Welcome to the IELTS Language Lab. In this episode we’re going to listen to Andrei, who tried one of the free Part 2 practice tests we’ve published.
Task
Describe a time when you bought something for someone. You should say:
- when this was
- what it was you bought
- who you bought it for
and say how you felt about buying it for them.
Comprehension
The first time you listen decide if Andrei answers the question appropriately.
It was about 5 years ago … during my holiday to United States … with my friend we were staying at New York City for two days .. and for such a short period we decided that we will stick to the most popular activity among tourists in New York City is shopping … so we were shopping around for .. for .. gifts that we can buy to our relatives and … friends … to make our stay even more memorable … but one very exceptional gift I was … looking for were those watches that were very popular at that moment … among girls … they only slightly resembled .. women’s watches because they were very massive and masculine .. but they are they were very popular and they even had its name like … boyfriends watch or something and … it happened that I had a friend in New York who was working at the company that produced those watches and I asked so I asked her … if she could help me to … buy them at the bargain and she helped me a lot I saved a great deal … I bought them with a discount and … I had no doubt about the necessity of buying them because I felt like … it will be the gift that my girlfriend would … wear with proud and … she would remember that I think about her or that I care about her that’s something that she would wear with proud on an everyday basis.
Assessment
Andrei responded appropriately to the question and spoke for a full two minutes. Now listen a second time. How well do you think Andrei did using the IELTS assessment criteria?
- Grammatical range and accuracy
- Lexical resource (vocabulary)
- Fluency and coherence
- Pronunciation
Feedback
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
In general, Andrei’s use of grammar is good and his statements were well formed. Can you spot the mistakes in the following extracts?
‘during my holiday to United States’
‘with my friend we were staying at New York City’
‘the most popular activity among tourists in New York City is shopping’
‘gifts that we can buy to our relatives and friends’
‘they even had its name like’
‘that’s something that she would wear with proud on an everyday basis’
OK so here are the corrections:
In the first extract Andrei should have said ‘the United States’.
It should be ‘we were staying in New York City’.
In the third extract it should be ‘the most popular activity among tourists in New York
City which is shopping’.
We buy buy gifts ‘for our relatives’ not ‘to our relatives’.
‘they even had its name’ would be better as ‘they even had their own names’
Instead of ‘that’s something that she would wear’, it should be ‘it’s something that she
would wear’.
Lexical Resource
Andrei used some good collocations and expressions such as:
‘stick to the most popular activity’
‘exceptional gift’
‘slightly resembled’
‘on an everyday basis’
There were some errors however. For example:
‘popular at that moment’ would be better as ‘popular at that time’ or ‘popular at that moment in time’
We don’t say ‘very massive’. ‘absolutely massive’ is better
‘buy them at the bargain’ should be something like ‘buy them at a bargain price’
On two occasions Andrei used the word ‘proud’ when the word ‘pride’ was needed.
Fluency and Coherence
Andrei’s fluency was good. He manages to utter speech units (clauses) without undue hesitation between words. Pauses tend to appear between rather than inside clauses, which is a sign of growing fluency.
Pronunciation
In general, Andrei’s pronunciation is clear and listeners shouldn’t have too much difficulty understanding him. To achieve an advanced grade in pronunciation, he could practise the following:
‘memorable’ is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable and the second syllable is silent. ‘MEMrable’
‘bargain’ is pronounced with the stress on the first, not the second syllable. So it’s ‘BARgain’
Andrei could also practise his /ð/ sounds as in ‘that’ /ðæt/ and ‘they’ /ðeɪ/