Mat Clark – IELTS Speaking
96
From our earlier observations we can conclude that the best strategy is one which
focuses directly on the features detailed in the marking system and produces as many of
these features as possible in the 2-minute time frame.
One important area that is often neglected is the one minute preparation time. In
my experience many candidates actually cause problems for themselves in the one-
minute preparation time.
Activity
Look at the following topic card and make notes for one minute.
Describe an interesting building in your city.
You should say:
What the building looks like
What it is used for
Why it is interesting
How often you visit this building.
Most people write notes in the following way:
(1) a Chinese building/old
(2) a library/books
(3) its very old
(4) once a month
What often happens is that most people write ―answers" to the guidelines and
prompts and usually those "answers" are in very simple language.
When Part Two begins, people are focused on their notes-their notes contain basic
answers to the prompts so the focus of their Part Two is basic answers in response to the
prompts. Obviously, this is not an effective strategy.
At this early stage one effective strategy is to ignore the prompts altogether and
use a. simple
Three-step Preparation Method
Step 1 : Selection
Selecting the "right thing" to talk about is quite important if you want to produce a
good quality Part Two.
As we have already discussed, the examiner doesn't care what you talk about but
here we are not talking about the examiner-we are talking about you.
If you choose the wrong thing to talk about you might have problems talking for
two minutes on that topic. If you have problems finding content, the quality of your
language will suffer.
The important first step is to select something that is easy to talk about. Once you
have something easy to talk about, you can concentrate on language features and ways to
increase your score.
Easy topics should:
