EP. 13 IELTS Speaking Test | BAND 9 | MUST LISTEN! | IELTS BAND 9

[Music] Good afternoon. My name is Jeanette Lindsay Clark. Can you tell me your full name please? My name is Danielle Belts. And can you tell me where you're from? I'm from the Netherlands. Can I see your identification please? Sorry. Okay, that's fine. Now in this first part I'd like to ask you some questions about yourself. Let's talk about where you're living now. Tell me about the town or city where you're living at the moment. At the moment I am living in Oxford, which is a city that I absolutely love. It's so pretty. And how long have you been living in this city? I've been living in this city since September last year. So that's about five months I'd say. Do you think you will move to a different place in the near future? In the near future I don't think so. I'm quite happy where I am. I've got a nice job so that's. I don't see any reason to move. Okay, thank you. Let's talk about numbers. What kinds of numbers do you have to remember in your daily life? In my daily life I would say my pin code, door codes and some phone numbers I suppose. Do you find it easy to remember numbers? I've never been very good with numbers but as soon as I get in the habit of typing something in I can usually remember. Was maths one of your favourite subjects at school? Definitely not. I was not very good at maths and my dad actually had to help me quite a bit to get a good mark. Is it important to be good at dealing with numbers in your work or studies? I think it's quite important that I can handle numbers but my job doesn't fully focus on numbers. As a main priority it's important that I'm not number blind but I can. I think I'm alright. Let's talk about cycling. When did you learn to ride a bike? Since I'm Dutch that was very early. I think I was around maybe five years old. By my dad I think my dad told me and definitely fell over a few times. Is riding a bike popular in your country? I think we're known for riding bikes a lot. Why? Well we've got really good infrastructure so we've got lots of cycling paths and that really helps because cycling is made really easy and safe. So everyone cycles to work at a school. How easy is it to cycle around the town or city where you live now? Well I don't cycle a lot where I live at the moment because the first time I rode a bike I kind of got hit by a car. So now I'm a little bit scared to get back on my bike. Would you like to go on a cycling holiday in the future? No, I'm not. I like cycling because it's useful to forget me where I need to be but it's not a hobby of mine so I wouldn't go on a cycling holiday. Now I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you talk you'll have one minute to think about what you're going to say. You can make some notes if you wish. Do you understand? Yes. Here's some paper and a pencil for making notes and here's your topic. Please don't write anything on the booklet. Describe something you enjoyed making by hand when you were a child. Okay. [silence] Okay. Now remember you just have one to two minutes for this so don't worry if I stop you. I'll tell you when the time is up. Can you start speaking now please? So the question was if I could describe something that I enjoyed making as a child and the first thing that came to mind was I used to make Christmas cards with my mum. We started when I was around seven years old and we made them in 3D so we had different layers that we had to put together with little sticky bits. I really enjoyed doing that because it was a tradition and I did it with my mum so we started in November and we started making Christmas cards for all the friends and acquaintances that sent us a card the year before. They didn't send us a card the year before we usually didn't send them one back. It was quite difficult in the beginning because it's very nitty gritty small work but it got better as I got older and I think we kept doing it until I was about 13 years old. The best reason for doing it was really just to spend time with my mum with Christmas music in the back. It was always fun seeing the new kinds of cards that they brought out that year so it was usually some kind of animals, some kind of birds or puppies or whatever. It was a lot of fun actually just spending some quality time together and having Christmas years going back and cake in the oven and just spending a few hours doing something that was just ours really. Can you tell me anything else about that? I think we started doing it because my grandmother started to do it as well so my mum used to do it with her mother and then I did it with mine so it's kind of a family tradition that's been passed down. Do you still make things by hand now? Not often I'm not much of an arts and crafts kind of person. I do enjoy making things but more in a digital way so perhaps writing or something along those lines but not so much. Can I take back the booklet, the paper and the pencil please? Okay. So we've been talking about something you enjoyed making when you were a child making Christmas cards with your mum and I'd like to discuss with you one or two more general questions related to this. Okay. So let's talk about traditional handmade items. Can you tell me what the most popular traditional handmade items are in your country? I think the most popular would be homemade decorations for holidays. At least that's how I remember it being. My friends did it. I did it. We did it at school. We made like little almost little decorations to hang in front of the windows. Why do you think people enjoy making handmade things? I think it gives you a sense of pride when you, one when you can show it off and it's right. I feel like it would be very fulfilling if you're into that kind of thing to have something that you've made and you didn't just buy in a store. And why do you think people like to buy handmade items? I think that some people either feel like they don't have the talent to do it but would still like the kind of atmosphere or aesthetic that comes from handmade things. But if they can't do it or they feel like they can't do it and so buying something is a good kind of middle road. Okay. How important is it do you think for people to keep making traditional handmade things these days? I think with the internet and ordering online and mass production it's quite important that people keep doing things themselves. It brings a sense of personality in it. I think that getting a handmade scarf that's two metres long is way more fun than getting a mass produced scarf that anyone could have bought at the local primark. Okay. Let's think a bit about manufactured goods. Most things are factory made. So what are the benefits of factory made goods compared to handmade goods? I'r pob rock lostedd yn ddeud ym dewedachel â cy unrhyw fellir dyddeflo werahet Cyrus Mc globalization a'rnyaid heddiw erallар i pi ddd i ligadaydi orchestraliaid yo'r rydym eisiau carellwyr a gwiraid re sowus u mundo ame Cle Run a phhorengus caelau unnwyd a'r Roeddorusad wrth ddod y bydd wedi bi'rau碰olosh tir neu ein injusti a'r people no so Başlo a'r rydym yn ymdyn a'r rydym yn ymdyn a'r rydym yn ymdyn a'r rydym yn ymdyn dar bu fallists kil syntaf olen螒chrau civ Extreme airwys am y gallu mewn o'm ei no y llyw ar Demg mawr ei'n amegush aeth sym Forth angen y 4 cm bl순 plant unu. Mae yna akhir edrydyd yn gellohu c четgen y borod o bawb amser Holidayfio, it could you see a future where perhaps all manufactured goods would be made by factory robots? In a very dystopian future I think I could. from my experience I think most people will want something thats. well they'll want, what's easier someone's cheapest but. if they think about it maybe a bit more they would want something that's made by human hands so I feel like in my go up there'll be lots of robots making things the one moment and then maybe they'll go back to things being made by hand. Okay thank you very much that is the end of the speaking test. Thank you.