This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1492, Two Ways for Band 9, Part 2 Stories.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz.
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Today, we'll give you two model band nine speaking part two answers that most people would not tell a story for.
However, you should tell a story to get the highest scores, and today you'll find out how.
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Hello, Aubrey. We are continuing a bit of a series.
We've been talking about about organizing your part to answer and we gave you a model a couple episodes back 1488 describing a person and today we're going to continue these lessons yes because today we're sharing two part two questions that you might not think would work for a story like how do I tell a story about this we're going to show you how and how it is easier to fill two minutes even with these type of questions with a good story awesome so let's get to these model answers um aubrey's gonna do the first one and this is her prompt describe your favorite piece of clothing oh i thought
you were going to do that one jessica i have an idea for the second one oh i'm gonna do that one i'm doing this one let me get me timer i'm gonna have you answer this one because i i have no i'll listen out there guys you might be like me and this would be a really hard question because i don't have a favorite piece of clothing.
So let's see how Jessica does.
All right, let's do it.
All right, you may begin now please.
Jessica Eaglin - So my favorite, favorite piece of clothing that I own in the world right now is a fur coat.
Now I am not someone who would ever really, nobody would think I would have a fur coat.
But I wear this thing every day.
First of all, because because it's freezing here.
And second of all, because it's so dang cool.
I get compliments on this coat every time I wear it.
No joke. Um, and you know what?
It's actually real fur.
Now I didn't buy it.
Um, it was actually free and I make sure to tell everybody that compliments me that it was free.
Um, this is a crazy story.
I actually got this at a clothing exchange.
So my neighbor, jamie she organized a clothing exchange where like she invited 10 people and we all brought a bunch of clothes that we don't wear anymore and the idea was like we're just gonna have all of these clothes to choose from and we can try stuff on and you know make funny outfits and stuff but basically you just show up and you get to choose from a lot of cool clothes and this fur fur coat was one of them.
And I was surprised to even see it there.
It didn't fit in this clothing exchange because everyone there is, well, you know, I think half of them were, were vegans, honestly.
And I was like, who brought the fur coat you guys?
And is this really sweet woman who loves going to the Goodwill bins.
And she goes there every week.
And if you don't know what that is, the Goodwill bins is like this huge warehouse house that everything goes to that doesn't get sold at the goodwills and you pave her clothes like by the pound and it's so cheap and she just grabs stuff that she doesn't even want she just thinks like oh like this is interesting maybe i can find a use for this so she's the one that brought the fur coat um and i don't think thank you okay do you still wear that for your fur coat I do.
I wear it like all the time.
That's amazing. I intentionally asked Jessica a follow -up question because you're going to get one, right?
After your part two question, you get this little follow -up question that's sort of a transition to part three.
And Jessica's answer was perfect, right?
Make it short. I have so much good feedback here.
That was an amazing answer.
Starting with, I loved the way you said my favorite, favorite piece of clothing.
And if you guys were thinking like, oh, vocab repetition, no, this is a good way to do that, right?
You don't want to do that with every word but it's a fun way to emphasize instead of saying my very favorite we'll do this we'll say my favorite favorite piece of clothing and that's very fun and then when jessica said you know i'm not someone who would and she immediately paraphrased because whatever word you were looking for was not top of mind was not at the tip of your tongue this happens to you guys a lot on part two i want you to go back and listen to how she did it she sort of just interrupted that sentence and then said nobody would think I'd wear something like this instead of coming
up with that other exact way to say it this is a skill you have to practice paraphrasing saying it another way instead of pausing and thinking for that perfect word so well done on that you know I was gonna say I'm not one who would normally wear fur coat and then I thought well that's just just false because I'm literally telling you I wear it perfect of course you could finish that sentence and be like okay you know actually that's a lie because I wear it like lots of options here but the way you did it was so just such great if you guys can do that it really shows your fluency when you can interrupt
a thought rephrase it and just keep on going without letting it throw you off but I have more great vocab I loved where you said no joke right you're saying something that someone might doubt.
And this is a great thing to save very slangy, very informal to be like, no joke, meaning like, you need to believe me, this is actually true.
And then to introduce the story, you said, this is a crazy story.
And that's a great way to jump into an interesting story.
And then again, a ton of great transition phrases.
So there's a party where, and then you share some details about it.
The idea was, and then you share details.
What was the idea for the party.
So great opening up with a story to give you the opportunity to share all these interesting details besides just describing the coat.
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
So there's a part two strategy we've talked about before, before, during, after, right?
So like, what were you doing before you got the coat?
What was happening while you got the coat?
What happened after you got the coat?
and without meaning to I kind of followed that strategy awesome well done I'm excited for my answer imagine this you go to a website you take a short five minute quiz then you get your estimated IELTS band score for free and free resources personalized for your specific band band score.
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score. All right, so now it's Aubrey's turn.
Aubrey is going to describe a present you gave someone.
Can you start speaking now, please?
There was a really funny thing that happened several years ago when Apple Watches first came out.
My husband had told me he would like one for Christmas.
So I went to the Apple store and the first employee I saw, I said, kind sir, can you please get me an Apple watch?
It doesn't matter what, he's probably going to come and trade it in for what he actually wants.
So can I just buy one?
I wasn't worried about it.
He pulled one from the back and gave me the thing and I signed it without even looking at the cost because I knew, I didn't know what features he wanted i didn't know anything and i just wrapped it and put it under the tree christmas morning comes and my husband opened this little gift and a look of shock passed over his face because i guess this apple watch was maybe 2 000 it was some kind of gold gold -plated platinum titanium.
I don't know. But it was more expensive than the average Apple Watch. And he asked, how much did you spend on this?
And I said, oh, I don't know.
I didn't look at it.
I figured you could trade it in for the one you want.
I don't know anything about them.
And he started laughing and said, I was expecting one that was much cheaper, a couple hundred hundred dollars maybe and so then we went and looked at the credit card receipt and were dumbfounded by how expensive it was and he was so shocked that I hadn't even looked when I signed but you know that's me what do I care and what was really funny was about 30 minutes prior I had opened a gift from him an apple watch and was grateful like oh good you know I hope you don't mind if I trade it in for the one I would actually like and he knew I would be similar thank you uh did you tell other people about this present
oh yes I tell this story all the time okay awesome oh my god that was hilarious um I was that true yes that did happen the only thing I left out is like as because this was several years ago I opened one first and was was assuming it was really expensive because I had before Christmas morning, I had seen the bill or something.
I had found out how much it was and was like, wow, Apple watches are expensive.
So then when I opened mine, I was like, oh no, I don't want to gift this expensive, but it was like $150.
I thought it was like two grand.
Oh, that's awesome.
Okay guys. So let's dive into some awesome stuff you can learn from Aubrey's answer.
The way that she introduced it was really great.
So telling a story from the past right a really funny thing um a really funny thing happened several years ago um that is such a great introduction phrase to to something that's actually interesting and funny right and then you quoted yourself talking to the guy at the apple store and he was like and i and i said kind sir can you please give me an apple watch so saying kind sir instead of like sir or excuse me that's really native and natural very funny very uncommon myself in a British novel yes and then time phrase transition Christmas morning comes so instead of saying and then on Christmas
morning you just give the time and say comes right Christmas morning comes and and then you say what happened and instead of saying he was shocked you said a look of shock passed over his face so descriptive it's so excellent and passive and vocab note here you said we were dumbfounded by the cost so So dumbfounded is like very shocked.
Right. But there's the passive there.
We were dumbfounded by the cost. And then instead of saying, like, I don't notice or I don't care about these things, you're like, what do I care?
And it struck me that is an interesting grammar construction that students never use.
Right. So instead of saying, like, I don't care, I don't know about this, you know, just say, what do I care?
there? Oh, yes. That's really fun.
I say that a lot. I think it's, it's not only is it more fun and you know, this kind of thing on the IELTS exam, I feel is so much less common that it really stands out for the examiner, right?
Vocab, fluency, like I notice when a student uses a phrase like that.
Oh, a hundred percent.
A hundred percent. All right, guys.
So we hope that you practice your answers to today's questions and we want to share a recent poll that we did because this is the first time we've seen a poll get like exactly 50 50 yeah this was a fun one the poll question was do you always read the fine print this was we talked about business a little bit and how you can talk about business on IELTS in 1455 formal contract phrases for IELTS business topics.
We talked about the fine print, the tiny lettering on contracts that we often don't read, especially when there's 30 pages of it.
Yeah. And half of you said yes and half of you said no. I'm just shocked that half of you said yes.
Yeah, right. They wanted a depends probably because maybe they read it for some things if they're a couple pages.
But if you go to purchase a home and it's like 400 pages of fine print i'll be amazed if those yeses still read every word i know all right guys so remember that we post a spotify poll for every single episode and we love to read your answers so if you are listening to us in spotify hit follow first and then go ahead and answer that poll for today yeah we're going to ask do you have a favorite piece of clothing i'm curious i'll just be yes or no but definitely think about this for ielts I, for one, would have a difficult time.
I would definitely need that minute to think, do I have a favorite piece?
I don't have a fur coat to talk about.
I don't think a lot of people talk about one piece of clothing for two minutes.
So definitely something to practice, guys.
And another note here, I was thinking about this when I first read that question.
I think I would have a tendency to talk about maybe sweaters in general, hoodies or like yoga pants.
but if it is saying, describe your favorite piece of clothing, it's talking about one article of clothing that you could describe and talk about.
It's kind of interesting.
It might trip some of you up.
That's a very good note, guys.
Every part two is going to ask you one thing, one person, one event, right?
So it's all going to be singular.
Good. Awesome. Good tip.
All right, guys. Thanks for joining us today, and we'll be back again next week.
Awesome. See you next week.
Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish .com slash my score.
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