ATTEMPT 1 Transcript

Sample Task PTS-003_C

Describe a childhood song that you still remember.

Right, let me start.
I’ve chosen to tell you about
a catchy kids’ tune from my childhood
that I happen to remember very well
despite the fact
that I haven’t sung it
for many years.

You should say

* how you learned this song – * when and

AS TO the way and time I learned it,
I’d say that I did it by singing along with
older children on New Year’s Eve.

* where you learned it

WELL, My memory is definitely failing me
WHEN IT COMES TO THE PLACE
where I was
when I sang it the first time
- I have absolutely no recollection of that.

* what the song is about

And now let me say a few words about the lyrics of the song,
THAT IS what it is about.
Before I proceed,
I have to say
that it takes a few minutes
to sing it
because it consists of several verses,
and every second or so line is repeated twice.

In the first half of the song
we learn
that um ..once upon a time
a baby spruce
sprouted
deep in the woods.
In winter
blizzards sang lullabies to it
and snow covered its branches
so that it would not freeze.
Every now and then
a timid rabbit
hopped under the tree and away,
or a big bad wolf
trotted briskly past
in its close vicinity.

The second half of this traditional children’s tune
tells us that

the spruce kept growing
until it turned
into a towering green tree.
Then,
on a cold winter day,
an old man arrived
in a rickety logging sleigh
drawn by a carthorse.
He chopped the spruce down
and brought it to the kids
that are singing the song.

The last verse describes the cheery mood
that the New Year’s tree,
decorated with baubles and tinsel,
has put the children in,
and the happiness it has filled them with.

* and explain how you felt when you used to sing this song.

All in all,
it is the sort of tune
that is supposed to put you
in a jovial, festive mood,
and that was definitely the case
when I was a preschooler.
However, now that I am much older,
I tend to feel sorry for the spruce.
I feel it should have stayed in the woods
and I wish the old man
had not cut it down.
It might well be so
that
over the years
I’ve grown too sentimental, though, ..
and that’s pretty much it, I suppose,
any questions?

RECORDING TIME: 2 mins 03 secs

ATTEMPT 1 Transcript

Time is up, right? OK …Eh, you know, you know, it’s quite a task to choose what to speak about really … I mean I’d been hesitating between flicking through magazines and crocheting .. and finally decided to speak about the latter, which is my oldest hobby. It was my mom who taught to crochet about 25 years ago, so I was a preschooler then, … and I think I’ve progressed in this area quite a lot since that time.

As for how often I do it, I should .. I should be honest and say that “not very often” and there was a time in my life when I .. I gave it up completely. I was in my early 20s then, and, you know, university, boyfriends …well … not really a stay-at-home period … And then my kid turned six and I thought we should do some arts and crafts with her and I took crocheting up again. The last time I spent an hour crocheting was about a week or so ago. I created … I made a tiny little baby bird for my daughter.

Luckily, I don’t really need any bulky or expensive equipment, so .. if I .. I think .. I think if I had to incur substantial expenses, I would never enjoy this sort of eh pastime activity ..eh .. I usually need a couple of crochet hooks, and some wool or cotton, and it’s also a good idea to have a place to sit which should be eh well-lit or else you’ll ruin your eyesight.

The main reason why I find this pastime enjoyable is because it functions as a letout for my creativity which is not realized through … other leisure pursuits of mine. Another ..another thing is that I have a very high boredom threshold, that is I am very patient and I derive pleasure from doing something easy and repetitive for relaxation when I know that in the end I will create something useful for someone I care about. What I’ve been meaning to say is that crocheting toys is an opportunity to spend some quality time with my child who is learning this skill from me with genuine interest and that is incredibly rewarding. And that’s more or less it, I guess … Do you have any questions?

Fluency and Coherence

You speak fluently with only rare repetition or self-correction; any hesitation is content-related rather than to find words or grammar. You speak coherently and develop topics fully and appropriately. This corresponds to band 8.5 or higher. You could improve by trying out some really advanced cohesive features.

Lexical Resource

You use idiomatic language naturally and accurately, and your vocabulary is wide and precise. This should be band 8.5 or higher.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

You produce consistently accurate structures with only very occasional inappropriacies. You should be able to score band 8.5 or higher.

Pronunciation

You use a full range of pronunciation features with precision and subtlety, and you are effortless to understand. This corresponds to band 8.5 or higher.

Short talk templates are aimed at helping you structure your talk in a way that would benefit your coherence score in the first place. You are given most of the cohesive devices and connectives (which does not mean that you may not use some other ones if you wish so), and your task is to supply the details and specific examples. You do not have to fill in all the gaps.

If you are studying with a teacher, you might wish to have your notes emailed to your teacher’s email address, which you must supply yourself in this case. It is your responsibility to provide a valid email address.

If you are are teaching yourself, fill in your own email address in the space provided and once you have filled in the gaps you can, the complete text with all the ideas you provided will be emailed to you for future reference.

Please note that any feedback you might wish to get in practice tasks like the one below can only be provided by a human-being. So you need to consult either a professional IELTS tutor or an English-speaking contact of yours if you want your notes to be proofread and/or commented on.

Short talk templates are aimed at helping you structure your talk in a way that would benefit your coherence score in the first place. You are given most of the cohesive devices and connectives (which does not mean that you may not use some other ones if you wish so), and your task is to supply the details and specific examples. You do not have to fill in all the gaps.

If you are studying with a teacher, you might wish to have your notes emailed to your teacher’s email address, which you must supply yourself in this case. It is your responsibility to provide a valid email address.

If you are are teaching yourself, fill in your own email address in the space provided and once you have filled in the gaps you can, the complete text with all the ideas you provided will be emailed to you for future reference.

Please note that any feedback you might wish to get in practice tasks like the one below can only be provided by a human-being. So you need to consult either a professional IELTS tutor or an English-speaking contact of yours if you want your notes to be proofread and/or commented on.

When you are asked to DESCRIBE an experience, using ADJECTIVES is ever so often the easiest thing to do. You can choose to focus on your personal first impressions, or the size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, taste, flavour, feel, texture, weather or any other aspect of the place, person, object or activity you are asked to elaborate on. You could also give specific examples of who you met and where or what you did and when using different parts of speech.

To help you practise describing a NEGATIVE experience, here is a gap-fill form for you to fill in. As you do the task, please remember that it is necessary to use strong adjectives with such adverbs as absolutely, and weak or neutral ones with very (very hungry, but absolutely straving; it is wrong to say X very appalling X). There are a number of adjectives that can be used with both very and absolutely, so ask your teacher for more explanation if you have not heard about this rule before.

To help you keep a record of what you you have practised, the form has been configured in such a way that after you have filled it in, it will be emailed to the address of your choice. You can choose to have it emailed to yourself or to your teacher for correction and feedback.