hello again and welcome to another practice IELTS speaking test from IELTS daily.
My name is Lara Ryan and today we'll be looking at our examiner David, giving an IELTS speaking test to Tomoko from Japan.
So what I'd like you to do today is to try and analyze Tomoko's speaking test by yourself.
Try to guess what scores I'm going to give her for fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and for pronunciation.
So let's see how close can you get to the correct scores.
In case you don't already know me, my name is Lar Ryan and I've been an IELTS examiner.
I've also been teaching IELTS since 2010 and I have another YouTube channel called Complete Test Success.
So make sure to check that out for more support with the IELTS test.
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to the practice exam conducted by IELTS Daily.
My name is David and I'm your practice IELTS speaking examiner.
Questions in this test are designed to simulate the IELTS speaking test.
Let's start.
What's your first name, please?
My name is Tomoko.
At the beginning of the IELTS test, you need to provide some identification, usually your passport, but as this is a practice test, there's no need for that today.
Are you ready to begin?
Yes.
Okay, so let's talk about computers.
How often do you use a computer?
Almost every day at work, I have to use it.
But weekend, I don't use computers.
OK, so straight away, what I notice is that Tomoko is actually quite easy to understand.
So her pronunciation is nice and clear.
She doesn't have a lot of features of connected speech, so perhaps she won't be getting a very high score.
But nevertheless, it's not difficult to understand her.
And that will mean that she won't be getting a low score either.
Then what do you do on your computer?
Do work.
Work, something I have to do.
I'm a music teacher, so I prefer spending time with piano, but I have so many things that I have to do with computers so I have to stay with computers.
Okay, so Tomoko wanted to talk about the type of work that she does on her computer and unfortunately she didn't have the vocabulary to talk about what she wanted to talk about.
Now, if this happens to you when you're practicing the IELTS speaking test, this is a good indication that you need to improve your vocabulary.
You have ideas, but you cannot express them, you cannot get them out because of a lack of vocabulary.
Now, what Tomoko did was she changed topic and, instead of talking about what she does on the computer, she more talks about her desire not to work too much on the computer.
So she managed to say something, but it wasn't really relevant to the question.
So if you're in this situation, just acknowledge okay, my vocab isn't good enough, maybe it's just this particular topic that I'm not good at, but at least try to recognise these signals that you do have a problem and try to fix them before you get to your IELTS test.
And do you spend too much time on your computer?
I think so.
Especially last two, three years.
We had online classes many times, so I had to stay on the computers and that wasn't so healthy time.
This time Tomoko has shown us that her fluency is actually pretty good as well.
So she had the vocabulary she needed.
And after she answered the question, she was able to develop her answer without many pauses or hesitations.
Are computers expensive in your country?
Yes, you can buy cheap one.
But if you want to get good quality one, you have to by expensive one.
I don't have it, so I don't know well.
OK, so what I noticed here was that Tomoko is making article mistakes pretty much every time she needs to use them.
So the problem here is that, even if she's doing quite well in other areas of grammar, when you're making so many grammar mistakes in every sentence, you're going to stop yourself from getting a high score.
So the complexity of the grammar, of course, is one thing, but there needs to be error-free sentences before you can get a band seven or higher.
And Tomoko is simply making too many mistakes here.
Good.
Well, now I'm going to ask you some questions about TV.
Do you enjoy watching TV?
Actually, I don't have TV at home, so it's a difficult question.
But I watch TV program on iPad, so the answer is yes.
Okay, so Tomoko navigated that question very well.
So, do you watch TV?
And the answer was, I actually don't have a TV.
Now, a lot of candidates would get stuck right there and they wouldn't develop any further.
They think, well, it's not my fault.
I don't have a TV.
There's nothing I can say.
But you can see with Tomoko, she just talked about watching TV programs on her laptop, so she continued to develop her answer even though in reality, she doesn't have a tv.
And this is exactly what you should do in your ielts test as well find a way to continue speaking even if you in some way are challenged by the question what sort of things do you watch on tv or your ipad?
I like watching drama.
Yes drama, That's it.
Yes, Japanese drama, Korean drama, and dramas from US or UK and Australia.
Okay, now that was the exact opposite of the previous answer that Tomoko gave us.
So this time she said her favorite type of TV program is drama, and she said nothing else relevant.
She mentioned where they're from, but that's not very good development.
Simply saying how often she watches them, when she watches them, who she watches them with, is absolutely fine.
Anything that's relevant is appropriate.
Cool.
Do you ever watch TV programs or films with subtitles?
Yes, I do.
Japanese drama.
When I watch it I don't use subtitles, but if I watch a drama speaking in English, I try to put English subtitles.
And when I watch Korean drama, I don't understand Korean at all, so I have to set Japanese subtitles.
Okay.
Something that we've seen with a lot of the candidates that David examined was that they're very calm under pressure.
So here we saw Tomoko start to speak, couldn't remember the phrase that she wanted.
She stopped, took her time, didn't panic, When she thought of the phrase, she continued.
And that's great.
That's a brilliant strategy.
Giving yourself enough freedom and being relaxed enough not to panic when you need time to think is completely fine.
And that will not stop you from getting a very high fluency score.
So when you're in the IELTS test, if you need time to think, just take the time you need and don't panic.
Don't get stressed.
You're not going to get a low fluency score because you need thinking time.
Do you watch TV more or less than when you were a child?
I watched more TV than when I was a child.
I didn't have much time to watch TV when I was a child.
I just didn't watch TV so much when I was a child.
Okay, so Tomoko was able to stay speaking, but she just kept saying the same thing in different ways.
So rephrasing and changing the vocabulary, but completely repeating the same idea again.
That is not development.
You need new information if you're developing your idea.
Repeating the same thing is not appropriate.
Now I'm going to ask you some questions about transportation.
Do you prefer traveling by public or private transportation?
I like traveling by public transportation.
Because I have a driver's license, but I don't drive, so I need public transportation.
How often do you use public transportation?
Every day.
For work, I use train for 20 minutes.
Okay, that answer was a bit short as well.
Development being for 20 minutes is simply not enough.
And what is the most common form of transportation in your country?
In my country, train is the most popular one.
But in my city, bus is also popular.
Do you like the transport system in your country?
Yes, yes. reliable, sometimes too punctual, so I can't be late.
That is sometimes trouble for me, but yeah, I like it.
Okay, I really like this answer from Tomoko because she used her own experience to develop her answer.
Very often, that is the easiest thing that you can do.
Instead of trying to think globally or holistically about everything that happens in your country, just talk about your own experience.
Especially in IELTS Speaking, Part 1, you can just say your experience with the bus and the train and how you feel about it as a way to develop your answer.
Okay, in the next part of the test, I'm going to give you a topic and I would like you to speak for one to two minutes.
You will have one minute to think about what you want to say and I'll give you a pen and some paper to make notes if you want.
Is that clear?
Yes.
Great.
And the notes on the other side.
Okay, so you have one minute to prepare.
Okay, so now I would like you to talk about saving money.
Remember, you have one to two minutes for this, so don't worry if I stop you.
I'll tell you when the time is up.
Can you start speaking now, please?
Yes.
I didn't have to save money for it, but I wanted to save money for traveling.
When I was a university student, I loved traveling.
I could use whole summer vacation for traveling.
So I saved my money for that.
So every summer vacation, I go somewhere.
So about 10, 11 months, I had time to save money for next travel.
And it wasn't easy to save money.
But mentally I wasn't feel sad or feel difficult for do it, because I just thinking of traveling somewhere.
So yeah, that was good.
Saving money experience.
And To save my money.
I every day I made onigiri and I bring it to university and I eat onigiri.
So every day my lunch was onigiri rice bowl.
But it was good memory and still now I make my obento lunch box every day to save money and also for fun.
But I'm doing it now.
Okay, as with some of the other videos, you notice that David, our examiner, is a bit more sympathetic towards the candidates than a genuine examiner will be in the real test.
So when you get to 1 minute and 45 seconds, if you stop speaking, the examiner will not continue.
What will happen is the examiner will perhaps encourage you to continue, or they will sit there and look at you and say nothing until the clock runs out.
Now, the other thing is that during part two, what we notice is that Tomoko, even though she can speak at a good pace, she does pause and hesitate quite often.
And that's not great for her fluency and coherence score.
Also, we notice that she's making lots and lots of grammar mistakes.
So this was obvious in part one.
But again in part two we see there are many different areas where she's consistently making grammar errors and this is going to be a problem for her score.
What did you learn from that experience about saving money and making your own lunch?
If you want to do something, you have to not give up, but you have to save something like lunch at school.
There's a cafeteria and there's restaurants around school, so you can go if you want to.
But if you go there every day, you can't save money for something for me.
If you like eating something every day, good thing, that's good, but it depends.
So you have to choose what you like.
And if you want to save money for something, you have to give up something.
That is what I learned from my onigiri, rice bowl experience.
Okay, so Tomoko is showing us that even when she can't think of the word she needs, she's able to get around it and continue explaining her point.
The word she wanted here was make sacrifices, or at least the phrase that she wanted was make sacrifices.
And if she had that phrase, it would have been a much more direct answer and it wouldn't have taken as much explanation to make that point.
However, she did well because obviously she didn't have that phrase.
So she found a way to continue without it.
Great.
Well, thank you.
I want to stay on the topic of money.
Do people in your country spend a lot of money on their education?
Yes.
Yes, I think so.
The education, how much you spend money for education or how much you can spend money for that is a little bit social problem, social issues in Japan now, because if you want to go to private school or want to study abroad you need money.
But not everybody can do that.
So the answer is if people can spend money, yes, they spend much money for education.
Okay, so Tomoko showed some nice topic-specific vocabulary there.
So we're talking about education and she was mentioning social issues private schools, studying abroad.
Those types of terms that can really be used specifically to talk about this topic are going to be noticed by the examiner and they will help to improve your lexical resource score.
Why do some people spend more money than they have?
This is a difficult question.
I didn't study psychology so I don't know.
But maybe some people think if you buy or if you spend for something, that thing values that person.
Maybe spend more money for expensive thing.
Maybe expensive things shows that person more higher stage people.
Some people think, some people may think so, maybe.
And there are too many things to buy in Japan.
Right.
So at the beginning of this video I said to you to try and analyze Tomoko's speaking yourself and try to determine what score do you think she's going to get for fluency vocab, grammar and pronunciation.
So I will be telling you the scores that she gets very soon.
But I'd like you to make a final decision yourself first.
How can children be educated about money?
Of course at school we can have a time to talk about money, but at home maybe parents can teach them how the house, the family money is going honestly.
Then children can know what is how the money is spending, how the money is spent at home, and they should know.
They should know how much parents are using money for them.
Firstly, children should be more thankful for parents for using money for them.
Okay, and why do some people invest their money instead of saving it?
In Japan the government said that you have to save 20 million yen after you retire, but it's difficult to save that much money, so maybe people investing money for it and in Japan the investing is very getting more and more popular and even government recently government asked people to invest more money.
I don't do it, but now I have interest to do that and I'm just started to learn investing.
But yes, people think they need more money for the future.
So not only saving, but they think they have to invest money.
Now, not everybody would know what the word invest means, and Tomoko was lucky here in that she knew what the question meant and she was able to give a good response because of that.
However, if you're in the speaking test and you get a question that you don't understand, you do have an option, which is to ask the examiner what does invest mean?
They will explain it and then you will definitely be able to give an appropriate answer.
A lot of candidates aren't aware of this, and a lot of candidates feel that it will bring down their score if they ask for help, but that's not true.
So if it is, you're in the test and the situation is that there is a word you don't understand, simply ask for the meaning and the examiner will tell you okay.
And in your country, do rich people retire younger than poor people?
I don't know much about it, but I see many rich people are working.
Still they get old.
But on the other hand, Some people try to save as much as money and try to retire at a young time to spend more free time.
So it depends how the people set the value on free time or working, because many people like to work not only for the money.
So I can't answer the question, but personally, I want to work.
I don't want to retire now because I like working.
I like working.
I'm not workaholic.
I enjoy my free time, but I think people need to work.
Not need, people.
It's good to work, to have a connection with other people.
So yes, if I can be rich, I think I will continue working.
Now, in speaking part three of the test, you should not focus on yourself in your answers.
The questions are more generally about people.
It could be people in your country.
It could be people globally.
So you can just talk about your own knowledge of the situation, but the answer should not be about yourself.
So make sure to speak more generally about the people in the world or the people in your country, when you're responding to part three questions.
Great.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
That's the end of this practice IELTS speaking test.
Okay.
So I mentioned earlier that I would like you to see what scores you think Tomoko will get.
And let me tell you what scores I have given her.
For fluency, she's getting a band five.
Now she used some good natural cohesive devices throughout her answer and she can generally develop her answers and expand on her answers as well, but there are times where our answers were too short.
Also, to get a higher score, she would need to depend less on slow speech, and she often repeats herself.
So fewer pauses, less slow speech, and less repetition would help her to get a higher score.
It's likely that she's still thinking in Japanese and translating a lot of her ideas into English.
So if you've got to speak in one language and think in a different language, That's not a good place to be in if you're looking for a good fluency score.
So the more capable you are of thinking in your own language, the more capable you will be to get a higher fluency score.
So a band five for Tomoko for fluency.
For vocabulary, she gets a band six.
And in general, she has a good enough range of vocabulary to express herself.
There were very few occasions where she wasn't able to express what she wanted to say.
Quite a few occasions where she didn't have the exact item, the exact piece of vocabulary that she needed, but generally she was able to express herself.
Now, if she was to get a band 7, there would need to be a wider range of topic-specific vocabulary and there would need to be less inaccurate use of collocations and word choice.
So to get a band 7, there would be quite a bit of an improvement needed by Tomoko.
For grammar, she gets a band five.
And even though she did use quite a nice range of complex structures throughout her test, there were just simply too many mistakes.
And I think that's something that most of us noticed in that test.
So to get a band six, you cannot be so inaccurate so consistently.
So for Tomoko to improve her score, she would definitely need to focus on perhaps articles to begin with, because that was such a common mistake for her.
Once she's improved in that area, I would recommend perhaps going for prepositions next, because she was making a lot of mistakes in that part of grammar as well.
So, coming to pronunciation, she scores a band six because for the most part it's actually very, very easy to understand what she's saying.
She lacks the natural rhythm and intonation that we would expect for a higher score.
She lacks the sentence stress that we would expect for a higher score.
But having said that, just the ease at which we can understand what she's saying means that she'll definitely get a band six.
And sometimes I think perhaps the amount of pauses that she's making is also interfering.
So it might be that when she improves her fluency a bit more that her pronunciation score would be stronger as well, because the number of pauses, the amount of interference from fluency would also hinder your pronunciation, because you don't hear the connection between each word.
So overall, we're looking at a band 5.5 today for Tomoko.
Okay, so that's it for today from me, Larry Ryan, and the rest of the IELTS Daily crew.
What I'd love to hear in the comments was how many of those scores did you get correct?
So let me know below.
What scores did you provide for fluency vocab, grammar and pronunciation when you listened to Tomoko's speaking test?
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to the practice exam conducted by IELTS Daily.
My name is David, and I am your practice IELTS speaking examiner.
Questions in this test are designed to simulate the IELTS speaking test.
Let's start.
What's your first name, please?
My name is Tomoko.
At the beginning of the IELTS test, you need to provide some identification, usually your passport, but as this is a practice test, there's no need for that today.
Are you ready to begin?
Yes.
Okay, so let's talk about computers.
How often do you use a computer?
Almost every day at work I have to use it, but weekends I don't use computers.
And what do you do on your computer?
Do work.
Work is something I have to do.
I'm a music teacher, so I prefer spending time with piano, but I have so many things that I have to do with computers so I have to stay with computers.
And do you spend too much time on your computer?
I think so.
Especially last two, three years.
We had online classes many times, so I had to stay on the computers.
That wasn't so healthy time.
Are computers expensive in your country?
Yes, you can buy cheap one, but if you want to get good quality one, you have to buy expensive one.
I don't have it, so I don't know well.
Good.
Well, now I'm going to ask you some questions about TV.
Do you enjoy watching TV?
Actually, I don't have TV at home, so it's a difficult question.
But I watch TV program on iPad, so the answer is yes.
What sort of things do you watch on TV or your iPad?
I like watching drama.
Yes, drama. that's it.
Yes, Japanese drama, Korean drama, and dramas from US or UK and Australia.
Yeah.
Cool.
Do you ever watch TV programs or films with subtitles?
Yes, I do.
Japanese drama, when I watch it, I don't use subtitles.
But if I watch Drama, speaking in English, I try to put English subtitles.
And when I watch Korean drama, I don't understand Korean at all, so I have to set Japanese subtitles.
Right.
Do you watch TV more or less than when you were a child?
I watch more TV than when I was a child.
I didn't have much time to watch TV when I was a child.
I just didn't watch TV so much when I was a child.
Now I'm going to ask you some questions about transportation.
Do you prefer travelling by public or private transportation?
I like travelling by public transportation because I don't.
I have driver's license but I don't drive, so I need public transportation.
How often do you use public transportation?
Every day.
For work, I use train for 20 minutes.
And what is the most common form of transportation in your country?
In my country train is the most popular one, but in my city bus is also popular popular yes, do you like the transport system in your country?
Yes, it's reliable.
Sometimes to punk is functioning punctual.
It's too punctual so i can't be late.
That is sometimes trouble for me, but yeah, I like it.
Great.
Okay, in the next part of the test, I'm going to give you a topic and I would like you to speak for one to two minutes.
You will have one minute to think about what you want to say and I'll give you a pen and some paper to make notes if you want.
Is that clear?
Yes.
Great.
And the notes are on the other side.
Okay, so you have one minute to prepare.
Okay, so now I would like you to talk about saving money.
Remember, you have one to two minutes for this, so don't worry if I stop you.
I'll tell you when the time is up.
Can you start speaking now, please?
Yes.
I didn't have to save money for it, but I wanted to save money for traveling.
When I was a university student, I loved traveling.
I could use whole summer vacation for traveling.
So I saved my money for that.
So every summer vacation, I go somewhere.
So about 10, 11 months, I had time to save money for next travel.
And it wasn't easy to save money.
But mentally I wasn't feel sad or feel difficult for do it, because I just thinking of traveling somewhere.
So yeah, that was good.
Saving money experience.
And To save my money.
I every day I made onigiri and I bring it to university and I eat onigiri.
So every day my lunch was onigiri rice bowl.
But it was good memory and still now I make my obento lunch box every day to save money and also for fun, but i'm doing it now.
So lovely.
And what did you learn from that experience about saving money and making your own lunch?
So what if you want to, if you want to do something, you have to not give up, but you have to save something, like lunch at school.
There's cafeteria and there's restaurants around school so you can go if you want to, but if you go there every day, you can't save money for something.
For me, if you like eating something every day, good thing, that's good, but it depends.
So you have to choose what you like and if you want to save money for something, you have to give up something.
That is what i learned from my onigiri rice bowl experience.
Great.
Well, thank you.
I want to stay on the topic of money.
Do people in your country spend a lot of money on their education?
Yes.
Yes, I think so.
The education, how much you spend money for education or how much you can spend money for that is a little bit social problem, social issues in Japan now, because if you want to go to private school or want to study abroad you need money.
But not everybody can do that.
So the answer is if people can spend money yes, they spend much money for education.
Why do some people spend more money than they have?
This is a difficult question.
I didn't study psychology so I don't know.
But maybe some people think if you buy or if you spend for something, that thing valued that person.
So maybe spend more money for expensive thing.
Maybe expensive things shows that person more higher stage people.
Some people may think so, maybe.
And there are too many things to buy.
In Japan.
How can children be educated about money?
Of course at school we can have a time to talk about money.
But at home, maybe parents can teach them how the house, the family money is going honestly.
Then children can know what is how the money is spending, how the money is spent at home, and they should know how much parents are using money for them.
Firstly, children should be more Thanks for parents for using money for them.
Right.
Okay, and why do some people invest their money instead of saving it?
Because in Japan the government said us you have to save 20 million yen for your after you retired time.
But it's difficult to save that much money.
So maybe people are investing money for it.
And in Japan, the investing is very, getting more and more popular.
And even government, recently government ask people to invest more money.
I don't do it, but now I have interest to do that, and I've just started to learn investing.
But yes, people think they need more money for the future, not only saving, but they think they have to invest money.
Okay then, in your country, do rich people retire younger than poor people?
I don't know much about it, but I see many rich people are working.
Still they get old.
But on the other hand, some people try to save as much as money and try to retire at a young time to spend more free time.
It depends how the people set the value on free time or working, because many people like to work not only for the money.
So I can't answer the question, but personally, I want to work.
I don't want to retire now because I like working.
I like working, so I'm not workaholic.
I enjoy my free time, but I think people need to work, not need people.
It's good to work to have a connection with other people.
So Yes, if I can be rich, I think I will continue working.
Great.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
That's the end of this practice IELTS speaking test.
