In this tutorial, you will:
find out what to expect in Part Three of the IELTS speaking test
learn how to give and support opinions
improve your ability to talk about advantages and disadvantages
The speaking test is the same for both IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training and it always involves a face-to-face interview with a certified IELTS examiner – regardless of whether you take the paper-based or computer-based version of the test.
The speaking test lasts between eleven and fourteen minutes, and it is divided into three sections, with each section gradually becoming more challenging. There are four equally important assessment criteria:
Fluency and coherence – the ability to speak at a good speed and link ideas together
Lexical resource – the ability to use a range of vocabulary appropriately
Grammatical range and accuracy – the ability to use a range of grammatical structures accurately
Pronunciation – the ability to be understood easily
Today, we’re going to focus on part three of the test. Part three lasts between four and five minutes and it is the most challenging part of the IELTS speaking test.
The examiner will ask you further, more abstract questions about the topic in part two. He or she will begin part three by saying, for example:
We’ve been talking about a place you’ve visited, and I’d like to discuss with you one or two more general questions related to this. So, let’s consider first of all tourism in your country.
a) How do you think tourism has changed in your country in the last twenty years?
b) Do you believe this is a positive or negative development? Why?
c) In some parts of the world, tourism is having a negative impact on the environment. In your opinion, what can be done about this?
All these questions require you to give your opinion. To help ensure that you answer the questions fully, it’s a good idea to use this strategy:
First, give your opinion. Ideally, try to paraphrase rather than repeating the question, to show off your IELTS vocabulary:
Perhaps, ‘I think the tourism industry in Turkey has expanded dramatically over the last two decades.’
Then explain the reasons for your opinion…
‘Improved transportation systems around the world have made it easier to travel than ever before.’
… and provide examples:
‘In the past, tourists who wanted to visit Turkey had to fly into one of the major cities, such as Istanbul or Ankara, but these days lots of the towns along the Mediterranean coast have their own international airports! For example, you can fly directly from the UK to Bodrum, which is one of the most popular resorts in Turkey.’
Let’s try the same strategy with the second question.
First, give your opinion – paraphrasing if you can.
‘My feeling is that the advantages of this growth outweigh the disadvantages, at the moment at least.’
Then explain your reasons…
‘Turkey is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and although it is not a country which is dependent on tourism, this industry still generates a significant amount of revenue.’
… and provide examples.
‘Turkey just has so much to offer international visitors. Whether you want to visit historical monuments, bustling bazaars or stunning beaches, there is something for everyone. We obviously need to manage the impact which this increase in tourism is having on the environment, but I think we are heading in the right direction.’
These are some phrases you can use to express your opinion:
I think…
I believe…
In my opinion…
My feeling / opinion is that…
Here is another example of a set of questions you might encounter in part three:
We’ve been talking about a place you’ve visited, and I’d like to discuss with you one or two more general questions related to this. So, let’s consider first of all tourism in your country.
a) How do you think tourism has changed in your country in the last twenty years?
b) Do you believe this is a positive or negative development? Why?
c) In some parts of the world, tourism is having a negative impact on the environment. In your opinion, what can be done about this?
Let’s focus on the first question – which is asking for advantages and disadvantages. Again, to help ensure that you answer the question fully, it’s a good idea to have a strategy:
First, state an advantage:
‘In my opinion, one of the main reasons for the popularity of online shopping is that it’s so convenient.’
Then explain why it is an advantage…
‘If you want to shop at a shopping centre, you have the hassle of getting there, and shopping centres have fixed opening hours.’’
… and give an example:
‘However, if you shop online, you can shop from the comfort of your own home, at any time of the day or night.’
Then provide a second advantage:
‘Another positive aspect of online shopping is the fact that you have access to a much wider variety of products.’
An explanation…
Bricks-and-mortar stores only have so much space to store and display their merchandise, whereas online shops don’t suffer from the same constraints.
… and an example:
For instance, if you want to buy clothes, you will be able to find far more styles and colours to choose from if you shop online.
Then follow the same strategy to help you talk about the disadvantages.
Useful phrases include:
One of the main advantages / benefits / upsides (of online shopping) is…
Another positive aspect is…
One key disadvantage / drawback / downside (of online shopping) is…
Another negative point is…
You can find a lot more information about part three of the IELTS speaking test – and discover how to receive personalised feedback on your speaking – in our online course.
You can download or listen to the audio version here:
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YOU MAY READ THE FULL TUTORIALS BELOW:
Female Voice: You are now listening to the IELTS podcast. Learn from tutors and ex-examiners who are masters of IELTS preparation. Your host, Ben Worthington.
INTRODUCTION
Ben: IELTS Speaking. A brief overview of part 3: giving and supporting opinions, talking about advantages and disadvantages. In this tutorial, you will find out what to expect in part 3 of the IELTS speaking test, learn how to give and support opinions, and you will be able to improve your ability to talk about advantages and disadvantages.
Hello, there. My name is Ben Worthington and I’m the owner/operator/chief executive whatever you want to say of ieltspodcast.com and thank you for tuning in today. As you know on this podcast and with these tutorials, we aim to improve your ability with all sections of the IELTS; be it the reading, the speaking, the writing, and the listening and we do this by offering you valuable practical tutorials that you can implement.
HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR IMPROVEMENT #1
Just as a side note, just before we get into this, I want to mention three things that I think will definitely speed up your improvement. 1) is a technique or not a technique actually, it’s just awareness that I kind of borrowed from a book I’m reading called Atomic Habits and one point that really struck me in this book was the clarification of motion and action.
For example, if you are preparing for IELTS by just watching lots of videos on how to write a four-paragraph essay, how to write a five-paragraph essay, how to paraphrase, how to– if you are just watching videos on YouTube or just listening to tutorials or whatever, then you are in motion and you are using preparation as an excuse– as basically procrastination and this will not help you that much.
The reason is because it doesn’t really produce an outcome. There’s no output there. You’re just passively learning and basically, your preparation becomes procrastination. The danger here is that just sitting down and passively learning from these channels, from the media or just reading about– I don’t know essay writing, reading about the IELTS speaking test or whatever and it feels good and it delays possible failure, but you’re not really going to develop yourself as fast as action.
By action I mean actively learning. I mean speaking aloud maybe from a script, maybe just freestyling, so to speak, or actively writing and getting feedback. So, this is a very important element and the more you implement a sort of like action based preparation strategy rather than the passive strategy then you’re going to be getting closer to automaticity.
Automaticity is when you do it without thinking and this is when it starts to become embedded in your brain cells. The channels, the grooves are cut and they become deeper so all of a sudden it becomes an unconscious action.
For example, if you’ve been playing a sport, if you’ve been playing tennis, for example, you can just pick up the racket and you don’t have to think about– if you’re an intermediate player, you don’t have to think about your grip. You don’t have to think about how you hit it. It becomes automatic and this frees up resources so you can be thinking about other things. Maybe you can be watching the other tennis player. Maybe you could be thinking about the tennis player’s last few hits; they were all on the right-hand, for example, so you can maybe switch it to the left hand or whatever.
The point is that you want to be really getting into a frame of mind where your preparation is action orientated rather than passive. Now, don’t get me wrong. Passive learning is good especially for a language, but there comes a point where you have to maybe just close the browser or just put your phone down and start writing pen and paper or on your computer or whatever or start speaking. There comes a time where you’ve done enough of this passive learning and it’s time to start that action.
Now as I said, there is a time and a place for passive learning. This is usually to utilize what I call your downtime. So, if you’re on the bus, if you’re on the train or in the car or walking to work or just going on a walk on the countryside, whatever, then it’s a good time to listen to Benjamin Worthington. It’s a good time to use this downtime just to fill your brain with the vocabulary, ideas, tips, and success stuff like that, but eventually, you do want to be writing and speaking and doing practice tests and getting feedback.
So, if you feel you’re at that point and you might– I don’t know. Maybe you’re feeling guilty now that you’d be doing too much passive learning and that’s fine. If you’re at that point, then come over to ieltspodcast.com and we can give you some feedback on your writing and this will help you improve faster. It also shifts you’re learning from passively learning into actively learning especially if you’re doing the online course where you’re watching the tutorials and then implementing; writing your essays using that knowledge, using those tips, using that framework you’ve just learned and then sending it to us.
Our team of ex-IELTS examiners native speakers we can give you feedback usually in 24 hours and we’ll keep you going. We’ll keep pushing you forward and we’ll keep on improving your work by giving you some valuable feedback. So, that was point number one.
HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR IMPROVEMENT #2
Point number two– don’t worry. We are getting to IELTS speaking part 3. Point number two: download our apps; the IELTS podcast apps. Go to the App Store or the Play Store and I’m saying downloading the apps– I’m saying or suggesting that you download these apps because they now come with the transcript.
If you’ve got the transcript in front of you, then you can be reading at the same time as listening. So, you’re going to be– you’re going to start associating the sounds to the words. You could even pause the recording and then just say it again so you can implement like techniques of mimicking and also in the transcripts, there’s some links to the resources.
So, it kind of brings it a step closer to actively learning. Also, if you get in the podcast– if you get in the actual official app, then you’re getting updated when we’ve got new material and it’s quite a powerful way to improve your learning.
HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR IMPROVEMENT #3
Now, the third point. What I’m going to mention here is it’s kind of like a sketching-out of what we are still working on, which is a solid framework for the speaking. As you may have heard in the previous episodes, we have touched on this framework and here we’re mentioning sort of like details of this framework. It’s what we’ve discovered as we’ve– by trying and testing new strategies and I thought this would be useful for students to learn. So, let’s have a look.
As I said before, in this tutorial, you will find out what is expected of you in part 3 of the test, you’ll learn how to give and support your opinions, which is necessary if you want to be scoring high and also, you are going to improve your ability to speak about the advantages and disadvantages.
Now, just a very, very brief mention here that as you know the IELTS academic and IELTS general training involves a face-to-face interview with the examiner and it’s the same whether it’s paper-based or it’s computer-based. There’s going to be four parts that you will be tested on: pronunciation, grammatical range and accuracy, lexical resource, fluency and coherence. I won’t go into those details because I mentioned them in a previous podcast, but in this tutorial, we are specifically going to focus on part 3.
IELTS SPEAKING PART 3
We’re going to look at part 3 and this is the most challenging part of the speaking test and it lasts between four and five minutes. In this section, the examiner is going to be asking you more abstract questions about the topic that you spoke about in part 2.
The examiner is going to start by saying something like we’ve been talking about a place you’ve visited and I’d like to discuss with you one or two more general questions related to this. So, let’s consider first of all, tourism in your country. How do you think tourism has changed in your country in the last twenty years?
That might be the first question. The other questions will be similar in the difficulty. Do you believe this is a positive or negative development? Why? In some parts of the world, tourism is having a negative impact on the environment. In your opinion, what can be done about this?
Now, all of these questions require you to give your opinion. To ensure that you give a full complete answer, then I would recommend this strategy. First of all, you give your opinion and ideally, you’ll try and paraphrase it rather than repeating the question. So, let’s have a look at that question number one.
How do you think tourism has changed in your country in the last 20 years? I think the tourism industry in Turkey has expanded dramatically over the last two decades. Then we’re going to explain the reasons for our opinion. This is very similar to the framework we suggest for the body paragraphs in IELTS writing task 2.
By the framework we suggest I mean the framework in the online course. In the online course, we’ve got a framework and it’s been so successful. This is why we are developing a framework for the speaking as well. Let’s jump into it.
I think the tourism industry in Turkey has expanded dramatically over the last two decades. Now, I’m going to explain this. Improved transportation systems around the world have made it easier to travel than ever before. Then I’m going to give examples. In the past, tourists who wanted to visit Turkey had to fly into one of the major cities such as Istanbul or Ankara, but these days lots of the small towns along the Mediterranean coast have their own international airports. For example, you can fly directly from the UK to Bodrum, which is one of the most popular resorts in Turkey.
So, it’s a very complete answer and using this strategy, using this framework, we can be sure to give complete answers each time. Now, in the current Speaking Confidence Course we have a technique for paraphrasing, which I’ve mentioned before, but it ensures that we respond with the correct tense and it kind of forces you to use a similar structure, but it’s not as detailed and it’s not as rigid yet. We’re going to– as I said, we’re developing it.
Let me give you an overview. So, we respond by paraphrasing. Then I’ll give you the reasons and then I’m going to provide examples and as I said before, examples are gold. Why are they gold? Because they force you to go into more detail. They force you to use topic-specific vocabulary and it’s a good opportunity to slip in an anecdote.
It doesn’t have to be sort of like for example and then talk about maybe the infrastructure of the country like we just did. You could also say, for example, my auntie nowadays regularly captures direct flights from– I don’t know, Leeds Bradford Airport directly into Bodrum. I can give a personal anecdote.
By the way, you can’t give– it’s not advisable I don’t think to give personal anecdotes in the writing, but with the speaking it’s natural. So, don’t worry about it. You can do it. Let’s use the same strategy now for the second question.
The second question: do you believe this is a positive or negative development? Let’s see. Same strategy; we’re going to give the opinion– our opinion, give reasons, provide examples. My feeling is that the advantages of this growth outweigh the disadvantages, at the moment at least. Now, I’ll explain it. Turkey is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and although it’s not a country which is dependent on tourism, this industry still generates a significant amount of revenue.
Now, I’ll provide my example. Turkey just has so much to offer international visitors whether you want to visit historical monuments, bustling bazaars or stunning beaches. There is something for everyone. We obviously need to manage the impact which this increase in tourism is having on the environment, but I think we are heading in the right direction.
Now, let’s just go back and I want to highlight some of the point-scoring aspects of this answer. Not only have we said that– well, first of all, we’re kind of directly answering the question, which is always good. My feeling is that the advantages of this growth outweigh the disadvantages. So, we’re kind of making it clear where we’re going, which is good.
Also, we did it in a fairly sophisticated way. We didn’t say it’s good. It’s not bad. We said the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, which is a little bit formal, but it’s okay. Then we qualify it; at the moment at least and it’s always good just to qualify your statements. It’s a good– it’s a useful technique.
Now, we’ve used the superlatives, which are always very welcome. Turkey is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Note we didn’t say one of the most popular places. We said tourist destinations. This is topic-specific vocabulary. Then we use a conjunction. We say although it’s not a country which is dependent on tourism… dependent on and this is a very useful phrase.
What it means is that it’s not maybe like a country like Cyprus where most of their money comes from tourism, I think. I’m not so sure about that, but there are countries that rely heavily on tourism. In this respect, Turkey isn’t one of them. It’s got lots of other industries, but then it says– then the speaker says this industry still generates a significant amount of revenue.
I like this. This is higher level. The student didn’t say generates a lot of revenue. No, we said significant. Why did we say significant? Because we are going to score high. We are higher-level students. …still generates a significant amount of revenue. This is a word that I regularly suggest students to use when I’m correcting essays and I see a lot. It can be very easily substituted for significant.
Now, going back to the framework, let me recap the framework. We have given our opinion. We are explaining the reasons and we’re providing examples. Let me say it again. I’m giving my opinion, I’m explaining the reasons, and I’m giving examples; a very complete answer. Let’s go.
Turkey has so much to offer international visitors and I’m not saying tourists because I’ve probably used that word a few times before. So, I’m going to say international visitors. Now, I’m using another conjunction. …whether you want to visit historical monuments… Now, I’m going to give you a list.
Lists is incidentally, another technique that we teach in the writing course. Lists are good opportunities just to stack your vocabulary. So, we say this, this, this, and even this. Never write that, okay? It’s just too vague and don’t even speak like that, but what I– don’t speak exactly like that, but use that structure. So, I’ll give you an example. …whether you want to visit historical monuments, bustling bazaars or stunning beaches or even the balloon festival in the center. There is something for everyone.
So, that’s just a mini example there of the listing structure. We go into this in more detail in the course. Next sentence: we obviously need to manage the impact. So, we are kind of like going back to the question there. We obviously need to manage the impact which this increase in tourism is having on the environment, but I think we’re heading in the right direction. Note we say I think we are heading in the right direction. We don’t say I think it’s good.
The English language is immense with the amount of words and the amount of words available is increasing every single year, which is kind of weird. This just goes back to the idea of languages being living things, not stale structures. They are living. It’s developing.
Anyway, I think we are heading in the right direction. So, as I said before, a very useful structure. Give your opinion, explain your reasons, and then give some examples. These examples can be similar to the writing where we might state something quite factual or it can be something quite anecdotal. For example, my friends they love going to the bazaars and just finding counterfeit products and then battering with the locals. The locals are quite fierce batterers, I’ve heard. Just a little anecdote like that, a little story.
This reminds me actually, when I went to Turkey and I was battering with the men in the bazaar and I was arguing with a guy over some Asics trainers and then he wouldn’t give me the price that I wanted. So, I just left it and walked away and this is after like a good 5– no a good 5-10 minutes of arguing with the guy. I was like I don’t need it, doesn’t matter.
Then I just walked away and about five minutes later, I feel this tugging on my back and as I turn around I’m like what the heck is that? I turn around and there’s a little kid with a box of the Asics trainers and he’s like okay, okay. 35 lira or whatever it was. I can’t remember. It was probably more like 20, 15 euros. I was like okay cool, but I don’t know.
It’s just a funny memory and if I ever were in that situation to talk about Turkey and talk about the bazaar, I could just pull on this little anecdote and there’s lots of vocabulary there. There is battering, we’re talking about these Asics trainers, this kid following me, so on and so forth.
Anyway, some of the phrases that you can use to express your opinion include: I think, I believe, in my opinion or you can say my feeling or my opinion is that… I’ll just say those again; very similar to the writing, actually. I think, I believe, in my opinion, my opinion is that tourism is expanding a lot, my feeling is that tourism is very, very detrimental to the country. Note there I said detrimental. I didn’t say bad. Why did I say detrimental? Because we are going to be scoring high.
Let’s have a look at another set of example questions. The examiner might see something like this. We’ve been talking about shopping and I’d like to discuss with you one or two more general questions related to this. So, let’s consider first of all, online shopping. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping? Next question: do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Third question: how do you think people’s shopping habits will change in the future?
Now, hopefully– not hopefully, but maybe you’ve paused the tutorial and you’re going to start thinking about your own answers. Maybe grab a pen and paper and write down some ideas. Let’s transform this tutorial into active learning rather than passive learning and trust me if you can do this, the more often you do it the faster you will improve. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping? Here’s the structure. First, we can state an advantage then we’re going to explain why it’s an advantage and then we’re going to give an example. Then we could even provide a second advantage, a second explanation, and a second example.
At the very least, try and implement this structure. Once again, first state an advantage, explain why it’s an advantage then give an example. Let’s jump into it. In my opinion, one of the main reasons for the popularity of online shopping is that it’s so convenient. If you want to shop at a shopping center, you have the hassle of getting there and shopping centers have fixed opening hours.
However, if you shop online, you can shop from the comfort of your own home at any time of the day or night. The second advantage: another positive aspect of online shopping is the fact that you have access to a much wider variety of products. Bricks-and-mortar stores only have so much space to store and display their merchandise whereas online shops don’t suffer from the same constraints.
For instance– here comes my example. For instance, if you want to buy clothes, you will be able to find far more styles and colors to choose from if you shop online. Okay. So, in that example, using that framework, you’re going to give quite an extensive answer and you can also use the same strategy to talk about the disadvantages.
USEFUL PHRASES FOR SPEAKING PART 3
Right now, I’ll give you some useful phrases. One of the main advantages… I like this sentence a lot and it’s a phrase that we’re going to be incorporating into both courses; the Speaking Confidence Course and the Sentence Guide IELTS Writing Task 2 Course. It’s a very useful phrase. It’s one of the advanced– sorry. One of the main advantages or one of the most popular cities or one of the most interesting facts.
It’s quite an easy collocation to master. Usually, you can use it with a superlative and it’s quite easy. It goes back to what I’ve been saying before that if we can use it enough times, if we can repeat it enough times, it starts to sound natural, gets into the muscle memory and it frees up resources for you to start planning ahead and to think about more challenging aspects that you might be facing in the exam. Master that phrase.
One of the main advantages or one of the main benefits or one of the main upsides of online shopping is… One of the most interesting places I’ve ever visited is Peru, for example. Another positive aspect is… So, this is good for building up that answer. Another positive aspect of online shopping is the convenience. Another positive aspect of online shopping is the ability to compare prices with a click of a button. Another useful collocation there.
Another positive aspect of traveling abroad is the fact that you get to see new people, hear new languages, and taste new food. Of course, we can use the reverse of these. For example, one key disadvantage, one key drawback, one key downside of online shopping is the fact that you have to wait for your goods. One key disadvantage of online shopping is that you cannot actually touch the materials or that you cannot actually try on the clothes that you want to buy.
Final point: another negative point is that it’s difficult and costly to return the goods. Another negative point of traveling is that it could be argued as unsafe especially if you’re traveling on the road, whatever. So, those are some useful phrases you can employ to talk about the advantages and disadvantages and these are quite handy for part 3 of the exam.
Now, you can find out a lot more techniques, you can discover more strategies if you look at the IELTS Speaking Confidence Course and also you can get some feedback on your speaking as well. Also, we’ve got the essay correction service where we also give you feedback and as I’ve been saying for years now, feedback is the fastest way to improve.
That’s it for me in this tutorial. If you found this tutorial useful, it would be– I would be very grateful and it would be fantastic if you tell your friends about this if they’re struggling. If anybody comes to mind who you know is struggling with the IELTS, then send them this link. Send them some links about IELTS podcast and we can help them, too.
If you personally are struggling or you just failed your exam, then get in contact. Send us an email and we can send you some help. Remember to sign up at ieltspodcast.com. Get on the email list and we’ll send you some resources.
If you’ve got a Kindle, then we’ve recently released some new Kindle books. Have a look at the Amazon store there. We’ve got a topics and ideas book. We’ve got the writing book. We’ve got a vocabulary book coming out soon. There are lots of resources there. Get in contact and we would love to help you. This is what we do.
Okay. Take care. Keep your chin up. Keep struggling– sorry, that’s not the best advice, is it? Keep striving. Keep pushing. Keep working and you will get there. Have a fantastic day and take care. Bye-bye.
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