IELTS Energy 1472: How to Describe an Opinion on IELTS Speaking Part 2
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1472. How to Describe an Opinion on IELTS Speaking Part 2.

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.

quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash my score. On the IELTS exam, you may be asked to describe an opinion on speaking part two. It could be difficult to fill the two minutes on this question. Today we'll share strategies and a band nine sample answer.

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Save up to $50 before March 30th and get a free bonus course. Go to allearsenglish.com/b2. That's allearsenglish.com/letter B number 2. Hello, Lindsay. How are you? Hello, Aubrey. I'm feeling great today. How are you? Excellent. I have a question. Okay. What is Michelle's opinion on ice cream?

On ice cream. Oh my gosh. I can tell you, Michelle and I have had debates at length over on the Allers English podcast and the Business English podcast about what's better, ice cream or cookies. And she stands by the fact that cookies are better than ice cream. So she would take cookies over ice cream any day of the week.

Yep, absolutely. If you guys are following All Ears English, you have likely heard this before. I always chuckle when it comes up. I agree with Michelle. I'll take cookies over ice cream too. I know you find that shocking. That's not okay. That's not okay. It does depend on the cookie. It depends on the cookie. Yeah, you can get some real cookie disappointments out there like raisin oatmeal, raisin cookies I find very disappointing. I don't like those either. I agree.

So I asked you that because would it be easy for you to talk about that for two minutes? Michelle's opinion on ice cream. I would need more material for sure. I would need to go into maybe a story about a time that Michelle and I had ice cream together and then she threw her ice cream away and said she wanted cookies or so I would,

Maybe I would make something up, you know? You might have to, right? We, you have definitely heard this from us before to tell a story on speaking part two, especially for a lot of these that it's difficult to talk about for two minutes. We got a great question on YouTube from Enda Philemon. Do you want to read that for us, Lindsay? Yes, here we go. Hello, ma'am. I was asked to talk about an opinion someone gave. I spoke about my uncle who emphasizes education and career orientation. Was I on track?

Okay.

If you haven't thought that through, you're only going to have one minute to think of your answer. This could be difficult to fill the two minutes. 100%. And I, you know, we've talked before about IELTS in terms of just making up stories. Is that okay, Aubrey, just to kind of make up a story if you have to?

Yes, right. Speaking part two is going to ask you to describe something. It can be anything. The examiner doesn't know or care if you're telling the truth, right? So you can tell a story, add facts, add details.

Often, a student will give me an amazing speaking part two and then I'll ask them, "Was that a true story?" And they're like, "No." I'm like, "Amazing. Great job." It doesn't matter. As long as you have something to say, you have to speak for that full two minutes. Well, sometimes it's almost better if it's not true because then you can really be elaborate with your details and making up pieces, extending that time because it is about those two minutes, filling them, right?

Yeah. So to answer this question, you know, as long as you answered that question, as long as you were sharing what the opinion is, if you're talking about education, maybe you said, you know, it is his opinion that education is vital. Or he shared with me that he believes a person should prioritize choosing a career.

most important thing is that you directly answer the question. But once you have, right, if you've made it clear what their opinion is, and what they said about it, you can go off on tangents, you can tell a story, anything at all related is fair game. Yes, I love that. That's inspiring and fun. You know, as long as you're willing to add detail and kind of use your imagination, we can have a good time with this. It doesn't have to be stressful.

Yes, exactly. So we are going to show you, Lindsay is going to provide us with a part two answer, and then I will give feedback for it. And she's going to use this strategy that we have taught here to tell a story. Whether you, if you have to make it up, that works. If you can tell a story that really happened to you, that will be even easier for you to come up with lots of detail.

because you can just share what happened. You're going to want to transition between ideas, share what happened next, maybe share what happened before the story you're sharing. All of this is helping you fill that time.

I love that idea, transitions. And more likely what we're going to end up with is a mix, kind of a mix of reality and fantasy, right? These are things we make up. We take a true, the basis of the story is maybe true, and we add interesting details that are not true, right? Yes, we've shared a strategy that if you, the two minutes isn't used yet,

and you can't really think of much else to say, then share what you would have done differently if things had been different, right? If I could go back, I would. That is a great way to fill more time. This can be any hypothetical thing that could have been different. I love it. So good. All right.

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Alright, Lindsay, are you ready to answer a Speaking Part 2 question for us? Yes, I'm excited for this. Let's do it, Aubrey. What is my question? Alright, describe an opinion someone shared with you. Okay, well that is an easy one. So over the weekend, I was skiing with my brother and my niece, and my brother told me that what he believes is that skiing in the West, meaning Colorado, California, Utah, is the best skiing, but

His opinion is that it is actually better to learn how to ski in the East. And this brought me back right away to my days as a kid. Actually, I started learning to ski when I was three years old and my brother too. Our parents had us in ski school and they would go off and ski and we would be with our teachers learning to ski. And it brought me back to some days where the conditions were harsh.

We would go to the mountain and sometimes there would be literally an ice delay. Can you imagine an ice delay? The fact that skiing would be delayed due to sheets of ice covering the trail. Not only that, but there were rocks in New England, in the east. There were rocks, there was grass you would ski over. There were tight trails with lots of trees. And I did actually hit a tree when I was a teenager in New England. What I'm trying to say is,

It was a great place to learn. And I agree with my brother on his opinion that it's better to learn to ski on the east because it was challenging. Now that I've moved to Colorado and I've become a skier in the west, I realize that I have good skiing skills and nothing intimidates me. No pitch, no skis.

you know, trail full of rocks sticking out or grass or even little tree shrubs sticking out in the middle of the trail. It just doesn't intimidate me. And the best example of this is not in my own skiing, but in my niece's skiing. So this past weekend we were out, they were out skiing with us here in Colorado. And I couldn't believe by the end of the day, it took her a few minutes to warm up a few trails to warm up. But by the end of the day, she was

incredible on the moguls so she was not intimidated by anything there were rocks and sticks and things sticking out of the trail thank you went through it oh i loved this answer lindsay i'm so excited to give you guys some feedback to show why this would be so high scoring but i first want to point out that you ended up having to tell two

separate stories right you went and you were telling the story about you and your brother growing up and then you still had time so you dove into another story about your niece that is ideal right don't worry about the time keep talking until the examiner interrupts you start a new story yes yes because it would be really hard right to be able to time that you it's not like you have a necessarily a watch when you're in the exam right I mean how do we know we can

practice and know what two minutes feels like, but it is okay to be stopped by the examiner. Right, Aubrey?

Yes. In fact, that's ideal because that really shows your fluency that you could have continued talking. Every IELTS speaking answer, no problem to be stopped by the examiner. It just shows them how fluent you are. You had a lot more to say, right? So don't let that throw you off. Plan on speaking until they stop you. You're not going to want to be distracted by trying to watch the time. But like you said, Lindsay, this is definitely something we recommend for you to

practice timing yourself, answering two minutes so that you have a really good feel for how long that is and you're prepared for how much you need to talk. I love it because it's not natural, right? In our daily lives, we're not talking for two minutes. I mean, you wouldn't socially, you wouldn't do that. You shouldn't, right? You would want to ask questions, have a back and forth. So this is very unnatural. You definitely have to practice it. It's going to feel long. Did that feel long to you, Lindsay? It felt

a little long. I noticed I was trying to slow down and be methodical when I was, and I was really thinking a lot about what details can I list? You know, rocks, trees, shrubs. How can I say that in a different way and slowing down to kind of buy myself more space? Which is another great strategy, right? The faster you talk, the more you're going to have to say during this two minutes. Slow down, give yourself time to think of this great vocabulary, to think of the details you should share. Absolutely.

Nice. Okay, I want to highlight some of the amazing vocab you used. First, to introduce the story, Lindsay said, this brought me back. Anytime you're going to share a memory from the past, this is a fantastic way to transition into this.

Nice.

When you go to tell a story, you don't want to limit yourself, right? To just be like, my brother did this and then I did this. Give lots of details. She was sharing about the harsh conditions, a literal ice delay. And then I really loved this. Can you

imagine a delay because of sheets of ice. Even though the examiner can't respond to you, you can still use more conversational transitions like that. I love this. Can you imagine? And then it allows you a chance to vary your intonation as well.

Yeah, for sure. As long as we know that the examiner is not going to respond, then we're good. We're just, we're kind of engaging them a little bit, but not really. It's for us. It's for the quality of our answer. Right, Aubrey? Absolutely. It's just adding interest to your story, right? And we do this, you know, native speakers, when they're telling a story, they'll ask these rhetorical questions like, can you imagine, and they don't really expect an answer. Definitely add those to your IELTS answer for sure. And then

I loved you were sharing, you talked about the story and not for that long. And then Lindsay transitioned and said, now that I've moved to Colorado, and this gave her the chance to contrast what it was like there, the ski slopes here. And like you said, adding all of these details, the pitch, everything.

tree shrubs, rocks, comparing the ski hills of your youth to now. This is such a great idea to not only tell a story, but then transition to the present, back to the past to give yourself a

options to use contrasting linking phrase and contrasting ideas. And I imagine we end up with different grammar too as we're going from present to past, we're really framing things with different grammatical structures too, right? Exactly right. And you want to, you know, it's going to be one correct verb tense for whatever you say, but these interesting grammar chunks that are coming up as you move from the past to the present is giving you that variety of grammar structures you need for a 7 or higher for grammar.

And then I loved the way you introduced the example when you started talking about your niece to say the best example of this is. So anytime if you guys start talking about something and you're going to launch into a story, this is another great way to do that. Transition into the story by saying the best example I can think of or the best example of this is. And then she said this past weekend and that's awesome.

all transitioning into this new story. So really great, the fluency and coherence score, clearly a nine. I mean, nines across the board. - Fantastic. - Because not only are you showing your fluency just in speaking the whole time without hesitations, you're also using those linking phrases that the examiner is looking for for that higher fluency and coherence score. - Oh, I love that. Aubrey, thank you for that feedback. There's so much good stuff that our listeners can pull out and I hope our listeners are taking notes today.

Right, because we can take this right into our next speaking test. Yes. Yes. Right. If not, if you didn't go back, take notes and then challenge yourself to answer this question. Tell your own stories, maybe throw in a few made up details, practice that skill so that you can fill two minutes without a problem on test day.

think that keeping the answer, this is just my opinion, but keeping the answer personal is really good. You know, if it's someone close to you or someone you have a lot of experience with a sibling, for example, a parent, something they their opinion that they had, I just think you're going to have more to share, there's going to be a lot more color, a lot more details. So being wise about what topic we choose, what answer we choose for that example, is smart.

Exactly. Because when you're asked to share an opinion that you've heard or that someone shared with you, you could go broad, like something you heard in a speech or on the news. But if you don't keep it personal, it might end up being sort of general, overarching ideas, and you might have a hard time filling two minutes. But that's a really good point, Lindsay. The more personal you are, then you just share personal examples and you'll have a lot to say.

Exactly. And when we get into speaking part three, we'll have time to talk about societal issues and shifts and changes. So we can save that more for part three and maybe keep as much as we can pull in our personal lives, the better, right? Absolutely. Yeah, we want to make sure you didn't miss a recent episode, 887. So that's

back a little ways, but hit your IELTS goal with today's speaking part two answers for some more sample answers. And then of course, practice answering these yourself out loud, time yourself, make sure you can easily fill that two minutes. All right. This is good stuff, Aubrey. Thank you for the feedback on my speaking part two. I'm going to write this down and learn from this. I love it. And anything else we want to come away with today for this episode? Awesome.

That's the main thing. Speaking part two questions can be very difficult to answer for a full two minutes. You don't know what you're going to be asked. So definitely practice and practice this strategy of telling a story or two, right? Come back, share another story if the two minutes isn't up. All right, good stuff. All right, thanks for being on the podcast and I'll talk to you very soon. Awesome, see you next time. Take care, bye. Bye. 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.