IELTS Speaking Samples and Answers
IELTS Speaking Test - Sample 88
- Details
- Written by IELTS Mentor
IELTS Speaking Test # 88
Part 1 Topic: "Travelling to work or college".
Part 2 Topic: "Describe a piece of electronic equipment that you find useful".
Part 3 Topic: "Technology and housework" & "Technology in the workplace".
Part One - Introduction
[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]
Travelling to work or college:
Q. How do you usually travel to work or college? [Why?]
A. I usually travel to work with my motorbike unless there is very bad weather, associated with rain or cold. I use this particular two-wheel vehicle mainly because of the flexibility and convenience it provides when it comes to travelling at my own pace as well as when it comes to parking.
Q. Have you always travelled to work/college in the same way? [Why/Why not?]
A. No, I haven’t always travelled to my work in the same way because I have lived and worked in different places where using public transportations, like buses or subway train, was a better option. Besides, I have lived within an easy walking distance of my work and college in the past.
Q. What do you like about travelling to work/college this way?
A. The best thing, which I really like about travelling to my work with my motorbike, is that it allows me to save a lot of time since I can easily avoid the busy roads with bad traffics. Besides, the fuel costs and maintenance costs of a motorbike are very minimal in comparison with a car.
Q. What changes would improve the way you travel to work/college? [Why?]
A. Where I live, most of the main and busy roads don’t really have any separate lanes for motorbike riders. So, adding separate lanes for motorbike riders in all main roads/streets, in order to help them avoid bad traffics, would be a big step forward towards ensuring a better travelling experience.
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 piece of electronic equipment that you find useful.
You should say:
- what it is
- how you learned to use it
- how long you have had it
and explain why you find this piece of electronic equipment useful.
[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: Technology and housework:
Q. What kinds of machine are used for housework in modern homes in your country?
A. Pretty much all of the modern homes in my country use machines like refrigerators, oven (with burners), microwave oven, vacuum cleaners, dishwashing machines and laundry washing machines, for their housework. They also use electric kitchen appliances like electric kettles and blenders. The list would, in fact, go on but the household machines I have mentioned are quite common among modern houses in my country.
Q. How have these machines benefited people? Are there any negative effects of using them?
A. Men invented technology and machines to make their life more comfortable and easier. So, no wonder that these machines also have benefited people tremendously by cutting their time and efforts to a great deal to do household works. But, above all, the greatest benefit of having these machines, in my opinion, is that the people can feel at ease mentally no matter how hectic and fast pace life becomes. We can, nowadays, preserve food for longer than ever before, prepare food within a few minutes, clean our laundry and home without worrying too much and these have all been possible with the help of the modern machines we use at home. As a direct result, we have more time to enjoy with our family and spend outdoors than in the past.
Just as offering many benefits to people, these machines and modern technologies are not without any negative effects. For example, no doubt that refrigerators help us preserve our foods longer, but those foods lose many of their food/nutritional values also in the process. Besides, these machines tend to consume lots of energy/electricity in many cases which can prove out to be really costly for many households. However, the biggest fallout of using some of these machines is that people are becoming more and more lethargic even when it comes to doing simple things like washing a small piece of cloth with hands.
Q. Do you think all new homes will be equipped with household machines in the future? Why?
A. No, I don’t really think that all new homes will be equipped with modern household machines in the future primarily because of economic reasons. Let’s face it, not all homeowners are or will be rich enough to equip their homes with modern tools and machines. In fact, still millions, if not billions, of people around the world are struggling to get just some foods on their tables, and I don’t really see that is changing significantly in the future in order to make the homeowners comfortable and wealthy enough to equip their homes with machines, especially if he/she is building a “new home’ with “mud and leaves of trees” in some part of the African continent. In my country, a large number of modern houses would be equipped with modern tools and machines in the future, but the remaining would not be.
Discussion topics: Technology in the workplace:
Q. What kinds of equipment do most workers need to use in offices today?
A. Today, most office workers would need to use computers and its peripheral pieces of equipment (like hard drive, modem, monitor and keyboards), fax machines, scanners, large whiteboard, phones/PABX systems, printers, photocopiers, projectors and paper shredders in order to run their day to day operations smoothly. Pen, pencils, markers, paper clips, staplers, highlighters, paper hold punchers, calculators and scissors are also used by many workers in offices today.
Q. How have developments in technology affected employment in your country?
A. Technological developments have transformed employment by increasing efficiencies in many cases in my country by getting more things done within a relatively shorter period of time. It also has helped create new employment opportunities and high paying jobs, based on technological services, which didn’t exist before. However, it can also be said that because of the technological developments, some people are losing their jobs since the traditional manual working environment is becoming more and more limited.
Q. Some people think that technology has brought more stress than benefits to employed people nowadays. Would you agree or disagree? Why?
A. I would disagree if anybody suggests that technology has brought more stress than benefits to works nowadays in principle because the technology was invented in the first place to make things easy for us at workplaces. For example, before technological advancements, a person, working at a restaurant kitchen, would need to spend hours in order to clean up all the dishes. But the same job is getting done today in minutes with the help of dishwashing machines, courtesy to the technological developments. In the same way, we don’t really have to run to a post office today in order to send an important mail as it can be done easily by using a computer without moving an inch!
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