TRANSCRIPT

Well, we all come across difficult and complicated situations when it is not possible to rely only on yourself and you need to ask somebody else for support or for help. I would like to tell you about one person I know very well and who is always ready to help me if I need it. This is my friend Dmitry.

He is a very reliable and honest man. He gives me a hand if I need it, and he doesn’t ask me for anything else in return. .. What is more, he is able to keep secrets and he doesn’t tell lies or bad things about me, behind me …

To prove it, I would just give you an example. I remember having some problems with math when I was at university, and if I hadn’t studied together with him, I would have failed an exam for sure … but luckily for me
he shared his knowledges and skills about math … he taught me how to cope, and how to deal with different kind of equations, so, finally, I passed an exam and went to another term .. well, it was very kind of him. What else? We are still friends and affect each other in a very positive and good way.

Fluency and Coherence

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Lexical Resource

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Grammatical Range and Accuracy

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Pronunciation

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TRANSCRIPT 2

Er … we all come across difficult and complicated situations … er … when it is not possible to rely only on yourself and we need to ask somebody else for help or for support, so I have decided to speak about my friend, Dmitry. Dmitry is the best friend of mine and it seems to me we have known each other for ages, since we met at university.

And … er … I think you may wonder why he is the closest friend of mine and what qualities he has, so let me say a few words about his character. My friend is very, very reliable, trustworthy, tolerant and honest person. What is more, he is always ready to back me up and he never, never asks for anything in return, and of course, I appreciate it a lot. Er … then …er … Dmitry is a man who will never betray me or tell bad and really terrible things or lies about me behind my back, and … er … of course, I like all those qualities a lot.

Er … to illustrate the point, let me give an example, I remember having some problems with math at university, I mean calculus and different kind of differential equations, and it was really difficult for me to catch up with the rest of students. Er … but luckily for me, my friend taught me how to deal, how to cope with the differential equations, and finally I managed to pass my exam. So, frankly saying, if I hadn’t studied together with my friend, I would have failed my exam.

And … er … finally, as for influence on my life, er … you know, if I hadn’t passed my final exam, I wouldn’t have graduated from my university, and now, I wouldn’t have my job, and I wouldn’t be a professional in my field, and I wouldn’t be a successful man and things like that, so his help has affected my life significantly.

Fluency and Coherence

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Lexical Resource

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Grammatical Range and Accuracy

You use some complex structures with some flexibility (mixed and past conditionals, subordinate clauses) and you frequently produce error-free sentences, though some grammatical mistakes persist. For instance, you tend to omit articles in sentences like “he is A … person”, you do not always use plural nouns where necessary (different kindS of), and you make some uncountable concepts plural (knowledge). The last three types of mistakes are all about basic structures. So, I recommend you do some remedial grammar practice tasks on the use and omission of articles and revise the theory to do with uncountable nouns. I suggest you practise this doing error-correction exercises, not gap-fill tasks. By and large, your answer with mistakes on noun and article usage corresponds to band 5, and to band 7 or higher without them.

Pronunciation

You show some effective use of pronunciation features, and can generally be understood throughout, though mispronunciation of individual words or sounds reduces clarity at times. Pay attention to ways of saying perfect modals in structures like (modal + have + V3) – the H in HAVE must not be pronounced, it is “dropped”. Devoicing of final consonants in word endings (-s and -ed) is rather an issue you have to address. Watch out the way you pronounce “equation” – this word must rhyme with “nation” and not with “occasion”. Your intonation is not very natural, but it has minimal effect on intelligibility. This roughly corresponds to band 7, but your actual exam score may well be as low as band 6 or as high as band 8 depending on how your pronounce topic-specific lexis.