Part 1 – Introduction
[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]
Your country
Q. Which part of your country do most people live in?
Answer: Population around my country is pretty much evenly spread since it mostly has a flat landscape. However, if one was to ask this question purely for “academic” purpose, I would say that the northern part of my country, along with the adjacent areas to our capital city, is home to most of the people in my country.
Q. Tell me about the main industries there.
Answer: My country is a semi-industrialized nation with major industries like agro-food processing industries, garments industries, fish industries, coal industries and tea producing industries. However, we also have some minor industries, operating on a limited scale, like food packaging industries and motorbike manufacturing industries.
Q. How easy is it to travel around your country?
Answer: I would say that it is really easy to travel around my country whether one wants to travel by roads, railways or air. We also have a considerably large network of ferries through which people can transport themselves through the major rivers which are crisscrossing pretty much all over my country.
Q. Has your country changed much since you were a child?
Answer: I would say that my country has changed significantly for better, since I was a child, especially in terms of quick economic development and building better roads and infrastructures. My country has improved significantly also in terms of incorporating modern technologies in our lives. Finally, my country also has witnessed a notable increase in its population since I was a child.
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Part 2 – Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card
[The topic for your talk will be written on a card which the examiner will hand you. Read it carefully and then make some brief notes.]
Describe a well-known person you like or admire.
You should say:
- who this person is
- what this person has done
- why this person is well-known
and explain why you admire this person.
[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]
Model Answer 1:
Having born and raised in one of the New York suburbs at the house of a dentist father in 1984, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg made his mark at an elementary school by getting interested in computer programming. But, little did anybody know at that time that the little “computer whiz” would revolutionize the concept of social media networking by creating a thing called “facebook.com” in 2004. Whatever followed after that is just ‘history’.
I would like to thank you for this nice topic and in my opinion, Zuckerberg is one of the most prolific and successful programmers and entrepreneurs ever, and I admire him so much. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg became so famous that Time Magazine declared this American technology entrepreneur and philanthropist as ‘person of the year” in 2010.
Having managed to connect more than 1 billion people among themselves one way or another, today, the social media “Mughal” has every right to claim his place in history as the “greatest web entrepreneur” of all time, some would say. Living in a house of more than 5000 square feet, with a price tag of about $7.3 million, in a town called Palo Alto, California, Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest self-made billionaire with a net worth of more than $65.4 billion today.
Admiring a person for offering the world a new horizon of virtual reality by inventing a thing called “Facebook” in order to turn this world into a small place is easy. I could also easily admire his clear way of thinking which motivated him to wear the same T-shirt every day so that he didn’t have to waste his time in deciding small things such as what to wear, or what to eat for breakfast every day. But what I admire the most about this person is his risk-taking abilities (dropping out from Harvard University or turning down very lucrative offers from companies like Microsoft and AOL, just to name a few) and innovative ideas with a clear sense of vision in his mind so that he could finally deliver something really, really amazing to this world.
Finally, one couldn’t help admiring a “philanthropist” like Mark Zuckerberg, who is already a living legend in his mid 30’s, when he decided to donate at least 50% of his business shares- worth about $65 billion now – to promote equality and human development in the world. Now, how many people can do that!
Sample Answer 2:
We all have our favourite personalities whom we respect and love from the bottom of our heart. While some of them are friends and family whom we meet almost every single day, a few of them are great sportsmen or famous silver screen stars whom we have never met. Our admiration for a famous person makes us follow him/her and it’s a dream for many to meet a well-known celebrity. Interestingly, I have a list of my favourite personalities from different arenas whom I follow on social networking platforms and I admire them for their talents, skills, contributions, philanthropic activities, and success stories.
One such famous person whom I greatly admire is Lionel Messi, one of the greatest football players of all time. He is a well-respected sportsman whom I have been following in news and Twitter for more than eight years. I scarcely miss a football match in which he plays. He is a wonder-boy in football and the favourite sportsman of millions of football fans around the world.
Messi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward both for the Spanish club Barcelona and the Argentina national team. Messi has won five Ballon d’Or awards, two FIFA Club World Cup golden ball, a record five European Golden Shoes, nine La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles, six Copas del Rey and he holds many other records and success stories. Both a prolific goalscorer and a creative playmaker, Messi holds many enviable records in the professional football. He has scored over 680 senior career goals for his club and country. Often considered the best player in the world and regarded by many as one of the greatest players of all time, he is world renowned and inspiration to many aspiring football players. Messi is his country’s all-time leading goalscorer and he currently lives in Castelldefels, a village near Barcelona.
Messi has earned my deep admiration primarily for his amiable character, and formidable skills. Besides, he is the best football player alive and I really enjoy his performance and skills. Throughout his career, he has been involved in charitable efforts aimed at vulnerable children, a commitment that stems in part from the medical difficulties he faced in his own childhood. Since 2004, he has contributed his time and finances to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). One of the highest paid sportsmen of all time, he is a legend in football history and deserved our respect and admiration. I admire him more than any other football player I know about.
Part 3 – Two-way Discussion:
Discussion topics:
Famous people in your country:
Q. What kind of people become famous these days?
Answer: Rich and powerful people with lots of money are usually famous these days. But if you want me to be specific, I would say that music artists, movie stars, cultural celebrities, successful sports people, top business executives of very big and profitable companies, successful professionals and politicians usually fall into the categories of famous people. Even some “controversial” persons – controversial not in the good causes most of the times though – with the help of a little bit of their “wits” as well as “media” can become “famous” overnight these days.
Q. Is this different from the kind of achievement that made people famous in the past? In what way?
Answer: No, the same kinds of achievement or “success” used to make people famous in the past as it is today except, of course, in the past, those famous people didn’t receive as much media coverage as these days, probably because the media technology back then wasn’t exactly as advanced as today. Then, of course, the standard bars for becoming “famous” in the past used to be pretty stiff and high also, and as a result, it was not exactly very easy to become famous quickly as in these days. Besides, in the past, successful peoples didn’t necessarily chase “fame” with the same intensity as we see it today, so the number of “famous” people was relatively much lower.
Q. How do you think people will become famous in the future?
Answer: People will become famous in the same way, as we see it today, by hard work, dedication and determination as well as by using their “god-gifted” talents. However, in my humble opinion, the use of social media networks will probably play the most crucial role in deciding how much famous a person will become in future. Besides, I also have a feeling that the same kind of “professions” or the same kind of “success” won’t necessarily make people famous in future as more and more new “professions” would probably be created while the “measure and standards” of success could also be redefined in future.
Being in the public eye:
Q. What are the good things about being famous? Are there any disadvantages?
Answer: When a person is popular, everybody knows about him or her. Fans and followers run after the famous persons just to get a glimpse of them while others are afraid to say a word against them out of the fear of “reprisals”. Companies beg of a prominent person to promote their products even if it means offering the “shares” of the companies. Restaurants offer them the best seats and the most special dishes, sometimes, for free. However, the biggest disadvantage of being famous is that a famous person doesn’t usually have a “private” life, and he/she is most often in fear of losing his or her popularity.
Q. How does the media in your country treat famous people?
Answer: Like any other country, most of the media in my country also treat the famous people like “Gods” with a capital “G”. Sometimes, I even feel like it is the media which make some people more famous than they really should be. Of course, media have a huge interest in publishing and showing the news, views and images of these eminent persons, unless they are some convicted criminals or crooked politicians, so that their sales and viewership increase as much as possible. However, if these “famous persons” ever fall out of favours of these media, they never hesitate to put “dirt” on them, be it fairly or unfairly.
Q. Why do you think ordinary people are interested in the lives of famous people?
Answer: Ordinary people are interested in the lives of influential and popular people because, well, they are just “ordinary” since they only do their day to day “ordinary” things in their lives. So, naturally, they become a bit interested in the lives of the famous persons to learn what kind of things they exactly do that makes them so “famous”. Besides, everybody wants to “identify” themselves with successful and important people in order to prove that they are also considered “important” to others. Then, of course, there are some others who genuinely want to follow in the footsteps of the famous people, by learning about them, in order to become just like then in future.
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