Best Ways to Use the Latest IELTS Speaking Questions

There are several pages on this site that are dedicated to the ‘latest’ IELTS speaking questions. These questions are released for three periods of four months each year. January to April (so they include January, February, March and April), May to August and September to December.

These questions are reported by students after they have taken their speaking tests, and because of this, there are sometimes grammar errors in the questions. As more and more students report, it becomes obvious exactly what the questions and topics are.

When I first heard about this, I thought it was another IELTS scam, but over time I realised that MY students were reporting the same questions. These same students talk about how much more relaxed they were when they were taking their speaking test because they had a good idea of how they were going to answer. Some also loved the fact that they understood EXACTLY what each question was asking. So, the latest IELTS speaking questions at the moment (the start of September 2023) are here. remember, these are the reported questions, but there is a small chance you will get another question that is not on the list.

But what are the best ways to use them? Remember answers for each and every question? Let’s talk about why that is NOT a good reason.

• When you recite an answer you have remembered word for word, it is really obvious to the examiner. When you do this, you sound completely different to when you are speaking spontaneously. Examiners are trained to notice this and is treated as if you are cheating or breaking the rules. This is a waste of time and these IELTS speaking questions can be used much more efficiently.
• When you learn an answer, you want it to be good enough to give you a better score, so you add better vocabulary and grammar to push your score higher. This will make it sound better than other answers you have given, so will alert the examiner to what you are doing.
• If the examiner believes you are speaking from memory, they will give you much harder follow up questions so you can ‘prove’ your level. Usually, this goes badly for the candidate and their score suffers.
• When you give a normal answer, you hesitate to think of words and phrases etc, but when you have memorised your answer (particularly in Part 2) you hesitate to remember what you learned. Usually, this sounds much worse than speaking normally.
• You are probably taking the most important English test of your life, so you will feel a lot of pressure, which makes remembering understandable, but also makes everything much more difficult.

So, what are you supposed to do if you can’t memorise your answers and recite them in the test? Here are some great ways to use these questions before you take your IELTS speaking test.

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1/ Go through the list of questions and decide what you will talk about for each question.

For example:

Describe an occasion when you waited a long time for a nice thing – My last birthday party

Describe a science subject (Biology, Robotics, etc.) that you are interested in – physics from school

Describe a party that you enjoyed – My last birthday party

Describe a park or a garden in your city – The park I take the dog to

Just work your way through the long list, so when you see the question again, you will know what you want to talk about. Decide BEFORE the test. If you change your mind in the test, you will hesitate and waste your preparation time.

2/ How much do you know about each topic?

In other exams, this is called talking about an unfamiliar topic. If you don’t know much, then you should think about how you will try and answer the question using what you do know. This can be done in various ways, two of which. are listed below. Remember you should make a good attempt to answer the question.

a) How can you build a bridge between the question and what you can speak about? Talking about memories or what the question reminds you of, is a good method.

b) What expressions can you use to show that you don’t know much about the topic? These will make it obvious that you are not an expert on the topic and also give you leeway to be wrong. The examiner knows that you have to speak because it’s a speaking test. You just need to do it a way that shows that you are doing your best to give an answer.

3/ Check out the topic vocabulary for the question.

Choose up to five words or phrases that go with the topic. It is tempting to try and choose more but give yourself a chance!!!!! There are many questions, so even learning five words or phrases for ten questions would mean learning 50 words or phrases!!! To be honest, in my opinion, you should only learn one or two good words or phrases for each topic related to these questions.

4/ Are there any phrasal verbs, idioms or collocations that you can use easily with the question?

Again, one for each question is enough. Candidates who get the highest scores speak naturally, pushing too many idioms etc into your answers will NOT sound natural and will probably b confusing for the examiner. Think about them as salt or garlic when you are cooking. A little makes the dish taste better, but too much of either makes it disgusting and inedible.

5/ It is ok to memorise parts of answers

Even if you shouldn’t recite a whole answer, it’s ok to memorise parts of an answer. You may even decide to use some of these parts in more than one answer. Most people will remember a teacher at school, for example, who said the same thing every day. Mine was a Maths teacher who said, ‘It’s too stuffy in here, open the window’. She said that every day and people recognised her when they heard that phrase. That is what people do, they use their favourite phrases and stories again and again.

6/ Use them for mock speaking tests with a qualified teacher.

It is an overused saying, but still true. Practice makes perfect. Using these IELTS speaking questions to practice when you get closer to your test is a great method. As long as you don’t memorise your answers, these questions and topics start to become like old friends. You know your way around your answers and know which parts to concentrate on.

The idea is to be able to identify what you will talk about, use ‘remembered chunks of English’ and piece together an answer using them. This will sound much more natural and convincing. having practiced the questions, you will also feel more confident, and as we all know, if you feel more confident, you will speak more fluently. This, as you know, is a recipe for a good score. Using these latest IELTS speaking questions to enhance your practice.

Good luck!