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IELTS Speaking — Practice Test 26

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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.

Managing your time
Would you say you're an organised person when it comes to time, or more of a last-minute one?
Do you use anything to keep track of what you have to do — an app, a diary, sticky notes?
Why do you think some people always seem to be running late while others never are?
Did you manage your time differently when you were younger, say at school?
Do you think you'll get better at managing your time as you get older, or is it just how you are?
Places where you study or work best
Where do you get your best work or studying done — at home, in a library, somewhere else?
Do you have any little rituals before you sit down to concentrate — a particular drink, music, tidying the desk?
Why do you think some people concentrate better in noisy places like cafés?
Is the place where you work now very different from where you used to study a few years ago?
Do you think people will still need dedicated workplaces in the future, or will anywhere do?

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 period when you were unusually busy.

You should say:

  • when this period was and how long it lasted
  • what you were so busy with
  • how you organised your days during this time
  • how you felt while it was happening

and explain what you learned from that period, and whether you would live it the same way again.

You will have one minute to prepare and should speak for one to two minutes.

Examiner follow-up
Do you think you could keep up that pace for much longer than you did?
Did the people around you notice how busy you were?
Are you generally busier now than you were then?

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.

In your country, is being busy seen as something to complain about or something to be proud of?
Examiner follow-ups
  • Why do you think that attitude exists?
  • Has it always been that way, as far as you know?
Some people answer "How are you?" with "So busy!" almost automatically. Why do you think busyness has become a way of describing ourselves?
Examiner follow-ups
  • What might someone be signalling when they say that?
  • Is it the same across different professions?
Has technology made it easier or harder to draw a line between work and the rest of life?
Examiner follow-ups
  • Can you give an example of what you mean?
  • Who should be responsible for drawing that line — the worker or the employer?
Several countries have experimented with a four-day working week. Do you think that idea would work where you live?
Examiner follow-ups
  • What kinds of jobs might it not suit?
  • Would people actually rest more, or just fill the extra day?
Why do you think burnout has become such a widely discussed problem in recent years?
Examiner follow-ups
  • Is it that work has genuinely got harder, or that we talk about it more?
  • Whose problem is it to solve?
There's a whole industry now around productivity — apps, planners, morning routines. Does that culture actually help people, or does it add pressure?
Examiner follow-ups
  • Why might it appeal to some people more than others?
  • Is there a point where organising your time becomes a way of avoiding the work itself?
Do younger and older generations in your country think differently about long working hours?
Examiner follow-ups
  • What might explain that difference?
  • Do you expect the younger view to last as they get older?
Is rest something people need to learn how to do, or does it come naturally when work stops?
Examiner follow-ups
  • Why might someone struggle to switch off even on holiday?
  • Does society reward people who rest well?
Some thinkers argue that constant busyness is really a way of avoiding difficult questions about what we actually want from life. Is there anything in that?
Examiner follow-ups
  • What might people be avoiding, in your view?
  • Can busyness ever serve that purpose in a healthy way?
If economies keep automating routine work, do you think future societies will value free time more highly than income?
Examiner follow-ups
  • What would have to change for that to happen?
  • Would everyone benefit equally from such a shift?

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

  • Sustains the Part 2 story of a busy period chronologically — start, middle, aftermath — without circling back or stalling.
  • Buys thinking time in English on abstract Part 3 questions ("That's a big one — my honest instinct is…") instead of long silences.
  • Moves smoothly between describing routine (Part 1) and analysing culture (Part 3) without the pace collapsing at the register change.
  • Extends answers unprompted: the four-day-week question gets a position, a reason and a complication before the examiner says anything.
  • Repairs slips lightly ("or rather, it wasn't the hours, it was the deadlines") and carries straight on.

Lexical Resource

  • Precise time-and-work vocabulary: juggle commitments, back-to-back, deadline crunch, switch off, downtime, spread too thin, carve out time.
  • Natural collocations — "a punishing schedule", "work piled up", "running on empty" — used where they genuinely fit, not decorated on.
  • Abstract Part 3 range: workload, boundaries, burnout, status symbol, sustainable pace, discretionary time.
  • Distinguishes near-synonyms accurately: busy vs. productive, rest vs. leisure, tired vs. burnt out.
  • Paraphrases when stuck ("that feeling when your brain refuses to stop planning") rather than abandoning the idea.

Grammatical Range & Accuracy

  • Past habitual forms carry the Part 2 story: "I would start at six", "I used to skip lunch", "by Friday I had usually…".
  • Present perfect for trends in Part 3: "burnout has become", "attitudes have shifted since remote work took off".
  • Conditionals handle the four-day-week and automation questions: "If firms trusted output over hours, they would…".
  • Concessive structures give balance: "Even though the apps promise calm, they often…", "However tempting it is to blame phones…".
  • Complex sentences stay controlled — a relative clause or two per answer, not breathless run-ons that mirror the topic.

Pronunciation

  • Contrastive stress carries the argument: "It's not the WORK that exhausts people, it's the never switching OFF."
  • Multi-syllable topic words land correctly: productivity, prioritise, sustainable, automatically, discretionary.
  • Rhythm varies deliberately — quick when listing a hectic day, slower and lower when evaluating in Part 3.
  • Weak forms and linking keep phrases natural: "a lot_of", "used_to", "sort_of switch off".
  • Doesn't speed up when describing being busy — ironic, but nervous acceleration is exactly what costs marks here.

How to develop a Band 9 answer for this test

Part 1. Answer, then add one concrete detail from your real life. For "Do you use anything to keep track of what you have to do?" a Band 9 answer is specific: "I live inside a paper diary, weirdly — I tried three apps and abandoned them all, because crossing something out with a pen is the only version that feels finished." That's two sentences, a real preference and a reason — not a lecture on time-management tools.
Part 2 — two-minute planning framework.
  1. Set the scene — name the period precisely ("the six weeks before our product launch last March") and say straight away why it was busier than normal.
  2. Show the load, don't just claim it — one sketched day with times ("up at six, calls till nine at night") makes 'unusually busy' believable.
  3. Describe your system — how you actually coped: lists, saying no, dropping the gym, calling in favours. This covers the third bullet with texture.
  4. Give the feelings an arc — the early adrenaline, the mid-point wobble, the strange flatness when it ended. Feelings that change are more convincing than one label.
  5. Pull out the lesson — one honest, specific insight ("I learned I can do far more than I thought, but only by borrowing energy I had to pay back").
  6. Close on the cue card's final question — say directly whether you'd live it the same way again, and give the deciding reason in one line.
Part 3 — Answer → Explain → Example → Alternative View → Evaluation

“There's a whole industry now around productivity — apps, planners, morning routines. Does that culture actually help people, or does it add pressure?”

  1. Answer: commit — e.g. on balance it adds pressure for most people, though it sells itself as relief.
  2. Explain: give the mechanism — productivity culture turns rest into wasted time, so every free hour arrives with a small charge of guilt attached.
  3. Example: one concrete case — someone who downloads a habit tracker, breaks the streak in week two, and ends up feeling worse than before they started measuring.
  4. Alternative view: concede genuinely — for people drowning in chaotic schedules, a simple planner can be genuinely liberating; the tools aren't the villain, the ideology is.
  5. Evaluate: land the judgement — the culture helps when it serves your priorities and harms when it becomes another performance, and most of the industry profits from the second.

Common mistakes for this specific test

⚠️ Describing a normal week as 'unusually busy'

The card says unusually. If your story could describe any ordinary month, the examiner has nothing to grade against the cue. Pick a genuine spike — exams, a wedding, a launch, a move — where the contrast with normal life is visible.

⚠️ Listing tasks instead of telling a story

"I had classes, and assignments, and a part-time job, and…" is an inventory, not a description. One sketched day with times and one moment where it nearly went wrong does more for Fluency and Coherence than ten list items.

⚠️ Skipping how you organised your days

The third bullet is where the interesting language lives — prioritising, cutting corners, asking for help. Candidates jump from 'I was busy' to 'I was tired' and leave the whole middle of the card untouched.

⚠️ Claiming it was all terrible

Busy periods are usually mixed — stressful and oddly energising. A story with only suffering sounds rehearsed. Admitting you partly enjoyed the intensity is more honest and gives you contrast language to work with.

⚠️ Turning Part 3 into personal anecdotes

"When I was busy last year…" answers a societal question with a diary entry. The four-day week, burnout and generational attitudes need 'many companies', 'younger employees tend to' — your own case is one illustration at most.

⚠️ Reciting a memorised work-life balance essay

This theme attracts prepared speeches faster than almost any other. Examiners hear "In this modern era, work-life balance is very important" daily. Answer the actual question — about status, or apps, or automation — not the topic heading.

⚠️ Using 'stress' for everything

Stress, stressed, stressful three times per answer flattens your Lexical Resource. Rotate honestly: under pressure, stretched, overloaded, frazzled, running on empty, at capacity.

⚠️ Confusing 'work hard' and 'hardly work'

It sounds trivial, but this exact slip appears under pressure and reverses your meaning. The same goes for 'I used to working late' — used to + base verb, be used to + -ing. These are the errors this topic invites.

⚠️ Dodging the four-day-week question with 'it depends'

"It depends on the company" and nothing more is a Band 6 evasion. Say what it depends on — sector, trust, how output is measured — and then commit to a view for the case you know best.

⚠️ Racing through the busyness questions

Candidates unconsciously mimic the topic and sprint, and word endings vanish first. Speaking about overwork at a calm, deliberate pace is itself evidence of the control the examiner is listening for.

Try another test Pronunciation practice (Spoken English)