IELTS 1476: Answer the Toughest Part 3 Questions with Personality
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1476. Answer the toughest Part 3 questions with personality.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com

forward slash my score. Today, we give sample answers to really difficult speaking part three questions about personality. If you're aiming for a seven or higher on speaking, you need today's advice and model answers.

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Hello, Aubrey. What is one word you would use to describe your personality? That's a tough question. Fun. I think fun, right? I try to be like, I think I'm funny and I'm fun to be around. So I'll take fun. What about you, Jessica?

- Delightful. - Oh yes, absolutely. I agree, 100%. - I wanna take a quick moment to make a grammar, or no, a vocabulary side note here. The difference between fun and funny. These two words are confused.

All the time by students. You've heard students make that mistake, right? Yes, absolutely. Right. We hear this a lot. So funny is more like it's going to make you laugh. A joke. Someone intentionally trying to be silly. Stand up comedy. That's funny. Whereas fun is like if someone is spontaneous and up for doing lots of fun things, then you would call them fun or like a place that is fun to go to. Right. That's more about the activity and not about something being funny.

funny like haha but then it's weird because we also use funny to mean like strange that's true that's another meaning of funny um so guys today we are going to continue with something we started in the last episode what did we do on the last episode Aubrey

Yeah, we shared some interesting, an interesting question from Reddit and the answer. Be sure to scroll up. Don't miss it. We let you know whether that answer is correct or not. And then we're talking about the different questions you might get in part three, depending on how well you do on part one and part two. So we shared easier questions about personality traits in the last episode. And in this episode, we're going to share some tougher questions with some sample answers.

Exactly. So remember, guys, if you perform well in speaking part one and part two, then you will face more difficult questions in part three. Why is that, Aubrey?

Yeah, the examiner is trying to find out, are you a seven or potentially an eight or a nine? They have to challenge you to find out what level of vocabulary you're using, grammar structures, all of the things that might push you to those higher scores. And in order they do that, they challenge you with slightly more difficult questions. Exactly. So today, guys, we are diving in to very difficult speaking part three questions related to the topic of personality.

Okay. Well, personality and I guess like children, right? Behaving correctly is part of personality. Anywho, let's get into this. So I'm going to ask Aubrey first. Are you ready? Yes. All right. Is it the job of schools to teach children to be good members of society?

This is interesting, and I think it's really an age-old debate of what should children be learning at home with parents, and what should schools be responsible for. And also, a lot of people feel that that should be learned maybe at church or by a society in general, maybe online.

a community, the examples they see, they should be learning some of these things. So I do think schools have certain responsibilities to help students learn that it's not okay to cheat. And there are consequences if you do, that you have to work hard in order to receive rewards like good grades. So this can't all be left on parents. I think schools can play a huge role in helping kids know how to be, you know, honest, upright citizens.

Nice. I love the last phrase there, honest, upright citizens. Upright isn't an adjective we commonly hear to describe a behavior, right? We might think it's more literal, like standing upright is like standing up straight.

But here being an upright person means that you're honest, right? So it was a way to emphasize that you already said honest, honest, upright members of society. All right. That was an awesome answer. Band nine. So I like how Aubrey gave so much context to

to that question. Before actually addressing directly, like, should schools do this? You gave other options, right? And you said it's an age old debate. So using that adjective phrase age old just means people have been talking about this forever. So instead of saying that, you can say it's an age old debate. That's another great phrase for writing task two. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. All right, Jessica, are you ready for your question? I hope so. Do you think a person can change his or her personality? Oh my gosh, this is so tricky.

As we are talking about this, it is soon after New Year's and I know a lot of people's resolutions are to change parts of their personality. And they are trying to change behavior, but I think the root of that is sometimes thought of to be a personality issue. Like maybe it's my fault that I want to eat too much or maybe I have an addictive personality and that's why I have these negative habits.

So I think changing these negative aspects of a personality, the ones that harm us, I think, yeah, it's completely possible to change. It is extremely difficult. If these are personality traits we've had our whole lives and we define ourselves by these traits,

You need to involve therapists. You need a lot of support from friends, from family, from your partner. However, I mean, sadly enough, I don't think we could change our entire personalities just because we want to. Some stuff is just innate and impossible to change.

Nice. Fantastic answer. So much great vocabulary here. Notice how the more specific Jessica gets, the more detail she's able to share, the more interesting vocabulary comes up. So that is, we've shared this strategy before. Don't stay general. Get specific.

So I love that you got into the specifics of resolutions for people when we're thinking about changing habits and then saying the root of that is and getting into personality. If we're wanting to share these habits, I love this chunk. The root of that is, we've also shared on the podcast, the crux of that is, you're kind of saying like the main part of it. These are a few different band nine phrases to say that.

And then I love this when you're sharing an example, right?

Don't say for example all the time, like multiple times. There are so many ways to do this. And Jessica used a really native natural one where you say, maybe it's, and then you share a few different examples. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. And so you don't, you know, there are lots of ways to introduce examples. This one's a little more casual, but also great for part three, because it's still, you know, as long as you're answering the question, you're sharing personal examples, it all is perfect.

Perfect, right? Totally. And then I wanted to share one more thing that you did that I loved when you said, you know, it's all about how we define ourselves. And you started giving examples of things that might need to be done in order to change personality. You're talking about how difficult that would be. And then you're using all this great vocabulary. Maybe it's therapy or therapists, right? And then a great linking phrase to say, sadly enough.

We'll often hear students say, unfortunately, but I don't hear this chunk very often. Sadly enough, and then it's introducing something that is unfortunate. Yeah, unfortunately, we do need a number of phrases to introduce. Also negative aspects, right? Because you're not only talking about,

positive things on aisles. You need a range of filler phrases and linking words to introduce both positive and negative ideas. Absolutely.

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All right, Aubrey, are you ready? This is a good question. Are you ready? Yes, I am ready. All right. In general, do you think men and women have different personality types?

Wow, that is tricky. I think when people talk about the difference in genders, more often they focus on behaviors. And I haven't thought that much about how much that stems from personality, from the characteristics that

determine those behaviors. But based on some of the stereotypes and generalizations we make about different behaviors, I think this is generally accepted as true. I think I agree that men and women have, you know, in general, different personality types now.

Part of it is that old debate of nature versus nurture. A person who is raised with all sisters might have a more similar personality type as the average woman. But in general, I think yes.

- That's a tough question. - It was really tough. I think that was not a bad nine answer. - I think it was a great answer. One phrase that we could take away from that, guys, that you can apply to so many IELTS questions in Speaking Part Three and Writing Task Two, this idea of nature versus nurture. Wow, you could use this in describing so many IELTS topics.

in problem solution essays, in advantage-disadvantage essays, right? What is nature versus nurture? Yeah. So this is the idea that someone's nature is intrinsic in them. They're born with certain characteristics that aren't affected by how they're raised or what family or culture they're born into, whereas nurture is all about

that right there way they're raised, how their parents treat them, the culture they live in nurtures them into the person they become. Yes, yes. Nature is innate, right? That's another word that we've used today. Innate just means it's something you're born with. So that's a very band nine adjective right there.

A couple things that I want to point out from Aubrey's answer. She said stems from, which is a synonym for comes from, right? Stems from is definitely higher level, but it's easy to use. It just means comes from, right? And then it took...

It took a few sentences for Aubrey to figure out her opinion. It really did. That is going to happen on these very difficult questions. These are probably things you haven't thought about enough to have a strong opinion on. Or maybe it's a question like this that

you're kind of afraid at first to offend the examiner, right? You're thinking, okay, maybe she's a feminist. She doesn't want me to say that they're different or something, right? There could be a lot of stuff going through your mind before you actually arrive at the opinion that you want to express. So the way that Aubrey gave context to this issue to say why people think about this and how

It could be more behavior wise instead of personality. So Aubrey gave a lot of context before actually giving her direct opinion about it, which was a very good way to handle a difficult opinion question. Yeah, this was really tricky for me because as I answered, I sort of realized I know what I used to think about this.

but I haven't thought about it in a while. And I feel like my opinion has evolved. And like you were saying, like, you know, how honest do I want to be in front of this examiner? Do they care? I'm like actually kind of trying to decide what I think as I'm just talking. So I'm using the strategy where you have to sometimes have some filler. So I'm sort of talking about like, what would this actually have to do with behavior? And until I kind of finally decide, yes, it is. Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, guys, remember you, you're not graded on your actual opinions, right? You're only great. Excuse me, you're only graded on your English. So don't be worried about offending the examiner. If you express an opinion that the examiner doesn't agree with, it does not matter. There is you are not going to be dinged or marked down for having an unfavorable opinion.

Yeah, such a good point. And it can trip you up, right? I'm here thinking about like all of you listeners, the audience, and often with something like this where your opinion might change over time, it's a lot trickier to take a solid stance on something when you're not even sure how strongly you believe one way or the other. But the

good news is when you're in front of the examiner, you don't have a huge audience of people listening. Like Jessica said, you just have the examiner and they don't care if they agree with you or not. They're listening for your vocabulary, for your fluency. So feel free to share a controversial opinion. Definitely, definitely. And we will

include one of these topics in our Spotify poll today. So make sure to check that out. And guys, if you have an IELTS question, send us an email support at allearsenglish.com. Awesome. Thanks, Jessica. Thanks, Aubrey. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash my score.

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