IELTS Speaking Part 2 Sample Answer - A Place to recommend to Visitors

This is a high-scoring sample answer for the following IELTS Speaking Part 2 question: Describe a place in your country that you would like to recommend to visitors/travelers. Read them to understand what you need to talk about and the kind of answers you need to score well in your IELTS speaking test. For advice, strategies and tips on the best ways to answer (because 2 minutes is very long), this article will help.

IELTS Speaking Part 2 Sample Answer

Describe a place in your country that you would like to recommend to visitors/travelers

You should say:

What it is

Where it is

What people can do there

And explain why you would like to recommend it to visitors/travelers

Read the Text

I grew up in Edinburgh, which is a lovely city and very popular with tourists for various reasons, for its history, for its beauty, and because it’s the capital of Scotland. But the place I’d like to recommend is about 25 miles to the east on, to the east of Edinburgh on the coast. It’s called North Berwick. It’s a lovely little town and it’s very picturesque, very quiet and very relaxing. There’s a small train, a local train goes there directly with stops to the local towns on the road, and there’s also a bus service and it’s very easy to drive. And that drive is also very scenic if you take the coastal route. In North Berwick, there are two main beaches with a harbour kind of jutting out on a headland between them. And behind the town, there’s a kind of mole hill shaped hill, which is actually an old volcanic plug, as is one of the four islands that you can see. In the, it’s not actually the sea, it’s an estuary. So the estuary is like 10 miles wide, so it’s almost the sea and of course it’s seawater. But there’s four islands out there and one of them is very famous for being a gannet colony, which, a gannet is a kind of seabird. And that island is usually white because of the number of these birds on it. The reason I would recommend this place is because so many visitors can just take a day trip there and enjoy the food and the scenery and just relax on a day out of the city.

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Speaking Analysis

This is my opinion of the above answer. The answer was given as in a test, with minimal preparation time.

Good introduction, setting the context using the better-known place as a reference, then giving the location of the smaller town in relation to the city.

Logically saying how to get there (good coherence)

The description of the town talks about the main features which are immediately obvious.

maybe too much detail about the volcanic plug and the seabirds.

Also, good description of why visitors would like it.

Good vocabulary throughout (see below)

Less Common and Idiomatic Vocabulary

on the coast – the land next to or close to the sea
picturesque – visually attractive, especially in a quaint or charming way
directly – you do not need to change trains
on the road – on the journey
scenic – views of impressive natural scenery
coastal route – the route along the coast rather than the road inland
harbour – a place where boats are
kind of – more or less
jutting out – sticking out
headland – a piece of prominent land in water
mole hill shaped – shaped like a mole-hill (a mole is a little animal that lives underground and leaves little mounds of earth as it burrows
volcanic plug – a landform created by a volcano
estuary – the mouth of a river as it meets the sea
like – about
seawater – salt water
gannet – a kind of sea bird
colony – a community of animals or plants of one kind living close together
a day trip – a trip to somewhere when you come back on the same day as you leave