IELTS Energy 1492: Two Ways for Band 9 Part 2 Stories
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1492, Two Ways for Band 9, Part 2 Stories.

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

Today we'll give you two Model Band 9 Speaking Part 2 answers that most people would not tell a story for. However, you should tell a story to get the highest scores, and today you'll find out how.

You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that. You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that.

Hello Aubrey, we are continuing a bit of a series. We've been talking about organizing your part to answer and we gave you a model a couple episodes back, 1488, describing a person. And today we're going to continue these lessons. Yes, because today we're sharing two

Part two questions that you might not think would work for a story like how do I tell a story about this? We're going to show you how and how it is easier to fill two minutes even with these type of questions with a good story. Awesome. So let's get to these model answers. Aubrey's going to do the first one and this is her prompt.

Describe your favorite piece of clothing. Oh, I thought you were going to do that one, Jessica. I have an idea for the second one. Oh, I was going to do that one. I'm doing this one. Let me get my timer. I'm going to have you answer this one because I have not. Listen out there, guys. You might be like me and this would be a really hard question because I don't have a favorite piece of clothing. So let's see how Jessica does. All right, let's do it. All right. You may begin now, please. So my favorite favorite

favorite piece of clothing that I own in the world right now is a fur coat. Now, I'm not someone who would ever really, nobody would think I would have a fur coat, but I wear this thing every day. First of all, because it's freezing here. And second of all, because it's

It's so dang cool. I get compliments on this coat every time I wear it. No joke. And you know what? It's actually real fur. Now, I didn't buy it.

It was actually free and I make sure to tell everybody that compliments me that it was free. This is a crazy story. I actually got this at a clothing exchange. So my neighbor Jamie, she organized a clothing exchange where like she invited 10 people and we all brought a bunch of clothes that we don't wear anymore.

And the idea was like, we're just gonna have all of these clothes to choose from and we can try stuff on and make funny outfits and stuff. But basically you just show up and you get to choose from a lot of cool clothes. And this fur coat was one of them.

and i was surprised to even see it there it didn't fit in this clothing exchange because everyone there is well you know i think half of them were were vegans honestly and i was like who brought the fur coat you guys and is this really sweet woman who loves going to the goodwill bins and she goes there every week and if you don't know what that is the goodwill bins is like this huge warehouse that everything goes to that doesn't get

sold at the Goodwills and you pave her clothes like by the pound and it's so cheap. And she just grabs stuff that she doesn't even want. She just thinks like, oh, like this is interesting. Maybe I can find a use for this. So she's the one that brought the fur coat.

Thank you. Do you still wear that fur coat? I do. I wear it like all the time. That's amazing. I intentionally asked Jessica a follow-up question because you're going to get one right after your part two question. You get this little follow-up question that's sort of a transition to part three. And Jessica's answer was perfect, right? Make it short.

I have so much good feedback here. That was an amazing answer. Starting with, I loved the way you said my favorite, favorite piece of clothing. And if you guys were thinking like, uh-oh, vocab repetition. No, this is a good way to do that, right? You don't want to do that with every word, but it's a fun way to emphasize. Instead of saying my very favorite, we'll do this. We'll say my favorite, favorite piece of clothing. And that's very fun. And then...

And when Jessica said, "I'm not someone who would," and she immediately paraphrased because whatever word you were looking for was not top of mind, was not at the tip of your tongue. This happens to you guys a lot on part two. I want you to go back and listen to how she did it. She sort of just interrupted that sentence and then said, "Nobody would think I'd wear something like this instead of coming

up with that other exact way to say it. This is a skill you have to practice, paraphrasing, saying it another way instead of pausing and thinking for that perfect word. So well done on that. You know, I was going to say I'm not one who would normally wear a fur coat and then I thought, well, that's just false because I'm literally telling you I wear it.

Perfect.

But I have more great vocab. I loved where you said, no joke, right? You're saying something that someone might doubt. And this is a great thing to say. It's very slangy, very informal to be like, no joke. Meaning like, you need to believe me. This is actually true.

And then to introduce the story, you said, this is a crazy story. And that's a great way to jump into an interesting story. And then again, a ton of great transition phrases. So as a party where and then you share some details about it. The idea was and then you share details. What was the idea for the party?

So great opening up with a story to give you the opportunity to share all these interesting details besides just describing the coat. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So there's a part two strategy we've talked about before, before, during, after, right? So like, what were you doing before you got the coat? What was happening while you got the coat? What happened after you got the coat? And without meaning to, I kind of followed that strategy.

Awesome. Well done. I'm excited for my answer.

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All right, so now it's Aubrey's turn. Aubrey is going to describe a present you gave someone. Can you start speaking now, please? There was a really funny thing that happened several years ago when Apple Watches first came out. My husband had told me he would like one for Christmas, so I went to the Apple store, and the first employee I saw, I said,

Kind sir, can you please get me an Apple Watch? It doesn't matter what. He's probably going to come and trade it in for what he actually wants. So can I just buy one? I wasn't worried about it. He pulled one from the back and gave me the thing and I signed it without even looking at the cost because I knew I didn't know what features he wanted. I didn't know anything about

And I just wrapped it and put it under the tree. Christmas morning comes and my husband opened this little gift and a look of shock passed over his face.

because I guess this Apple Watch was maybe $2,000. It was some kind of gold-plated platinum titanium. I don't know, but was more expensive than the average Apple Watch. And he asked, how much did you spend on this? And I said, oh, I don't know. I didn't look at it. I figured you could trade it in for the one you want. I don't know anything about them. And he started laughing and

And said, you know, I was expecting one that was much cheaper, a couple hundred dollars, maybe. And so then we went and looked at the credit card receipt and were dumbfounded by how expensive it was. And he was so shocked that I hadn't even looked when I signed.

But you know, that's me. What do I care? And what was really funny was about 30 minutes prior, I had opened a gift from him, an Apple Watch, and was grateful. Like, oh, good. You know, I hope you don't mind if I trade it in for the one I would actually like. And he knew I would be similar. Thank you. Thank you.

Did you tell other people about this present? Oh, yes. I tell this story all the time. Okay.

Okay, awesome. Oh my God, that was hilarious. Was that true? Yes, that did happen. The only thing I left out is like, because this was several years ago, I opened one first and was assuming it was really expensive because I had before Christmas morning, I had seen the bill or something. I had found out how much it was and was like, wow, Apple watches are expensive. So then when I opened mine, I was like, oh no, I don't want to gift this expensive, but it was like $150. I thought it was like two grand.

Oh, that's awesome. Okay, guys. So let's dive into some awesome stuff you can learn from Aubrey's answer. The way that she introduced it was really great. So telling a story from the past, right? A really funny thing. A really funny thing happened several years ago. That is such a great introduction phrase to something that's actually interesting and funny, right?

And then you quoted yourself talking to the guy at the Apple store and he was like, and I said, kind sir, can you please give me an Apple watch? So saying kind sir, instead of like, sir, or excuse me. That's really native and natural. Very funny. Very uncommon. Like putting myself in a British novel. Yeah, exactly.

And then time phrase transition, Christmas morning comes. So instead of saying, and then on Christmas morning, you just give the time and say comes, right? Christmas morning comes and, and then you say what happened. And instead of saying he was shocked, you said a look of shock passed over his face.

So it's just so descriptive. It's so excellent. And passive and vocab note here, you said, "We were dumbfounded by the cost." So dumbfounded is like very shocked, right? But there's the passive there. We were dumbfounded by the cost. And then instead of saying like,

I don't notice or I don't care about these things. You're like, what do I care? And it struck me that is an interesting grammar construction that students never use, right? So instead of saying like, I don't care, I don't know about this, you know, just say, what do I care?

Oh, yes. That's really fun. I say that a lot. I think it's it's not only is it more fun and, you know, this kind of thing on the IELTS exam, I feel is so much less common that it really stands out for the examiner. Right. Vocab, fluency, like I notice when a student uses a phrase like that. Oh, 100 percent. 100 percent.

All right, guys. So we hope that you practice your answers to today's questions. And we want to share a recent poll that we did because this is the first time we've seen a poll get like exactly 50-50.

Yeah, this was a fun one. The poll question was, do you always read the fine print? This was, we talked about business a little bit and how you can talk about business on IELTS in 1455, formal contract phrases for IELTS business topics. We talked about the fine print, the tiny lettering on contracts that we often don't read, especially when there's 30 pages of it. Yeah.

And half of you said yes and half of you said no. I'm just shocked that half of you said yes. Yeah, right. I mean, good on you. They wanted a depends probably because maybe they read it for some things if they're a couple pages. But if you go to purchase a home and it's like 400 pages of fine print, I'll be amazed if those yeses still read every word.

I know. All right, guys. So remember that we post a Spotify poll for every single episode and we love to read your answers. So if you are listening to us in Spotify, hit follow first and then go ahead and answer that poll for today. Yeah, we're going to ask, do you have a favorite piece of clothing? I'm curious. It'll just be yes or no, but definitely think about this for IELTS. I, for one, would have a difficult time. I would definitely need that minute to think. I don't have a fur coat to talk about.

I don't think a lot of people talk about one piece of clothing for two minutes. So definitely something to practice, guys. And another note here, I was thinking about this when I first read that question. I think I would have a tendency to talk about maybe sweaters in general, hoodies or like yoga pants. But if it is saying describe your favorite piece of clothing, it's talking about one article of clothing that you could describe and talk about. It's kind of interesting. It might trip some of you up.

That's a very good note, guys. Every part two is going to ask you one thing, one person, one event, right? So it's all going to be singular. Good. Awesome. Good tip. Thanks for joining us today and we'll be back again next week. Awesome. See you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.