Speaking Part 3: Discussion: Question 6
Syllabus S.part3
The examiner moves on to ask broader, more abstract questions about media and entertainment in society.
- How has the media that people consume changed over the last twenty years or so?
- Do you think reality television programmes have a positive or a negative effect on society?
- Should parents restrict the amount of entertainment media that young children are exposed to?
- How might streaming services change the entertainment industry in the coming years?
- Why do you think some people become extremely devoted fans of a particular celebrity or show?
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Worked solution
Examiner notes: why these are band 9 responses
Fluency & Coherence
Each answer keeps talking beyond a single sentence without hesitation markers derailing the idea, and every response follows a clear internal logic: an opinion is stated, a reason is given, and the answer is rounded off with an example or a qualifying comment. Discourse markers (“Well,”, “Honestly,”, “That said,”, “On the other hand,”, “Having said that,”) signal these shifts naturally, the way a fluent speaker organises spontaneous speech rather than a scripted paragraph.
Lexical Resource
The responses use topic-appropriate vocabulary (personalised, on-demand, normalising, fragmenting, niche) alongside natural spoken hedges (“I’d say”, “I imagine”, “I suspect”, “on balance”) that a band 9 speaker uses to soften claims without losing fluency. Vocabulary is varied rather than repeating the same adjective or verb across answers.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
A range of structures is handled with control: present perfect for change over time (“has become”, “have changed”), modal speculation about the future (“is going to keep”, “might squeeze out”), and conditional-style reasoning (“if that devotion starts crowding out”). Note that Pronunciation, the fourth IELTS Speaking criterion, cannot be demonstrated in a written transcript and is assessed only in the live test.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is answering a Part 3 abstract question the same way as a Part 1 question, with one short sentence and no development, when examiners are specifically listening for extended, reasoned speech at this stage of the test.