Part 1 — Introduction and interview (4–5 minutes)
Answer each question aloud in 2–4 natural sentences. Press 🔊 to hear the examiner ask it. Don't script — react.
Part 2 — Individual long turn (3–4 minutes)
You have one minute to prepare (make notes!) and should then speak for one to two minutes. Use the timers — the discipline is the practice.
Describe a person who influenced the way you think.
You should say:
- who this person is and how you know them
- what they are like
- what ideas or ways of thinking you picked up from them
- how your thinking was different before you met them
and explain why this person's influence stayed with you, and whether they know the effect they have had on you.
You will have one minute to prepare and should speak for one to two minutes.
Part 3 — Two-way discussion (4–5 minutes)
These get harder as they go. Build answers with: Answer → Explain → Example → Alternative view → Evaluation. Open the follow-ups only after you've answered — that's what the examiner asks when an answer is thin.
Examiner follow-ups
- Does the answer change at different ages?
- Which of those influences do people underestimate?
Examiner follow-ups
- Can the person being influenced always tell the difference?
- Does imitation ever grow into something more real?
Examiner follow-ups
- What are they getting out of it, do you think?
- Has this fascination changed in your lifetime, or has it always been there?
Examiner follow-ups
- Is this genuinely new, or an old phenomenon with better distribution?
- Where do you see the effect most clearly?
Examiner follow-ups
- Does accepting the money and attention imply accepting the responsibility?
- Would your answer differ for politicians?
Examiner follow-ups
- What did shared figures give a society that individual ones can't?
- Is anything lost when every generation picks from a different menu?
Examiner follow-ups
- What would actually raise the standing of teachers where you live?
- Is influence simply valued less when it's slow and invisible?
Examiner follow-ups
- What are the warning signs, in your view?
- How would you protect a young person from crossing that line without cutting them off from inspiration?
Examiner follow-ups
- Does the size of the audience change the weight of the responsibility?
- Where would you place the line legally, as opposed to morally?
Examiner follow-ups
- What does a human role model offer that a designed one can't — or is it the reverse?
- Who is accountable for the values a virtual figure teaches?
What a Band 8–9 performance should demonstrate
Judge your recording against the four official criteria. An accent is not required — clarity is.
Fluency & Coherence
- Builds a portrait that moves — the Part 2 answer travels from who the person is to how your thinking changed, rather than looping on 'she is very kind' descriptions.
- Uses natural reminiscence markers ("looking back", "it only struck me later", "even now") instead of listy transitions.
- Keeps both halves of the explain line alive — why the influence lasted AND whether the person knows — without the examiner pointing back to the card.
- In Part 3, scales up from one person's influence to how whole societies choose their models, without the answers shrinking as the questions grow.
- The responsibility and AI questions at the end get thought-aloud, sustained answers — hesitation phrased in English ("I've never had to put this into words, but…") rather than silence.
Lexical Resource
- Precise influence vocabulary: look up to, shape, instil, rub off on, take after, live up to, put someone on a pedestal, follow in someone's footsteps.
- Natural collocations — "a lasting impression", "lead by example", "practise what you preach", "held to a higher standard" — used where they truly fit.
- Distinguishes the pairs this topic turns on: influence vs control, admire vs idolise, mentor vs hero, fame vs authority, confidence vs arrogance.
- Part 1 music and sport language is concrete and personal: a track on repeat, a knock-about game of badminton, clearing my head — not 'doing physical activities'.
- Part 3 rises to the abstract register cleanly: accountability, parasocial, credibility, moral authority — one precise term beats three vague ones.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Used to / would for the 'before' state is under control: "I used to take everything at face value; she would always ask who benefits."
- Present perfect ties influence to the present: "His way of asking questions has stayed with me for fifteen years."
- Comparative structures carry the before/after contrast the cue card is built on: "far less willing to…", "nowhere near as certain as I was".
- Concession frames the role-model debates: "However unfair the burden may be, …", "Even those who never asked for fame…".
- Cleft sentences spotlight the influence precisely: "What changed me wasn't what he said — it was watching how he treated people who could do nothing for him."
Pronunciation
- Clearly intelligible throughout — an accent costs nothing; mumbled names and swallowed endings on 'influenced' and 'admired' do.
- Contrastive stress lands on the card's central turn: "Before, I argued to WIN — now I argue to UNDERSTAND."
- Intonation warms and personalises the Part 2 portrait, then steadies into a measured tone for the responsibility questions.
- Multi-syllable topic words — influential, celebrity, responsibility, phenomenon — stressed on the right syllable.
- Quoting the person ('she'd say, why does that impress you?') gets a light shift in voice — natural reported speech, not a flat monotone.
How to develop a Band 9 answer for this test
- Introduce the person — name the relationship and one line of context in the first breath (an aunt, a physics teacher, a first boss), so the story has a face immediately.
- Bring them to life — two or three traits shown through behaviour, not adjectives: what they did that revealed the trait beats 'she was very wise'.
- Name the inheritance — state the specific idea or habit of mind you took from them: a question they always asked, a rule they lived by, a way of handling failure.
- Draw the before/after line — the fourth bullet is the engine of this card: say honestly how you thought before, so the change is measurable rather than claimed.
- Explain the staying power — why THIS influence lasted when others faded: timing, repetition, the fact they lived it rather than preached it.
- Close on the final question — do they know? One honest sentence, and if the answer is no, one more on why you've never told them; that small confession is memorable and real.
“Should sportspeople and musicians be expected to behave as role models, or is that an unfair burden attached to their fame?”
- Answer: commit to a position — e.g. the expectation is largely fair, because the influence exists whether or not the celebrity consents to it.
- Explain: give the mechanism — children copy what is visible and celebrated, not what is officially recommended, so visibility itself creates the responsibility.
- Example: one concrete illustration — a cricketer's on-field temper or a musician's charity work rippling through school playgrounds within a week; pick one real pattern and describe its path.
- Alternative view: concede genuinely — these are entertainers who trained to bowl or sing, not to raise other people's children, and the private-life scrutiny that comes with the expectation can be cruel and disproportionate.
- Evaluate: land the judgement — a workable line might be conduct in the arena versus life outside it: accountable for what they do on the stage fame built, cut some slack everywhere else.
Common mistakes for this specific test
This card is not 'describe someone you admire'. Two of its bullets are about your thinking — what you picked up and how you thought before. A warm portrait with no transfer of ideas leaves half the card unanswered.
"She taught me to be positive" is unfalsifiable filler. Band 8–9 answers name a specific habit of mind — a question the person always asked, a rule they applied — and show it operating in your life now.
Without the fourth bullet — how your thinking was different before — there is no visible change, and the whole story becomes an assertion the examiner can't credit. The before/after contrast is also where the best grammar lives.
The card allows it, but 'how you know them' and 'do they know their effect on you' turn awkward when the person is a distant celebrity. Someone from your actual life gives every bullet something to grip.
"Do you prefer watching or playing?" answered with "Watching." hands back the easiest marks in the test. Two to four sentences with a because — before the examiner has to fish for it.
The influencer question is a doorway, not the destination — the questions move on to shared role models, teachers' status and moral responsibility. A prepared 'social media pros and cons' monologue will be visibly off-target by the second question.
Blanket cynicism ('celebrities are all fake') closes down the discussion and flattens your language. The higher-scoring move is distinguishing — which kinds of fame carry influence, over whom, and when it's earned.
They appear in the questions; they shouldn't anchor every sentence you say. Rotate: an example to follow, someone to measure yourself against, shaped, rubbed off on, left its mark, looked up to.
"My uncle influenced me…" is Part 2 material. Part 3 asks about generations and societies — 'most teenagers here', 'in Indian households', 'across a career' — with your own case as seasoning, not the dish.
The final question is about whether realness matters in a role model — a values question. Piling up half-understood tech terms instead of engaging with 'does it matter that they aren't real?' costs both relevance and Lexical Resource.