Speaking Part 1: Interview: Question 10
Syllabus S.part1
Let's talk about reading and books.
- Do you enjoy reading?
- What kind of books do you usually read?
- Did you read a lot when you were a child?
- Do you prefer reading a physical book or reading on a screen?
- Do you think reading habits have changed in recent years?
- Is there a book that has had a big influence on you?
Show worked solution Hide worked solution
Worked solution
Examiner notes
Fluency & Coherence
Answers are longer and more layered than a foundation-level response, with genuine contrast and development (“That said,”, “At the same time,”) rather than a single flat statement, which is appropriate for the higher difficulty band. Question 6 in particular builds a small connected narrative (book → curiosity → later study choice) rather than stopping at a bare title.
Lexical Resource
Precise, topic-specific vocabulary replaces generic adjectives: “unwind”, “getting through entire series”, “hugely popular”, “oddly enough”. Register stays natural and spoken rather than written/formal, even while covering more abstract content (question 5’s comparison of formats).
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
Present perfect is used accurately for the change-over-time question (“habits have changed… audiobooks have become popular”), alongside a past habitual with “used to” (question 3) and a concessive “that said” structure (question 4). Complex, multi-clause sentences remain grammatically controlled throughout, appropriate to a higher-band target.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most frequent higher-band slip on this topic is answering the “have habits changed” question (5) with only a personal statement rather than a genuine generalisation about people, and naming an influential book (6) without explaining the influence itself.