Hey.

You just finished your test.

How was it?

It was, um, it was okay, I guess.

Oh, no.

Do you think that the IELTS speaking test is difficult?

Well, I agree with you.

The great news is that we've made some fantastic mock exam videos with a real practice exam, with real students, and a real practice examiner.

During these videos, I'm going to be looking at what the students do well, how they can improve, and also how you guys can use some of their tips, techniques, and ideas in your speaking test.

Hello, people.

It's Chris from IELTSdaily, and you're back for another mock exam session.

I hope you find these sessions really useful.

Today, we have Kevin.

Kevin's from China, and he is not originally a native speaker.

So, we're going to talk about what Kevin does well in his sample test, how can he improve, and we'll also be sharing some ideas of what you guys can use in your speaking test.

So, if you're ready to go, let's go and watch Kevin.

Hello, and welcome to this practice exam conducted by IELTSdaily.

My name is Maddy, and I'm your practice examiner.

The questions in this test are designed to simulate the IELTS speaking test.

Let's start.

What's your first name, please?

Hongling, H-O-N-G-L-I-N, but you can call me Kevin.

Thanks, Kevin.

Did you notice that Kevin gave his native name, and he said, but you can call me Kevin.

This is common if you have an English name.

In the test, they will probably want to hear your original native name and the name which you prefer.

So, you can say, you can call me.

In this case, you can call me Kevin.

At the beginning of the IELTS test, you'll be required to provide some ID, but as this is a practice test, we don't need to do that today.

I want to begin by talking about you.

Do you work or do you study?

I'm a full-time university student at the University of Melbourne, studying the IELTS.

You just told me, but what do you study?

Can you tell me a bit more about that?

I do a Bachelor of Biomedicine.

It's a pretty much set course on either research, scientific research, or medicine school in the future, but I still haven't decided which path I might take.

At the moment, I'm majoring in genetics, and I have a particular interest in genetics and especially CRISPR technology, which allow us to edit genes and maybe cure cancer in the future and all sorts of diseases that we aren't able to cure at the moment.

Kevin makes a great start here.

A couple of points that I want to be really picky on.

So, he said, which pass.

It's a common mistake for people who don't have the th sound.

He should be pronouncing the word path.

So, be careful if you don't have the sound in your language.

He spoke about his full-time university degree in biomedicine and gave some extra evidence, and he elaborated on his answer, which is really great.

He improves his fluency mark.

And why did you choose this subject?

I always...

I'm just going to pause Kevin here.

Did you notice that he struggled a little bit to think of an idea, and he hesitated?

If you want to score a Band 9, you can hesitate, but don't hesitate too much.

If you're looking for ideas, that's normal.

But he...

I noticed that he was looking up at the sky, and he was...

So, just be prepared to speak as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

It's not bad here, but I noticed that he did struggle a little bit.

So, I was introduced to this topic by a Netflix documentary.

I think it's called Unnatural Selection, and it talks about gene drive and a lot of the ethical issues surrounding genetics, but it also talks about the potential and the exciting new area that CRISPR have brought to us.

So, I always thought this is a very interesting topic.

I wanted to So, I decided to continue on.

And do you enjoy the place where you study?

I have to say not the best this year because it's all online, but usually at university campus, it's always exciting because from lectures to lectures, we go to different buildings, and it's always good to see, meet other people and see different, especially if we have lectures in the what's it called?

The design school, and the building is really nice, and the lecture theatres are really big and modern, and I enjoy having classes in there.

Did you notice again that Kevin struggled a little bit with finding a word, and he was looking for the word design school.

If you want to score a band eight or above in the lexical resource mark, you can't really be thinking too much for words, and this will affect your fluency and coherence as well.

So, the hesitancy, making hesitations will really affect your mark if you're looking for words.

I think in this case, he would probably be limited now to a band eight in the fluency and coherence mark because he couldn't find the word design school.

He also said, I have to say, it's not the best year.

I have to say is a great filler phrase which you could use in your test.

Okay, let's move on to the topic of clothes.

Is what you wear important to you?

Well, I actually spend way more than average time that I would spend on clothing today, but usually I don't really care too much about clothing as long as it's comfortable, and as long as I'm not in my pyjamas, I can just go to uni, spend a day there or at the library, and then come home, and then it'll be easy, and it won't be.

I don't care too much about fashion, but as long as it doesn't make me look bad or it's comfortable, I'm fine with it.

And do you prefer wearing formal or relaxed clothing?

Or relaxed for sure.

I don't particularly enjoy wearing jeans because sometimes, like after a whole day wearing it, it's a bit tight and things might get uncomfortable.

So, I do enjoy wearing like exercise, like sporting pants, and it makes things easier for me.

And as I've said, I don't really care too much about fashion.

Maybe I should, but I don't personally, so I don't mind wearing comfortable things.

Great, excellent.

Kevin's doing a great job here.

Pronunciation of the word clothing, clothing, very difficult for people from countries without this th sound again.

I know Kevin's from China originally, and Chinese doesn't have the th sound, so clothing, clothing, not closing, clothing.

He said, I don't care too much about fashion.

He just goes to uni.

He contracted the word university, so university is uni.

I usually don't care too much.

He said, for sure.

For sure means definitely.

And he gave great answers.

I'm not concerned too much.

Just a couple of areas now that probably are going to limit him from getting a band nine, but he's on track for a band eight at the moment.

And does your country have any traditional clothing?

I think we do, but yeah, but I think it's more of a, there's something called qipao, which is mainly worn by, I think, female.

Oh, look, I'm horrible at Chinese history, but I think we do have like clothes, traditional clothes, but I've personally never worn them because I've never found the right occasion to wear it.

But mainly in a formal event, we stop using traditional Chinese clothes.

It's more westernized and we wear suits and ties just like everyone else.

Okay, now are some particular pronunciation problems, and it goes back again to this th sound.

Kevin is struggling a little bit with the th sound, so I know this word is really difficult for Chinese speakers.

Clothes, clothes.

Kevin says clothes, clothes.

The correct pronunciation is clothes, clothes.

If you can see my tongue, clothes, really, really difficult.

He said mainly worn by female.

Female would be singular and you should say females.

So, a couple of mistakes starting to creep through here.

He's still doing really well.

I'm giving him at the moment a solid band eight.

And has your style changed over time?

Oh, yeah.

I used to enjoy wearing sneakers and like to school and to everything, but I think after I've studied here and in Uni Melbourne, especially staying in the college, my style has not changed.

He did say, I think, and I might have misheard him, my style has slightly changed.

I think he needs to say changed, changed.

He used the word comfy.

Comfy is the contracted form of the word comfortable.

So, he said, I don't mind as long as it's comfy.

And he did say as long as, as long as is a complex grammar form.

So, really well done in here.

And he's showing that he has a variety of complex grammar forms.

Now, I want to talk about recycling.

Do people recycle in the place where you live?

It's actually implemented last year, I think, in Shanghai specifically, which is the city I came from.

So, now you have to, so in the block of apartments that we live, there are specific places that have four different kinds of bins and you have to do different types of garbage separately and you have to be responsible for the environment and for the ecosystem.

I think it's good that we're catching up on all the issues because of global warming.

It's no small deal and it's the fate of the entire humanity.

So, I think it is important that we're implementing these new rules about recycling and garbage disposal rules.

We've moved on to a new topic now, which is recycling.

Remember, you might have two topics during part one, you might even have three.

In this case, we had clothing and we've moved on to recycling.

Now, the topic of recycling is a common topic and you should be prepared for it during the test.

In this case, Kevin made a couple of mistakes.

He said, it is actually implemented last year.

I think he should have said it was he used words like specific places, which was great.

You have to be responsible and he used a collocation.

He used a phrasal verb.

We are catching up on, to catch up on.

Really great language there.

I'm very impressed and he said something was the fate of humanity.

Kevin's doing a really good job here.

He's still at a really solid band eight.

Why do people recycle?

I think a lot of people don't know too much about this topic and they do it because, well, the government or the officials tell them to and it's sort of almost like a law that we have to obey.

But I think personally, it's, as I've said, it's about our future.

Unlike something like three, two, three years and it will pass.

But with global warming, it's an issue that is linked very closely to our future entirely.

So if we don't do anything now, it means our future generations won't have a viable earth to live on.

So I think it's important that we start changing the way we live and doing things sustainably so that we can have, we can provide a future for generations to come.

Again, did you hear Kevin's pronunciation of the sound?

He said whizz and he said earths.

With and earth.

Really, really, if you don't have this sound in your language, be careful.

Make sure you spend some time focusing on that particular sound.

Kevin had some really great answers here.

It's a law that they have to follow.

He said a pandemic that will haunt us to haunt somebody.

High level language.

For me, Kevin is sitting between a band eight and a band eight point five.

He's doing exceptionally well.

A strict examiner will probably give him an eight, but today I'm going to give him a band eight point five as we go along.

Hopefully nothing will change.

Do you reuse items?

Like what kind of items?

Like use it twice.

Yeah.

I mean, I try to stay away from disposable stuff because you use them, you throw it away and it's not the quality of is not really designed to be used the second time or multiple times.

So I, for example, chopsticks and things, I tend to want to use actual plates and bowls so that I don't have to use disposable ones so I can clean them up and I don't have to waste all these things.

And also I think a lot of big companies such as Coca-Cola and even beer companies, they've started to do these recycling things where you finish the bottle and you can give it back to the company for a little bit of recycle things instead of throwing them everywhere and not using it after once.

No major problems here.

I think he spoke at length about this particular topic, why people recycle, what his feelings about recycling are.

He prefers not to use disposable items.

There's a good word for you, disposable.

He prefers not to.

He talked about sustainability and it encourages people.

I strongly advise you go and listen to some of his language.

He did really well here.

Great.

I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to talk about it for one to two minutes.

Before you talk, you'll have one minute to think about what you're going to say.

You can make notes if you wish.

So here is a paper and pencil for making notes.

And here is your topic.

You have one minute to make notes.

All right.

So this particular topic could be something that you experienced during your test.

We've got a tradition from your country.

Think about any tradition that you might have.

It could be a historic tradition or it could be a more modern tradition.

Let's see what Kevin's to talk about.

Maybe he's going to talk about a tradition from the country where he lives now, or he might talk about something from his native country.