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Written by IELTS Mentor

IELTS Speaking Test # 80

Part 1 Topic: "Your favourite place".
Part 2 Topic: "Describe a useful website you have visited."
Part 3 Topic: "The internet and communication" & "The internet and shopping".

Part 1 - Introduction & Interview

[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]

Your favourite place:

Q. What place do you most like to visit?
Answer: My favourite place to visit is an old but nicely built Italian café which sits right across the street from my work. I have been visiting this place since the day I started my current job as a Junior Financial Analyst almost 4 years ago.

Q. How often do you visit this place?
Answer: I wish that I could visit this place as often as possible, but unfortunately, it doesn’t happen because of the pressure of the works and other priorities. However, I visit this nice cafe almost every weekend and any other days when I get any off days and holidays from my job. However, sometimes I take a break from my office for a few minutes and enjoy a cup of coffee in this very café to refresh myself.

Q. Why do you like it so much?
Answer: I like to visit this place so much because it has a very nice and cosy environment where some really friendly staffs are always ready to serve you. I also like this place because the food there is very nice and tasty, and all of them come at a very affordable price. On top of that, the view from the café is quite beautiful and delightful, and I enjoy a cup of refreshing coffee there once in a while during my office days which helps me concentrate more on my works.

Q. Is it popular with many other people?
Answer: I would say that it is a very popular place because whenever I visit this café, I find it packed with many customers, but thankfully, it doesn’t feel as “crowded” as it should be because it has a rather large space inside. I guess that it attracts so many customers because of its prime location and savoury menu. Some of my colleges think highly of this place and often enjoy their lunch there.

Q. Has it changed very much since you first went there? [In what way?]
Answer: No, it hasn’t changed that much since the very first day when I visited the café except, of course, the number of customers has increased significantly over the years, probably because it has made a huge stride in promoting this place all over the city, where I live, in recent times.

Part 2 - Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card

[The topic for your talk will be written on a card which the examiner will hand you. Read it carefully and then make some brief notes.]

Describe a useful website you have visited.

You should say:

• what the website was
• how you found the address for this website
• what the website contained

and explain why it was useful to you.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Click here for the answer to this Cue Card Topic:

 

Part 3 - Two-way Discussion:

Discussion topics:

The internet and communication:

Q. What effect has the internet had on the way people generally communicate with each other?
Answer: The internet, along with other modern communication technologies, has pretty much revolutionized the idea of communication by making it very convenient, cheap, personal and very instantaneous. With the use of the internet, one can communicate with more than one person at a time with very minimal efforts and costs. The internet also has helped us communicate with virtually anybody while actually watching them live also on computer/phone screens even if we live a world apart from each other. However, the use of internet has made face-to-face communication rather less frequent as we prefer to call someone or chat with that person online rather than visiting him/her in person.

Q. Why do you think the internet is being used more and more for communication?
Answer: The internet is being used more and more for personal and professional communications primarily because it has become more accessible in recent days. The power to reach virtually anyone and instantly, no matter where the person lives in this world, has also made it immensely popular. We can exchange a huge amount of data and information within a very short period of time at a minimal cost with the help of the internet and this has made the business world embrace this technology. Besides, the internet helps us to make our communication more “personalized” as the communicating parties are able to view each other live on camera without paying anything “extra”. Finally, the way social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter have connected us is unprecedented.

Q. How reliable do you think information from the internet is? Why? What about the news on the internet?
Answer: I would venture to think that most of the information, obtained on the internet, is reliable for the most part if obtained from an authoritative source. But one can never be too much careful in verifying and checking the authenticity of many data and information easily available on the websites, primarily because anyone these days is able to post pretty much any kinds of information without the much-needed “oversight”. The same holds true for the news on the internet as well because the same news, if not posted and published in an objective manner, can very easily be “considered” as some dangerous “propaganda” by the parties with very limited knowledge and intellectual capacity.

Fake news spread faster than ever before and we should always look for the authority and authenticity of a news source before reading and sharing it.

The internet and shopping:

Q. Why do you think some people use the internet for shopping? Why doesn’t everyone use it in this way?
Answer: Well, I am very much against “shopping” on the internet, at least considering how consumers are often duped in my country when they purchase something online. Unless I am offered a very - I mean “very” – valid reason to fall in online shopping's favour, I avoid it. Therefore, please forgive me if I don’t sound much “politically correct” when answering the first part of this question. Anyway, in my humble opinion, some people like to do internet shopping probably because either they are just too lazy to get out, or they do not care enough to seek the best value for their purchases. Now, to answer the second part of the question, not everyone is “crazy” enough to buy things on the internet because they want to “feel” and “check” the products in person before making their purchasing decisions, which is just not possible on the internet.

Q. What kinds of things are easy to buy and sell online? Can you give me some examples?
Answer: Only small, light, dry and inexpensive items, as well as the commonly popular items among the customers, are easy to buy and sell online. Examples may include pen, paper, books, regular clothes, scissors, kitchen tools and utensils, cosmetics & beauty products, regular sound amplifiers and so on. In my humble opinion, these products are easy to buy and sell online also because they are used on a fairly regular basis, and, as a result, both the buyers and sellers online feel relatively more confident and safe about them.

However, from the market trends, I can say that flowers, toys for children, electronic gadgets, old cars, and furniture are often being bought and sold online these days in my country.

Q. Do you think shopping on the internet will be more or less popular in the future? Why?
Answer: I would think that shopping on the internet will become more and more popular in the future, not because it is necessarily better than shopping in the regular physical markets, but because people are becoming too busy to pay attention to improve their quality of lives in general by actually checking the things, they need, in person before buying them. Besides, some people will always get deceived by cheap slogans like “buying from the comfort of your homes” in order to enjoy some “short-term” benefits while completely ignoring the benefits in the long run.

Moreover, the popularity of online payment systems and more convenient shipment facility will connect more sellers and buyers in the future which will result in a boom in the eCommerce industry in the future.

• IELTS Speaking

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