Speaking Part 1: Interview: Question 7
Syllabus S.part1
Let's talk about travel and holidays.
- Do you enjoy travelling to new places?
- What's the most interesting place you have ever visited?
- Do you prefer travelling alone or with other people?
- How do you usually plan a holiday?
- Would you like to visit a country you have never been to before?
- Do you think people travel more now than in the past?
Show worked solution Hide worked solution
Worked solution
Examiner notes
Fluency & Coherence
Answers are direct and well-paced, with hedging language (“I’d probably say”, “I’d lean towards”) that sounds like genuine, spontaneous thinking rather than a memorised script. Question 6, the more analytical one, is handled with a clear stance followed by two distinct supporting reasons, showing the candidate can extend beyond a purely personal answer when the question calls for it.
Lexical Resource
Topic-appropriate collocations appear naturally: “figuring it out as you go”, “untouched by tourism”, “must-see spots”, “high on my list”. Precise, varied adjectives (“untouched”, “spontaneous”) replace generic intensifiers like “very nice”, which is exactly the kind of range Part 1 is listening for.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
A wide range of structures is used accurately: a comparative clause (“a lot more relaxed… than travelling alone”), a reason clause with “mainly because”, and a conditional-flavoured hedge (“I’d say yes”). Contractions and natural spoken fillers (“to be honest”, “if I’m honest”) keep the register conversational throughout.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most frequent band 6 error on this topic is confusing “travel” and “trip”, and giving a bare yes/no to the comparative question (6) without addressing the past-versus-present contrast the question actually asks about.