Speaking Part 1: Interview: Question 6
Syllabus S.part1
Let's talk about music.
- Do you like listening to music?
- What kind of music do you usually listen to?
- When do you usually listen to music?
- Did you learn to play a musical instrument when you were a child?
- Do you think music is important in people's lives?
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Worked solution
Examiner notes
Fluency & Coherence
Each answer opens directly (yes/no or a clear stance) and then develops with a reason, example or brief anecdote, matching the two-to-three-sentence length examiners expect for Part 1. Natural spoken discourse markers (“honestly”, “to be honest”, “actually”, “definitely”) and self-correction-style hedges (“I’d say”) signal spontaneous speech rather than a rehearsed script.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary stays everyday and topic-appropriate rather than reaching for showy words: “switch my brain off”, “wakes me up better than coffee”, “gave it up”. Collocations are used naturally (“put something on”, “give up [an instrument]”), which is exactly the register Part 1 rewards.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
A mix of simple, compound and complex structures appears without strain: a time clause (“while I’m getting ready”), a comparative (“wakes me up better than coffee does”), and a past habitual with a dependent reason clause (“I ended up giving it up before I got very good”). Contractions throughout (“it’s”, “I’d”, “wasn’t”) keep the register conversational.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most frequent band 6 error on this topic is a one-word or one-clause answer (just naming a genre, or a bare “yes”/“no”) with no reason or example attached, which gives the examiner too little language to assess range and development.