What Part 1 is actually asking for
The examiner checks your identity, then works through two or three topic areas, asking three or four questions in each. The questions are short and personal and there is no preparation time. That combination misleads people: because the questions are easy, candidates answer them as though they were being interviewed, and an interview answer is not what earns marks.
The shape that scores is small and repeatable. Answer the question directly, then extend once, unprompted. The direct answer shows you understood; the extension is where the language lives. Two or three sentences, roughly fifteen to thirty seconds, and then stop — a Part 1 answer that runs to a minute eats the topics the examiner still has to get through, and gives them a reason to interrupt you.
- One-word answers cap the band. Yes, I do is a complete reply and a useless sample. The examiner cannot assess a range of vocabulary or grammar you have not produced.
- The extension does not have to be interesting. A reason, a comparison, a frequency, a small example — any of them will do. You are not being marked on whether your weekend sounds enjoyable.
- Nothing has to be true. There are no marks for accuracy about your life, and inventing a detail to keep an answer moving is entirely legitimate. See the Speaking guide for why.
- Do not rehearse whole answers. Examiners hear memorised Part 1 answers constantly and discount the language in them. Rehearse the shape instead, on questions you have never seen.
The topic bank: 60 Part 1 questions in 10 themes
Part 1 draws on ordinary life, and it draws on the same corners of it repeatedly. These ten themes cover almost everything you will be asked. Work through them out loud — not in your head, and not in writing — with a timer, giving each answer the two-or-three-sentence shape above.
Work and study
Almost always the first topic, because it follows the identity check naturally. Have a fluent, unrehearsed version of your own situation ready.
- 1Do you work, or are you a student?
- 2What made you choose that subject or that job?
- 3What is the most interesting part of your week?
- 4Is there anything you would change about how you study or work?
- 5Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
- 6What would you like to be doing in five years?
Where you live
The examiner is not testing your knowledge of your town. Comparison and description are what earn marks here.
- 7Where are you living at the moment?
- 8What do you like most about the area?
- 9Is it a good place for young people to live?
- 10Has your town changed much in the last ten years?
- 11Would you rather live in a city or in the countryside?
- 12What is the first thing you would show a visitor?
People around you
Watch the tense here: questions slide between habitual present and past narrative without warning.
- 13Do you spend more time with family or with friends?
- 14How do people usually make new friends where you live?
- 15Do you know your neighbours well?
- 16Who in your family are you most similar to?
- 17Is it easy to stay in touch with people who move away?
- 18Do you prefer a large group or one or two close friends?
Free time
The easiest theme to over-answer. Keep to the shape.
- 19What do you usually do at the weekend?
- 20Have your hobbies changed since you were a child?
- 21Do you do any kind of sport or exercise?
- 22How much free time do you get in a normal week?
- 23Do you prefer doing something active or something relaxing?
- 24Is there a hobby you would like to take up?
Food and cooking
Rich in concrete vocabulary, which is exactly why it comes up so often.
- 25Do you enjoy cooking?
- 26What did you eat yesterday evening?
- 27Do people in your country eat out often?
- 28Has your diet changed in the last few years?
- 29Is there a dish you would recommend to a visitor?
- 30Do you prefer eating at home or in a restaurant?
Travel and getting around
Frequency expressions and comparatives cluster here — use them deliberately.
- 31How do you usually travel to work or college?
- 32Is public transport good where you live?
- 33Do you enjoy long journeys?
- 34When did you last travel somewhere new?
- 35Would you rather travel alone or with other people?
- 36Has the way you travel changed in recent years?
Weather and seasons
Sounds trivial and is not: it invites present, past and future forms in the space of three questions.
- 37What is the weather like where you live today?
- 38Which season do you enjoy most?
- 39Does the weather affect what you do at the weekend?
- 40Has the climate in your country changed in your lifetime?
- 41Do you prefer hot weather or cold weather?
- 42What do people do where you live when it rains?
Technology and media
The theme where candidates most often drift into a Part 3 answer. Keep it personal.
- 43How much time do you spend on your phone?
- 44What do you usually watch or listen to in the evening?
- 45Do you read the news online or somewhere else?
- 46Has technology changed the way you keep in touch with people?
- 47Do you prefer reading on paper or on a screen?
- 48Is there any app you would find it hard to live without?
Shopping and money
Useful for quantifiers and for the language of preference.
- 49Do you enjoy shopping?
- 50Do you prefer shopping online or in person?
- 51What was the last thing you bought for yourself?
- 52Are markets popular where you live?
- 53Do you plan your spending, or decide as you go?
- 54Is it easy to find what you need near where you live?
Learning and languages
Handle with care: it is very easy to answer this one by talking about the IELTS test itself, which examiners hear all day.
- 55How long have you been learning English?
- 56What part of learning a language do you find hardest?
- 57Do you speak any other languages?
- 58How do you like to learn — in a class, or on your own?
- 59Is there another language you would like to learn?
- 60Do children in your country start learning languages early?
Three answers, taken apart
A model answer on its own teaches almost nothing — you cannot copy someone else's life into your test, and the language will not survive the transfer. What is portable is the reasoning: which decisions in the answer the criteria reward, and which of them you could make tomorrow.
Do you work, or are you a student?
The version most candidates give
I am a student. I study civil engineering at university.
Nothing here is wrong. That is the problem. Two short declaratives, no subordination, no extension, and roughly four seconds of speech from which nothing about your range can be assessed. An answer of this shape, repeated across Part 1, does not give an examiner the evidence to award above the middle bands on Lexical Resource or Grammatical Range and Accuracy, however accurate every word of it is.
The same content, extended once
I’m a student — I’m in my final year of a civil engineering degree, at a university about an hour from where I grew up. I chose it partly because my father is a surveyor, so I’d been wandering around building sites since I was about six, and partly because it seemed like the one subject I’d never get bored of. Most of my week at the moment goes on a design project, which is honestly more drawing than engineering.
What this answer does
- It answers in the first three wordsThe direct reply comes before anything else, so the examiner never has to wait to find out whether you understood. Everything after that is voluntary, and voluntary is where the marks are.
- It extends without being askedOne extension, two clauses long — a reason and a consequence. That is the whole technique. The candidate was not asked why they chose the subject and answered it anyway, which is what separates a conversation from an interrogation.
- The vocabulary is precise, not rareSurveyor, design project, final year. None of it is impressive vocabulary; all of it is exact. Precision is what Lexical Resource actually rewards, and a candidate reaching for an unusual word they half-control loses more than a plain one they control completely.
- The grammar varies on its ownA dash aside, a past perfect continuous (I’d been wandering), two reason clauses, a relative clause at the end. None of it is decorative — each structure is doing a job the sentence needed. That is what Grammatical Range and Accuracy asks for: range that stays correct, not complexity for its own sake.
- It stopsAround twenty-five seconds. Long enough to be a sample, short enough that the examiner is not deciding whether to cut in.
Against the four criteria
- Fluency and CoherenceContinuous, and the ideas follow one another rather than restarting. The self-correction (honestly) is the kind of natural hesitation that costs nothing.
- Lexical ResourceOrdinary words used exactly, with one topic-specific term the candidate genuinely owns.
- Grammatical Range and AccuracyFour structures, all accurate. This is the criterion the short version cannot score on at all.
- PronunciationNot visible in a transcript. Record yourself giving this answer and listen for word stress on engineering and surveyor — misplaced stress on a content word costs more than any accent.
An answer of this shape, sustained across Part 1, is the behaviour typically assessed around band 7: consistent, extended, accurate under some complexity. The short version is not a band 7 answer that got cut off; it is a different kind of answer, and no amount of accuracy makes it one.
What would raise it: What would push it higher is not more words. It is the fourth criterion and the small stuff: idiomatic phrasing that arrives naturally rather than being deployed, and an answer that stays this controlled when the topic is one the candidate has never thought about.
Do you enjoy cooking?
The over-answer
Yes, I love cooking very much. Cooking is very important in my country because we have a very rich cuisine and my grandmother taught me many traditional recipes when I was a child, and I think that nowadays many young people are forgetting these traditions because of fast food, which is a big problem in modern society…
This is a Part 3 answer given in Part 1, and it is one of the commonest mistakes on the paper. It has drifted from do you enjoy cooking into an argument about society, it is heading past forty-five seconds, and the phrases nowadays, modern society and a big problem are exactly the pre-learnt furniture examiners discount. It also sounds rehearsed, which under Lexical Resource is a cost rather than a saving.
Kept personal, kept short
I do, though more on the weekend than during the week — in the evenings I usually cannot face anything that takes more than about ten minutes. What I actually enjoy is the slow end of it: something that sits on the stove for an hour while I do other things. My grandmother taught me one rice dish I still cook badly and keep trying to get right.
What this answer does
- It stays inside the questionThe question is about you. Generalising about your country is what Part 3 is for, and moving there early does not earn Part 3 credit — it just leaves the Part 1 question half answered.
- It qualifies instead of assertingI do, though more on the weekend. A qualification is a cheap and reliable way to produce a complex sentence in the first four words, and it sounds like a person thinking rather than a person reciting.
- The detail is specific and smallOne rice dish, an hour on the stove, ten minutes on a weeknight. Concrete nouns and real numbers make an answer sound spontaneous, and spontaneity is the thing memorisation cannot fake.
- It ends on something slightly self-deprecatingNot required, but it does two useful things: it closes the answer cleanly, and it gives the examiner an obvious follow-up if they want one.
Against the four criteria
- Fluency and CoherenceOne idea developed, not three started. The over-answer above is longer and less coherent, which is the trap.
- Lexical ResourceCannot face, sits on the stove, the slow end of it — natural collocation doing the work that rich cuisine was trying to do.
- Grammatical Range and AccuracyA concessive clause, a cleft (What I actually enjoy is…), a relative clause. Three structures in fifty words, all correct.
- PronunciationThe cleft only works if the stress lands on enjoy. Say it aloud twice with the stress in different places and you will hear the difference the examiner is listening for.
The second answer is shorter than the first and would typically be assessed higher, which is the point worth taking away from this page. Length is not the variable being measured.
What would raise it: The next step up is doing this with a topic you have no feelings about at all. Anyone can sound fluent about food. Try the same shape on Do you plan your spending, or decide as you go?
Has your town changed much in the last ten years?
Tense drift
Yes, it changes a lot. Ten years ago there is much less traffic and the old market is still open, but now they build many new apartments and the market is closed since 2019.
The content is fine and the answer is completely comprehensible — which is why candidates do not notice they are doing it. But the tenses are not: a present simple where a present perfect belongs, a present where a past belongs, a present where a past passive belongs. Under Grammatical Range and Accuracy, errors this systematic in a straightforward narrative hold an answer in the middle bands regardless of how good the vocabulary is.
The same story, tenses under control
It has, quite a lot. Ten years ago there was far less traffic, and the old covered market was still open — it had been there since the nineteen-thirties, I think. Since then they have put up a lot of new flats along the river, and the market was pulled down in 2019, which most people I know still complain about.
What this answer does
- The tense follows the time frame, not the sentencePresent perfect for the change up to now (it has, they have put up), past simple for the finished picture ten years ago, past perfect for what was already true before that, past passive for the demolition. Four time frames, four forms, and no drift.
- The passive appears where it belongsThe market was pulled down — nobody cares who did it, so the passive is the natural choice rather than a structure being shown off. Examiners can tell the difference.
- A hedge buys accuracyI think after a date. If you are not certain of a fact, hedging it costs nothing and stops you asserting something you then have to defend.
- The last clause opens a doorWhich most people I know still complain about is a relative clause and an invitation. Ending on something the examiner can pick up keeps Part 1 conversational.
Against the four criteria
- Fluency and CoherenceChronological and easy to follow. Tense accuracy is doing coherence work here as well as grammar work — a reader has to reconstruct the timeline of the weak version.
- Lexical ResourceCovered market, put up, pulled down. Two phrasal verbs used precisely, which is more valuable than construct and demolish would have been.
- Grammatical Range and AccuracyThis is the criterion the question is really probing. Any question containing in the last ten years is a tense test wearing a hat.
- PronunciationWeak forms matter here: has and have in a perfect are unstressed, and stressing them makes fluent speech sound like dictation.
Fixing the tenses in the weak answer changes nothing about its content and would typically move it a band. That is the highest-value hour of preparation available to most Part 1 candidates.
What would raise it: Drill the two forms this question demands directly — the present perfect against the past simple is the single most productive grammar page on this site for a Speaking candidate.
How long an answer should be, in seconds
Candidates ask this constantly and get told "two or three sentences", which is not a length. Here is a more useful version, measured in the only unit the examiner is working in.
| Length | What it sounds like | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Under 8 seconds | A direct answer and nothing else. Yes, I do. Every day. | Too little language to assess. Caps Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range at whatever the examiner has heard elsewhere. |
| 15–30 seconds | Direct answer, one extension, stop. Two or three sentences. | Nothing. This is the shape. |
| Over 45 seconds | A speech. Usually the candidate has moved from their own life to society in general. | Eats the remaining topics, invites an interruption, and often reads as rehearsed — which is discounted rather than credited. |
Indicative timing for a Part 1 answer. The middle row is the target; both outer rows are common and both cost marks.
Five things that quietly hold Part 1 down
- Answering the topic instead of the question. Asked whether you enjoy cooking, candidates describe their national cuisine. It is the single most common Part 1 error and it costs marks under Task-equivalent judgement inside Fluency and Coherence.
- Repeating the question back. Do I enjoy cooking? Well, yes, I enjoy cooking. It buys thinking time and it wastes six seconds of your sample on language that is not yours.
- Front-loading connectives. First of all, moreover, in conclusion in a Part 1 answer sounds like an essay read aloud. Part 1 is conversation; the connectives that belong here are though, actually, mind you, to be honest.
- Treating hesitation as failure. A short pause to find a word is normal speech and is not penalised. Restarting the sentence three times is. If the word will not come, go round it — paraphrasing under pressure is itself rewarded under Lexical Resource.
- Preparing answers rather than topics. Learn the vocabulary of the ten themes above so you have something to say about any of them. Do not learn sentences. The follow-up question is where a memorised answer falls apart, and Part 1 is nothing but follow-up questions.