TEST 2 SPEAKING CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH IELTS 4

CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH IELTS 4

TEST 2

SPEAKING

PART 1 The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, him/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics Example Food and cooking → What kinds of food do you like to eat? → What kind of new food would you like to try? (Why) → Do you like cooking? (Why/Why not) → What was the last meal you cooked? → Do you prefer home-cooked food or food from restaurants? (Why) PART 2 Describe an interest or hobby that you enjoy. You should say how you become interested in it how long have you been doing it why you enjoy it and explain what benefits you get from this interest or hobby You will have to talk about the topic for 1 to 2 minutes. You have one minute to think about what you’re going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish. PART 3 Discussion topics The social benefits of hobby Example questions Do you think having a hobby is good for people’s life? In what why? Are there any negative effects of a person spending too much time on their hobby? What are they? Why do you think people need to have an interest or hobby? Leisure time Example questions: In your country, how much time do people spend on work and how much time on leisure? Is this good balance, do you think? Would you say the amount of free time has changed much in the last fifty years? Do you think people will have more or less free time in the future? Why?

ANSWER KEY

Model Answer PART 1 What kind of food do you like to eat? I mostly like homemade foods. They are hygienic, made from organic sources and have no chemicals or adhesive. However, my preference in homemade foods does not discourage me to dine outside. I prefer having dinner in a Chinese or Italian restaurant as I love their menu. I am also fond of Pizza and Sandwich. What kind of new food would you like to try? Why? I have never tried Thai foods and I would love to taste it. One of my cousins is very fond of Thai foods and he had convinced me that I should give it a try. I think I would like it. I have a plan to take my family to a renowned restaurant in our city to taste the Thai foods together. Apart from that, I would love to try Japanese Sushi. I have heard so much about it but have never tasted it. Do you like cooking? Why/ Why not? I love cooking. This is sometimes very relaxing and gives a good feeling. I do not need to cook very often but when I do, I feel like I kind of enjoy it. Maybe if I had to cook every day, my opinion could have been different! My mom mostly cooks in our house and whenever I declare that I would cook either for lunch or dinner, my brothers and sisters become excited and worried at the same time. They love the way I try to cook different menu each time and they often find my cooking tasty but they also remember some of the incidents when my foods tasted horrible. But if you ask me whether I enjoy cooking, I would say ‘yes’, and I like doing experiments no matter what others think about it. What was the last meal you cooked? That must be more than 3 months since I cooked last time. It was fried rice with eggs, prawn and vegetables. I also cooked mutton with curry and as a desert, I made apple pie. Fortunately, this time, my siblings were pleased with my cooking!!! Do you prefer home-cooked food or food from restaurants? Why? As I said my preference is home-cooked foods over outside foods. My father does not like the idea of having outside meals that often. Apart from that, my mother is an excellent cook and we enjoy her menu a lot. Outside foods are quite expensive and not fully hygienic. This is why all of my family members prefer home-made foods.. PART 2 n the past, I tried a number of hobbies, but I just couldn’t stick with them for too long, probably because of the age factor. But, at this point in my life, I must say that I have found a hobby which I could probably enjoy for the rest of my life without ever getting bored. The name of this particular hobby is called “internet surfing and collecting information from it”. Yes, you heard it right. My favourite hobby nowadays is surfing the internet. I also think that more and more people should consider surfing the internet as their hobbies because there are just so many interesting things to learn from the world wide web that it is almost impossible to get a better view of the world in which we live without surfing the internet. At least, I have been doing this for the last three years or so, and I just love it. Besides, what could be a better hobby than learning about the world around us with just a click of a mouse? The best thing about this hobby is that I can enjoy it anytime from the comfort of my home. You want to learn about a unique aspect of a particular culture or tradition? Well, the internet has it whether you want just some written/text information or an actual video of it. You are interested to learn about the recipes of some delicious foods? The internet will provide you with tons of videos on it for you. Like these, there are so many things that we can learn by surfing the internet if you really have the intellectual acumen to put all the information in the proper context. Now, why would I think of going outside to enjoy some hobbies while I can do it right at my home with my family members and the loved ones? Anyway, this hobby is important for me because it stimulates my mind and brain unlike anything else. Besides, the wealth of information, I receive from the internet, helps me make a lot of informed decision which otherwise wouldn’t be possible that easily. PART 3 The social benefits of hobbies: Q. Do you think having a hobby is good for people’s social life? In what way? Answer: Of course, having any kind of hobbies is good for people’s social life as they, more often than not, tend to help us release our negative stress and enjoy our lives more meaningfully. Besides, it also helps us bring positivity in our minds and elevates our confidence levels. And, the more confident and positive we remain in our lives, the easier should it get for us to relate to other people around us. Finally, some hobbies, like playing football or soccer, help create a stronger bond among people by generally bringing them closer to each other. Q. Are there any negative effects of a person spending too much time on their hobby? What are they? Answer: Doing too much of anything is never really good either for our own lives as well as the lives of our loved ones. If a person is spending too much time in enjoying his/her hobby, the chances are that he/she is not taking care of other priorities in life effectively, such as going to a job and spending time with family, which may prove out to be crippling economically and socially. Besides, spending too much time enjoying hobbies, which are physically demanding, can “drain” one out of our energy that is necessary to do other important things in life. Q. Why do you think people need to have an interest or hobby? Answer: People should have an interest or hobby for various reasons. It helps us relieve our stress by keeping us engaged in something, which we really enjoy doing when we are going through a tough time. Having a hobby is also important if we want to enjoy a better social life and a stronger bond with the people around us, as it helps us approach our lives in a more positive manner. Finally, it also helps us get rid of our boredom in life – boredom, which absorbs our energy and spirit negatively, because of following the same daily, monotonous routine work schedule in our modern lives. Leisure time: Q. In your country, how much time do people spend on work and how much time on leisure? Is this a good balance, do you think? Answer: The way I see it, it looks like people in my country spend most of their times in their works while leaving very little or almost no leisure time for them or their families. So, why do they still do it? Well, the answer is, they either don’t understand, for whatever reasons that may be, the benefits of maintaining a balanced work-social life or they are just not able to earn a decent living by working the regular hours only. Whatever is the case, the truth is their lifestyles, unfortunately, is not helping their causes to maintain a good and much-needed balance in their lives. Q. Would you say the amount of free time has changed much in the last fifty years? Answer: In my opinion, the amount of free time has certainly changed in the last fifty years or so as we have started to expect more from our lives. However, there is nothing wrong with such high expectation expect, of course, that we are spending more and more time in working and earning our livings while leaving a very little or almost no “free time” for ourselves and our families in the process. So, anyway, I would dare to say, this is probably the “curse” of our modern lifestyle, and it certainly doesn’t look very promising for the overall well-being of our entire human race. Q. Do you think people will have 'more' or 'less' free time in the future? Why? Answer: Well, it all depends on how people would choose to define “free time” in the future. But, if you are asking about the amount of “free time” outside of our “working and egocentric” lives, then the chances are that the answer will be anything but “encouraging” for the future well-being of our entire human race. On the other hand, if you are asking about the amount of “free time” in order to chase after the “materialistic gains” of this world, then you can bet all the money, you have, that there will be more “free time” than one could possibly even imagine! So, once again, it all depends on what kind of outlooks we have in our lives, and how we choose to “swing” with it. teachers and an inquisitive person has many options to learn about history. Q. Do you think history will still be a school subject in the future? Why? A.  I most certainly believe that history shall always be a part of school syllabus in the near and far future. The fundamentals of history and its importance are learned from the school and that has a lasting impact on students. The inquisitiveness about history is formed among students when the teachers explain some great historic events in the classroom. The significance of history can never be denied as it teaches us our past, our ancestors and the world our grandparents used to live in. Those lessons create our impression and concept about the world we live in. We can’t build a glorious future without knowing our past and the school plays an important role in forming our curiosity in history. That’s why I believe that history will always be a major subject in schools in the future.