In this lesson, we are going to provide some tips and strategies to help you succeed on the speaking exam.
A really basic point about the speaking test is that you need to keep in mind your only job on this exam is to demonstrate your English ability. Even though it sounds a little bit funny, it is definitely true to say that the examiner is not asking you questions to really learn more about you or to find out what you think.
In real life, that's what we do when we ask questions, but in this exam, the only point is to measure your English skills. What that means is you should just keep in mind, the examiner will not check to see if what you say is 100% true or not. It doesn't matter, the examiner is listening for your English skills.
You may not have an opinion on something. You may not be able to think of a real example for something that you're discussing. In those cases, it's much better to make something up. Make sure it sounds reasonable or sounds true. But it's much better to do that instead of just not saying anything at all or struggling to say something you don't really know how to talk about.
Another point to consider is that in some cases, you may not really understand what the examiner has asked you to do. You may not understand the question. In those cases, you should ask for clarification. Because you cannot really answer a question that you didn't understand. It is perfectly fine to ask for clarification on the IELTS exam.
You can also do this, you can ask for clarification to give yourself more time to think. Maybe you did understand the question, but you just don't know what to say about it. This can be a strategy for giving yourself time. You just don't want to do it too much, you can't ask for clarification certainly on every single question, and you probably don't wanna do it more than a few times during your IELTS speaking exams.
But it is a perfectly fine thing to do. And it is much better than answering the wrong question because you didn't understand what the examiner said. You can ask for clarification of a word you don't know. If there's a word in the sentence, the examiner just said, you can ask about it. You can also ask the examiner to repeat a sentence that you didn't understand.
More tips and tricks are provided in the below videos (will be updated later):
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