What Band 7.5 IELTS Speaking Sounds Like

Let's start off by talking about your job. Do you work or do you study? >> So I work um as a full-time marketer for a coffee chain company. Um very interesting. Um it keeps me alive. It gives me the grit between creativity and as well analysis which is also one of my favorite parts. In fact a little bit of time consuming part. So yeah marketing I sell coffee. I get people in make their day that's it. And what is the favorite aspect of your job? >> I think it's when you apply the creative ideas and then they bring in results. Of course, creativity is fun and nice and nice and good, but then end of the day, it has to show results on paper as well. Um, let's say in in form of transactions, in form of business and so on. So that's the best part. >> And what's the most challenging part of your job? That is the most challenging part that that you have a lot of ideas coming in like a 100 ideas a day which will be easy to imply and then which will be let's say practical to give you the results which you expect. So that is the most hard part. Uh there's a lot of ideas which get get killed in a day hundreds of them. Uh a lot of ideas those who you really want to do but then it's not practical to imply. uh but there are one or two ideas which are financially and creatively both good. >> So did you study marketing at university? >> Coincidentally no I was more I chose the more easier um aspect of studies that is administration admin BBA and admin. Um when I did take the course of marketing, I started getting influenced by it and I really wanted to understand that which part of any job would involve creativity at the same time it could be analysis and it could be numbers and business of course then I I realized that either it's super creativity that is designing which probably I was not good at or it's marketing which could do both. So that's how I got into stream market. >> Now let's talk about your free time. What do you like to do in your free time? >> In my free time, I am a bit of a geek. I'm a lot into podcasts, investment podcast, um life hacks, um improving productivity, which I am not very great at. Uh so that's what I'm more busy in. Um, I do play PlayStation, um, which was gifted to me very recently. Uh, and yeah, if if I do, which I don't give myself free time, by the way. I'm not great at that. I've been criticized for not being able to do that. But yeah, if I have actual free time, then I do play PlayStation. >> And would you consider yourself an active person? >> Actually, no. I wouldn't consider myself an active person. I barely make it to the gym thrice or twice a week. Uh, I think I could do better. >> Do you prefer to be alone during your free time or do you prefer to be with other people? >> I think I still have not got the trick in to be alone and enjoy myself. I'm not able to do that. I think I need someone around me at any time of a day. >> What was your favorite pastime or hobby when you were a child? >> That that's that's a very easy one. It it was all about playing games. I used to actually also do very uh crazy stuff. I don't know, playing with flames and all when I was young, which I don't recommend anybody doing at home. >> I used to do that. But yeah, a lot of time playing video games. A lot of video games. >> Now, let's talk about food. In your hometown or in the region where you grew up, is there any famous food? Yeah. So I'm from Hyderabad originally in India where I've not been a lot but the most famous thing worldwide is the Hyderabadi biryani itself. So um spicy um not healthy very tasty um and fingerlicking. >> Is there just one type of biryani or are there many types? >> Actually there there are a lot in India there. I think if I if I try to guess it right there could be around 100 types of biryanis at least. So there is Laknavi biryani, there is Kerala biryani, there is hyderabadi biryani which is quite famous and then there is Bombay biryani and then there is so many biryanis but uh biryani which actually came from Persia. Uh it's a Persian dish which uh Indians kind of made it their own way with a lot of spice and a lot of oil which they do with a lot of things. So yes that's that's the history of Biryani and um also very interesting is that talking about Persia Hyderabad as a city was basically made as an idea as a blueprint based on a city in Iran which is called which used to be called Fahan. So the blueprint of the city was copied from there and when the king put the first brick of Hyderabad he said I wish this city to be like it's is Fahan. >> And if someone was having a special occasion like a wedding in your hometown >> are there any typical dishes that would be served. >> Yeah. So um >> just jumping in to give you our free gift. We analyzed hundreds of band seven, eight, and nine speaking performances and we analyzed the vocabulary. We've put all the best words, phrases, idioms into one PDF for you. If you would like that, go to the description, click on the link. It's our gift to you. You can download it 100% for free. Very interesting stuff. So, biryani comes with the side dish, which is the eggplant curry, which is very famous, which is also spicy. And of course, a lot of desserts. So weddings in India specifically in my hometown Hyderabad it's a lot about food a lot of food so we we do have healthy stuff as well which is called fruit salad but comes with custard so it becomes custard fruit salad so it becomes unhealthy so like I said like [laughter] it's it's it's all about food it has to be tasty there is no way uh probably in a wedding anybody is looking for kale or looking for any healthy options there. >> Now, let's talk about museums. Did you enjoy going to museums when you were a kid? >> I did. I did. My first my first museum was uh in Bahrain where I was born and brought up uh was the dinosaur museum which is very famous and I was very fascinated because uh I was in probably in my fifth grade and I thought that um the first glance I thought these were very fascinating because I thought like how come there's the dinosaur museum in Bahin and so on and since then I've got got accustomed to going to any country And then visiting museums. >> What's the most interesting museum you've ever been to? >> Most interesting museum. That's that's a good question. Difficult one. I think when I was traveling to Beirut, there was a museum and I think if I'm not wrong, my I'm not very good with remembering facts, but I think it was one of the oldest statues of Mother Mary, which was very very beautiful and it was very fascinating and the Beirut Museum had a lot of history, religious history which I enjoyed looking at. I enjoyed it. Are there any historical cities or uh culturally significant cities that you would like to visit in the future? >> I think after my visit to Jaipur which is part of Rajasthan in India, I think there India has a lot of cities which I would like to visit. not only historical but as well as um like there is um the second highest rainfall um city in India in the world which is called Megalia which I would love to visit uh and Kashmir of course which is I it's my dream and historically yes more cities in Rajasthan I would say apart from Jaipur it it has a lot of palaces beautiful palaces u a lot of um Mughal history, a lot of uh Rajput history. Beautiful. So there was a campaign like I mentioned I'm marketer there was a campaign called pedal for you smoothie. So we had introduced um something a smoothies line in my coffee chain company and when we did that the first year it didn't do so well as expected. So now we are thinking about a crazy idea how do we make this successful? So we came across um an agency who used to do pedal for your smoothie where there were mixers kept on a cycle. You would pedal for 30 to 40 seconds and then your smoothie is ready. So we thought instead of just doing a regular marketing cycle, why don't we do activations? So we chose three locations to do this where the footfall is heavy. some locations where it was about uh the the family crowd, some location is about more interactive crowd. So we called in influencers, we did a lot of digital marketing on that one. People came in uh to my surprise, people were more interested in it than I expected. So there were small cups of smoothies. You would pedal for your own smoothie, you burn a few calories, you get a small smoothie which was sugar-free. So that actually worked very very hard. it uh very well I mean to say uh and we launched this in full one week uh it was a very quick campaign from digital marketing to influencer marketing and offline marketing and so on I think it was a big hit people people loved doing this activity it was in very prominent and heavy footfall areas of people those who were were passibby so these were not only our customers but also people who were um basically people from outside the store. I would say we were invited and they did that. This helps the sales a lot and it also won us the brand campaign of the year twice. So, um I think here's the example which I was connecting to creativity and results both together. >> So, we've talked about a piece of work you did and we're going to continue to talk about uh job satisfaction and life satisfaction. What are some aspects of someone's life that they often feel dissatisfied with? People feel dissatisfied about a lot of things in life. But I think one thing which carries on in my opinion is that when you wanted to do something and you couldn't pursue it as a passion into your professional life, I think that stays with you for a very very long time. I've seen that in my family. I've seen that in many people around me. Uh also uh I think the dissatisfaction doesn't come from not able to just continue it because you want to succeed into it as well. That's where the issue comes in because you want to be a star in the thing you like but you don't if you really like it you don't have to be a star in it. you could still um do it and at the same time not succeed as a starter but you will enjoy doing it anyway. So I think that's one thing one topic which people carry it inside them even if they don't mention it. Everybody has a story that someone wants to be a musician someone wants to be I don't know an actor a painter but uh they couldn't do it because they wanted to get a full-time job which we all need and do. Uh I think that's one topic which I would like to mention here. >> What is the most important thing for having a satisfying life? >> I think it's a mindset. You you're never going to get the answer until probably you are um later in your stage of your life. I think for a child it could be um a video game or a cycle he was looking for or she was looking for. or for an adult it could be uh the favorite college uh which he or she thinks that after this I'm going to be satisfied but that that that doesn't happen then it's your favorite job and then it's your favorite car uh it it never ends but then I think if you have the right mindset which we all easy said than done uh try and try to reach there where we say that I'm satisfied but let's Okay, I I've not reached there so I wouldn't be able to answer that [laughter] accurately. >> Is it more important to have a high salary or work with a great team? >> No doubt work with a great team. But then again uh the the the world is very commercial. Uh it needs it needs money. So keeping in mind that you don't stoop down so well so low in in your career that you work for nothing. But at the same time you do make some compromises to work with a great team. I think if you have a great team earning will come anyways. So work look for a great team. Look for a great boss. Look for a great environment as well. Okay. So let me give you some feedback. >> Sure. >> I'm going to take you through part one, part two and part three. Give you some strategic advice on each of those parts. And then we'll talk about your scores, what you would get if you if you did the real test. >> Awesome. If you would like your speaking assessed one-on-one, we do offer that as part of our VIP package to thank you for watching the video. I'll offer you 10% off. All you have to do is just go to the description, click the link, and you can get 10% off today. So, part one, you did really well. Um, you had no problem talking about any of those topics. I think any topic that was getting to know you questions, uh, would be absolutely fine for you. one, it's not so much a problem as just like a strategy that you chose, which is >> you talked about trying to remember facts. Yeah. >> And you it seems sometimes you you were trying to remember the right fact or list the right fact. >> It's not a facts factual knowledge test. >> So you're making it more difficult for yourself by trying to think of the correct thing. The best thing to do is just pick the easiest thing. So, for example, if I ask you about a museum, um, pick the museum that is easiest for you to talk about. Don't worry too much about um, factual accuracy, as long as it's not like really like saying the sky is purple, you know, instead of the sky is blue. Like, as long as it's as long as it's not ridiculous and it doesn't make any sense, but you will never lose marks for something that is slightly inaccurate, as I say, because it's not a knowledge test or a fact based test. and um you are making it more difficult for yourself by trying to think of the correct thing, right? >> Um it's a speaking test, so just show how how great your speaking is. Part two I thought was excellent. Um you had no problem talking about that. The thing I really liked was that you picked something real from your real life. It is much easier to talk about things that actually happened and that you're passionate about. So that was excellent. Sometimes you will get a part two question where you cannot do that but it is quite rare. For example, you might get a question about uh talk about a book that that you uh recently read. Maybe talk about a marketing book uh cuz that's that's your that's your job or a movie that you saw recently. Um you could talk about a movie that is based on marketing or something like that. I can't think um like the Steve Jobs movie or uh the Nike movie recently. If it's too difficult to do that, don't do it. But I'm just showing you how you can steer the the the answers towards what you're either passionate about or what you your like specialist subject is. I know you're a marketer, but you might have other passions that you find very easy to talk about. Think about what those are before you go into the test. And and you can't use it for everything. [laughter] Like um you know, if they [clears throat] say, "What food do you like?" You're like, "Well, I like food that I marketed." you know, you know, like I like coffee cuz I like, you know, just um if you they asked you what food you liked and you said coffee and talked about how you marketed coffee, that would be not answering the question because coffee isn't food. Um but just be careful with that. But it is a good strategy to use and you used it really really well and it allowed you to use a lot of very um topic specific vocabulary like vocabulary for example like >> the footfall is heavy, why don't we do activations the brand campaign of the year? you only really use that when talking about that topic or similar topics. So if you what the examiner will be thinking is well if he can use vocabulary at that level for that topic he can probably do it for multiple in multiple different topics. Therefore his overall vocabulary is very good. So did a very good job there. Part three was not bad. Was it was actually good, but I think there's certain areas where you can improve in part three. You talked a lot about things on a very surface level. You didn't go very deep on anything by giving real examples. So you talked about not doing things that you want in life and you said you know we talked about why that might be disappointing and then you talked about different people and then you talked generally about becoming an actor or a painter or something like that. Is there a real example from your real life? Some people feel very uncomfortable talking about their real life. >> So don't do that if you were that type of person. Maybe talk about, you know, did you want to be an actor or did you want to be a painter or or did your father or your mother or your sister or your brother or or a friend they really wanted to pursue some or maybe in your society >> or where you're from? Are they is do parents, you know, encourage people to become doctors and lawyers and accountants rather than painters and and actors, you know, and talk talking about it in a more concrete deeper way. >> Yes. because you did it again for the second question in a slightly different way where you talked about mindset but you didn't really define what you meant by mindset. Does that mean a growth mindset? Does that mean being honest with yourself and understanding yourself? What does that actually mean? >> What kind of mindset to be exact? Often [snorts] people don't do that because >> they are afraid of sounding patronizing like >> you don't want to explain what mindset means because then oh you don't think I know what mindset [laughter] mean. Don't assume that the examiner knows what you mean. Always explain what you mean. If we went for lunch after this and we were talking about mindset, I would be able to say to you, "What what do you mean by mindset? What what specific >> aspect of mindset?" But because in the IELTS test, the examiner >> isn't going to ask you those back and forth questions. >> Okay. In part three, you kind of need to assume, okay, he's not or she's not going to ask me these follow-up questions, so I need to lay it all out for them. And you did a very good job of always answering the question, but then not really explaining what you mean by that >> in depth. >> Yeah. So, answer the question, explain what you mean, give concrete examples if you can. You don't have to, it's not a rigid structure that you have to follow for everything. I'm just helping you. You seem to have quite a a a broad range of life experiences. Try to insert them a little bit into your you did a really good job with that in part two, but overall good. That would be the only thing. >> Um part one, >> don't treat it as a as a knowledge test. Part three, go deep. You want you go very wide. Instead of four different things, pick one or two and go deep. >> Specific. All right. Sure. But don't think so specific that you think let me think of an example. Let me think of a personal experience. Like if that is the case, just move on to an idea that you feel more comfortable talking about. There's no right or wrong answer here. Pick what is out of all my life experience, what is the one or two things that are that are easy for me to talk about. >> So let's talk about your scores, what you would get if you did the real test. Okay. Um let's talk about your strengths and then we'll talk about um things that you need to work on. >> I think next time when you come back you are capable of getting a much higher score. So fluency is probably your biggest strength. You have no problem speaking at length about any topic and you do very very fluently. The only time where you you're you have audible pauses or you're the flow of your language is a little bit unnatural is when you're trying to think of the next idea which is totally fine when you're speaking Hindi. Um you do exactly the same thing. I'm sure you know people. >> The Elon Musk for example is a native English speaker and he's all uh he's always that that's not cuz he's his English is bad. It's because he's trying to think of the next idea. um because he's thinking very deeply about very technical things. Sure. >> You are sometimes making it more difficult for yourself by trying to think of the next fact or the next >> just the easiest thing to talk about that's really going to improve your fluency but your fluency is not bad at all. I don't think you would get the very top mark. I think you're at a band eight which is very close to native English speaker level which is very very very high but I think fluency is your your biggest strength. >> Sure. Let's target nine. [laughter] >> I think I think you're capable um of getting a nine. Um the problem with with the IELTS scoring is it's difficult to get like nine in one thing if you're getting lower scores for the other three things. Okay. >> So, it's not like >> I'm really good at fluency. Let's focus on getting a really high score for fluency and then overall I'll get you kind of you need to bring everything up to the right level. So what we'll we're doing is we're focusing on your weaknesses more than your strengths because your strengths are your strengths. We can't really improve those a huge amount. Where we see the biggest improvement with IEL students is >> um it's the analogy I always use is what your car is broken down. >> What part of the car is broken? Is it a flat tire? Is it a spark plug? Is it a problem with the engine? You don't go and buy a new car, you know, leave the car on the side of the road and go and buy a new one. you find the problem and fix the problem and then the car can can go exactly the same with this >> your pronunciation um so you a very common problem with Indian speakers right >> in the comments don't go crazy I'm not criticizing Indians this is just a a a common thing that we we see all the time sometimes they have some something called accent interference accent interference is when somebody's accent is so strong that you cannot understand some of the words that they're saying you do not have that problem. All right? [laughter] >> And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having an Indian accent, by the way. I never suggest that someone should sound more British or sound more American. I think that's ridiculous. I think it's not a it's it's just a waste of time. People can do it if they want. You do you. Like, you know what? If you want to do that, that's fine. But I think for you, that's a complete waste of time. What we encourage people to do is use in their own accent be as clear as possible. To get a seven, eight or nine for pronunciation, you need to get a 100% of the the examiner needs to understand 100% of the words >> clear. >> I understood 100% of the words. So I think you are fine. The vast majority of time you are extremely clear. The really impressive thing about your pronunciation is the way that you use something called higher level pronunciation features. This is something called intonation. Um, so you when you're speaking you're very enthusiastic especially when you're talking about topics and you're very friendly and you show that through intonation. You show your passion and you show meaning and you show friendliness. So for example, if you came in and I said please sit down. >> Yeah. >> So please up sit down. >> Right? >> Or if I said please sit down. So same words different meaning. Intonation is so important for meaning and you do a very good job of that. You also um use quite good word stress and sentence stress. So if I said something like this is my coffee, that's your coffee. The words that we stress change the meaning of a sentence, you do that quite well as well. So so that's really good. So I think that you would get a quite high mark for pronunciation. I think you would get a band eight again. But if you spoke very quickly and the examiner couldn't understand what you were saying, at some point you would probably get about six. So there's a huge >> drop off. I don't think this is the case and I don't think that you should go in to the test and try to slow down your speech >> because some people become that that can cause other problems. It can cause you're self-conscious. But I think um maybe during your practice record yourself and sometimes when people listen back to themselves they're like oh I speak that quickly [laughter] >> and and it can help you modulate. Some people watching from India might be thinking oh I didn't realize and and I might be speaking a little bit too quickly >> for those people I would say a little bit of practice speaking slower and clearer might go a long way. >> Sure. Because often people don't have a problem with their pronunciation. But when you combine it with speaking quickly, it just it it it's difficult for the listener to understand. Because if you think about why do we speak? We don't speak for the sake of speaking. We speak so someone can understand it. >> So if you're speaking in a way that somebody can understand you, you've just wasted their time and your time. But everyone has has little issues with that. So vocabulary is very accurate. it is appropriate >> which is the choice of words right >> so appropriate is are you choosing the right words so for example um if you're talking about footfall um some people might say well um we chose that spot because a lot of people are walking past >> sure >> um whereas a more precise way would say there's heavy footfall right so a very precise very appropriate way of saying that you were using those types of topic specific words very u um correctly. I never like to tell people to use a wider range of vocabulary than they than they're capable of using. >> So if I tell you you have to use higher level vocabulary if you try and use that if your test was tomorrow you would probably get a much lower score than you did because you would make so many mistakes. So if somebody can normally uh lift 50 kilos and we say let's lift 150 >> that would be great to if we could do that but we're going to end up injuring our back and and and going to the hospital. Same thing happens if I say to you your vocabulary isn't isn't high enough. You need to use a wider range of vocabulary. You will go into the test and try and and make lots of mistakes. But for now, for being a marketer, like if you wanted to be a marketer in London or New York, the range of vocabulary that you have is perfect. It's fine because everyone can understand you no matter what topic you're talking about, and you're using it accurately. So, I think you're at a band seven, which is very, very good. It's not at a band eight or a band nine level. I think that you're probably capable of getting a band eight, but you would need to practice. you I think your your vocabulary is a little bit higher than what you you showed there. I think you could improve it quite quickly. >> Um but you would need to do a lot of practice tests where you attempt >> using higher level vocabulary and see how successful you are. I think your biggest weakness is grammar. Um so sometimes a common error that I spotted was um double comparatives, double superlatives. You're saying it was most hard instead of hardest. >> So that is the most hard part. I chose the more easier which I am not very great at. >> You're either great or you're not. So um the way that most people learn grammar is so let's say the grammar book is that thick. There's hundreds of areas of grammar. Most people don't have a problem with the whole book. They have one one area. So this is your area where comparatives, superlatives, you are struggling a little bit with that. The reason why you were doing that is no one has ever pointed it out. No one has ever corrected you. In your day-to-day job, people are probably not even noticing it. So don't become self-conscious and be [laughter] like, "Oh, I need to stop this." I think you >> the majority of your sentences >> have no grammar errors in them at all. And every time you're using comparatives and superlatives, you're not making this mistake. So if every time you used a comparative or superlative, you made this error, that would lead to maybe a band six for grammar because it's called a systematic error. Every time you use that system, a comparative, a superlative, you mess it up. That would lead the examiner to think, okay, this person needs to work on that area. Right? >> It's sometimes you you make that mistake, but not all of the time. What I would encourage you to do is instead of using the word very >> and and a short superlative like very great, >> can you think of a single word that is means the same as very great? >> Great. >> Great. Or >> um fluent. >> It's very specific. Yeah. Or amazing. Amazing. >> All right. Instead of very great, he's amazing. All right. Instead of um it very hard, we could use >> difficult. >> Exactly. So that's improving your vocabulary and it's improving your grammar at the same time. But as I said, at the moment it is not a huge problem and overall you would get 7.5 which is enough to do any master's degree in any English-sp speakaking country you want to do. >> Okay, >> it is enough to get any visa in any country you want to go to. Yeah, >> some countries like Australia do a points based system where if you really wanted to get a higher amount of points to get into a country like that, we could work on your vocabulary and your grammar to get you up to a band eight. But this was the first time you've ever done the test. >> Yes. >> So, you you're you got out of the dream score of the vast majority of people first time. All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you FA.