IELTS Speaking: a house or apartment

Here is an IELTS Speaking Part 2 topic:
Describe a house or apartment that you have (recently) visited.
You should say:
    - Where it was (or is)
    - When you visited it
    – What it looked like
And explain why you visited it.

Sample answer:
Ok then, well the place that I’d like to talk to you about was actually a show home that I went to visit with my parents, which was in a newly developed (off-plan) apartment not far from the CBD. And I suppose it must have been about two or three weeks ago when we went there.

As for why we went there, well it was simply because we’re thinking of buying a flat (an apartment) as an investment. You know for Chinese, this is a very common thing to do, because investing in property is seen as being relatively risk-free. And some friends of ours who had already been there to have a look recommended that we also check it out .So we thought, why not!

Anyway, with regard to what the flat/apartment looked like, well basically, it was really nicely decorated, as you can probably imagine, what with it being a show home and all. For example, the floor was mostly marble, and there was a huge chandelier hanging above the dining table. So yeah, it all looked pretty impressive. I mean, even the wallpaper was nice, you know, it was, um… I’m not quite sure how to best describe it, but you could just tell it was really good quality from the feel and texture of it.

The only downside was the price, because I think it was something like ten grand a square meter, so the whole flat came to about 720K ($720,000), or somewhere thereabouts, which was a bit above our budget unfortunately!

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OET: some suggestions

Apart from the obvious step of doing the CAE's OET preparation course, candidates should be reading professional literature and possibly some popular science.  I assume the listening would be of a diagnosis, but again practice makes perfect. I think sample practice tests from OET website might not enough for you. And recently, many students ask me to provide some OET materials. However, I only have the official OET practice materials and due to copyright issue, I cannot provide it on public domain – my blog.

With speaking, my advice would be that you should know how to put medical jargon in every day English – that's very important.  With writing, read the task very carefully, noting who exactly you are writing to and why. Apart from that it's a case of 'less is more' – ie don't just write out the material you've been given.

IELTS Writing: examine and consider an IELTS question

When you write an IELTS essay during your exam, you need to read the question(s) very carefully. IELTS Writing questions are always a bit different from one to another. Look at the following question:

In many countries, the proportion of older people is steadily increasing. What are the advantages or disadvantages of this trend?

If you treat this question as “what are the positive and negatives effects that old people bring to us?”, then it would be hard for you to fully respond the task.

Do you notice the difference?

Here are some ideas about negatives effects of increasing number of older people:

 • More senior citizens means that governments have to arrange more money for their pensions.
 • Local governments have to support them, for example, by giving them discounts for electricity bills, water bills and transportation.
 • This assistance comes in the form of welfare payments, which are collected from tax payers.
 • An increasing number of older people will mean more tax must be collected in order to support .
 • Health authorities could face serious challenges if the number of old aged people increases in the future.
 • Hospital admissions might be higher and waiting lists could be longer for some treatments and operations.