 Let's start off by talking about food. What is your favorite food? My favorite food will be thai curry. I think that'll always stop my list. But I also like all kinds of Asian cuisines. I like Vietnamese food. They've got a soup called pho. And I also like Korean food. I don't know how they've come up with kimchi. I really feel like it just blows my mind and it really ignites a lot of taste buds. So yeah, all kinds of Asian cuisines and I also like Indian cuisine as well. Do you like to eat out or stay in and cook? I think stay in and cook because I like to consider myself a decent cook. I think I can prepare basic decent meals and sometimes when I go out I end up comparing it with mine. So I like to eat at home because yeah, I feel like sometimes maybe my food is tasting better than the outside food. What was your favorite food when you were a child? This is a very basic meal in India. It's called kichri. It is a porridge in India which is made with rice and dal which is lentils. And it is very basic. There's no fancy ingredient involved in it. It's just rice and dal and a bit of ghee and just some basic spices. It's my comfort food and to-go food for me. Yes. Are there any foods you would like to try in the future? I don't know but I haven't been to South America so I don't know how a Peruvian meal would taste like. I've tasted Mexican, I've tasted Italian, I've tasted all kinds of Chinese, Vietnamese and Asian food but I've never tasted South American food so I think I would like to try the food from there. Now let's talk about holidays. What's your favorite holiday destination? My favorite holiday destination would be Bali. I think I've been to Bali a couple of times and I'm a very tropical person. I enjoy the heat and I also enjoy the humid if I can say that. And Bali by far has impressed me the most so yeah that's my favorite destination I guess. What is your dream holiday destination maybe in the future? I would say Peru or Peru because there was a time in my life I'd booked the tickets and then COVID happened and unfortunately I couldn't go to the place so I booked a ticket for Brazil and then from there I had to Peru so yeah that's still on my bucket list. Where would you recommend going on holiday in your home country? Where? Ladakh. It's called the heaven on earth. Even Kerala is called the heaven on earth. I've been to both places but I feel for me Ladakh tops the list and it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. You get to see a lot of different terrains, you get to see the mountains, snow cap mountains, you also get to see the rocky mountains, you also get to see the greenery. It's very beautiful yeah. Do you prefer a city holiday or a holiday in nature? For me personally holiday in nature because I'm more inclined towards the nature because it grounds me also mentally stabilizes me and makes me feel really calm and relaxed so I would always prefer nature over the cities. I feel cities really consume a lot of energy out of you when you're like surrounded by so many people. Now let's talk about drinks. What do you normally drink with breakfast? So I don't think I'm heavy on drinks in the sense I drink basic water and especially with breakfast I don't have milk or oh I'm sorry I forgot I'm very heavy on tea. My morning has to start with tea and it's the basic masala chai from India so that's what I drink yes. Do you think you drink enough water each day? Yes I do. I try and drink about two to three liters of water every single day. If people visit your home for dinner what do you normally offer them to drink? So usually in India we'd like to say what you want to have hot drink or cold drink. So hot drink usually means tea and coffee, tea or coffee and cold drinks mean any kind of soft drink which is Coca-Cola, Fanta, Limca, these are the drinks which are normally offered in India. So yes that I'd probably offer that or probably something fancy like a lemonade or something like that. Now let's talk about maps. Do you ever use maps on your phone? Oh yes all the time. I think maps have made our lives easier and to travel from one place to the other I always need my map and in fact even when I'm going on a walk or a run I always have the map on my hand so I can just generally wander around and get lost and not worry about it. When you visit a new city do you prefer to use a map or find your own way around? Both so I usually have for the larger picture of it I usually have the map and I like to download the offline map and but within that system within that window I also like to just explore and move around and get lost like I said yes. Do you find it easy to follow a map when driving? Oh yes like I said Google Maps have made it so much easier for us so it's usually normal for me in fact I think I am the navigator amongst my friends I think I do have a knack for it like I do have I do understand the maps better than other friends of mine. So it says describe a city you would like to visit I've mentioned that I've already been to Bali but I think that's one city I'd like to visit again in fact there was a point in my life I wanted to settle down in Bali so Bali will be my top priority and I would like to go there and I think the easiest mode to travel to Bali is a flight and the reason I like Bali is because like I mentioned earlier I'm a tropical person and the weather is very suitable for my kind of a person who comes from India and also I think Bali is very beautiful it's surrounded by beaches nature rice valley fields which is what I love about Bali because you can just travel from one area to the other and every specific area is beautiful in its own on its own and what I also really enjoy and like about Bali is the food it's very vegan friendly I'm a vegan and I don't have to stress much when I'm trying to find vegan food over there and it's also yummy it's also tasty so that's also one of the reason I've fallen in love with Bali and it's also big on yoga I forgot to mention that I think the first time I went to Bali was on a retreat a yoga retreat which I was attending and then I think it's one of my dreams to go to Bali again to hold a retreat since I'm a yoga teacher and if given a chance to stay in Bali or probably probably move to Bali that'll be the best dream life to have a yoga studio teacher over there and also probably have a small cafe which can offer vegan food and I think dropping everything top of the list would be Bali is very cheap to live and also to travel like you know you don't have to burn your pocket to in fact enjoy the entire country no city so yeah Bali would always stop my list to visit so you were telling me about a city that you would like to visit and will continue to talk about visiting cities on holiday why do some people prefer to visit a city on holiday to thank you for watching this video I want to give you a free course that has helped thousands of students improve their IELTS speaking score what it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part one part two and part three and also allow you to practice at home for free and get feedback to sign up for that for free all you have to do is just click the link in the description thanks very much and let's get back to the video okay so if you mean to say city as opposed to a town or probably a countryside then I think a lot of people they prefer a crowded city because there are many things to do probably they can go for a movie they can shop a lot so a lot of people like personally I know my husband prefers a city over places which are full of nature and I'm the opposite and the reason for that is that for example he loves London so he can go and watch as many shows he likes he can watch a movie and then he can move around and shop a lot so I think that's why probably people prefer cities is it more expensive to go on holiday in a city I think yes because everything is commercialized even for example in London there is a three wheeler it's called a tuk-tuk or a rickshaw in India similar to that there's a three wheeler fancy three wheeler in London city centre and I think you have to pay like a hundred pounds just to like go from one place to the other with the music so everything is commercialized to a level so much so that you really end up burning your pocket because every small thing you have to pay for it even for example water so yeah I think being in a city will cost you a lot is it better to visit a city alone or with other people I think it depends it's both a lot of people they like to travel solo and a lot of people they need to have people around them for example if you're going to watch a show maybe if you are with somebody and you're watching a show you'll enjoy it more because you have a company with you for some people they would prefer to be alone and watch it because they can probably consume intake and really soak in the experience so it depends it's it's up to it's very subjective I guess now let's talk about the growth of cities why are the biggest cities in the world getting bigger I think like I mentioned everything is commercialized and you got to pay the prices like even the bigger showrooms and stores if you buy a certain item from like a smaller city not the bigger ones I'm talking about you'll end up paying lesser than what you'll pay probably in London London or New York so that ways one of the reason is that I guess and also I think moving around like most of the people from smaller cities they want to go into and start living in bigger cities so that's also one of the reason that the cost of living starts to rise yeah what are the downsides of living in a mega city downside of living in a mega city would be a the cost of living because the more the people the higher the prices because you'll have to pay more rent because there's so much of demand for these spaces and supply is lesser so that's one thing cost of living the second is maybe you're a little bit out of touch from nature because it's like you're staying in a concrete jungle you're surrounded by buildings and also the more number of people the lesser social interaction so maybe you're you might just end up being a little lonely so I think some of the few downsides are like that how will large cities in the future be different to how they are today so as we can see that we're advancing more and more day by day and things are just improving in a grand scale so I think we'll become more advanced in future and like I mentioned we lose touch with and I'm not sure I mean if I have to take a guess we lose touch with humanity everything is going to become very robotic and very computer and machine based I think that's what I see around but I don't have a clear answer for that now let's talk about children and cities is it better to grow up in a city or the countryside again I think I'm biased towards it because I feel I'm more inclined towards a countryside or living in a setup like that so I feel that it'll be better to bring up or raise your children raise your child in a countryside setup a because you are not bringing in chaos to them I feel that the city life has a lot of chaos with it and b like for example I've always advocated that you know kids should be taught meditation I think there's no bigger meditation than being around nature you know walking on grass so you can teach them better things which people start on advocating later in life so you can teach all of that with homes schooling so I think that's a very good option to really venture into or take into consideration what advantages do children brought up in the countryside have over children brought up in a city advantages like I mentioned would be that maybe they're calmer than the city children I think the city children will be more technologically advanced but might not have the same emotional bandwidth maybe and might not have the mental capacity to really take in stress because they'll always be consumed with stress around them so I think the city sorry I'm missing now the two kind of children I think the countryside children will be better at having that same mental capacity or a better mental capacity and emotional bandwidth to handle stress so you're hoping to get a band nine and I have some some good news and some not so good news but let's see if you're you're going to get a band nine and what you could do to improve to a band nine so thank you for making it this far in the video I want to give you 10 off our VIP course IELTS VIP course is the most successful IELTS course in the world that is a fact because we have more band seven eight and nine success stories than any other IELTS course in the entire world we do that by simplifying the whole IELTS process supporting you with some of the best IELTS teachers in the world and being with you every step of the way until you get the score that you need all you have to do is just look down in the description just click that and you can sign up if you have any questions about the VIP course always feel free to get a touch with we answer a hundred percent of the questions that we get hope that you become a VIP if not enjoy the rest of this free video so I'm going to give you feedback on part one part two and part three and then what I will do is I will give you feedback on the four marking criteria so fluency and coherence pronunciation grammar and vocabulary if you didn't get a band nine we'll give you some areas for for improvement so part one is just normal everyday questions most of your answers were very very good one thing that I would be careful about is listing lots of different things so for example we asked you about your favorite food and you're like I like Thai I like Vietnamese I like this you don't do this but what a lot of students do is when you ask them part one questions they just list lots of different things and the problem with that is it doesn't give the examiner enough to really judge your grammar so it's just like I like I like I like present simple present simple present simple you didn't do that for every answer but when you're under pressure on test day it's kind of like a safety blanket where students if you ask them anything what do you do on the weekend I like to read go to the cinema go to the park go to the moon so they just list lots of different things the rest of your answers were very natural well developed just be careful about that on on test day not a bad thing I'm highlighting the the more negative things but overall your part one performance was very very good and it was like talking to a work colleague or a friend and it was it was excellent part two the main worry that most students have with part two is having enough to talk about for the full two minutes you have no problem thought you could have talked about that for 10 minutes I think or half an hour no no problem at all you chose something which is very smart which is picking a real scenario related to something that you really like one thing that I would be a little bit careful about is the question says describe a city you would like to visit and you said well it's one that I visited in the past but I want to visit it in the future so because you said that that's no problem no problem because you explained I've been there in the past I want to go there in the future during the IELTS test one thing the examiner will be thinking about is are you using the appropriate tents to talk about this so if you answered that question like I went to Bali here's why I really like Bali some examiners might be like oh she's basically saying that she doesn't know how to use future structures or talk about the future and she's playing it very very safe you didn't do that but it's a risk right so if you got a different topic on test day a similar one always think about what tents is do they really want me to discuss here describe a city you would like to visit is normally a city you haven't been to so that would be more talking about conditionals hypotheticals using conditional language or something in the future I would like to go somewhere I've never been the other thing is it asks specifically about a city now different countries have different interpretations of the word city in some places a city is a big built up area with at least millions of people in it like London, Paris, New York in other cultures in other places a city is basically not the countryside Bali I don't know specifically whether it is a island or categorize it as an island or categorize it as a city some examiners I don't I'm not an expert on Bali all right so I don't know now if I was the examiner I wouldn't care about whether Bali is a city or whether it is an island because it is a speaking test or judging your speaking you talk very fluently and coherently about Bali but these little mistakes can't add up so you listing lots of things in part one and then talking about a place you've already been to that maybe is not a city technically all these little things so someone like you is a very high level speaker can get the result and be like oh why did I not get the score that I'm looking for so just be be careful with with that think about the question and think am I using the correct grammatical structures and tenses and am I answering this exactly so if it was like is Bali a city why not just pick New York or Doha or somewhere I know you've been to Doha many times just be careful with that in part two part three and there were a couple of questions that again the IELTS test is not an ideas test it is not a knowledge test but there were a couple of questions where you were trying to think of the correct idea because you weren't 100% sure during the part three of the test what the examiner will do is they will ask you more and more difficult questions if they think you're good so if they don't think that you're very good they'll just ask you simple questions and end the test these questions like how will large cities in the future be different to how they are today these are difficult questions conceptually the ideas are difficult and it's difficult to talk about the metaphor in language as well because you're using all sorts of future structures and comparing comparatives and things like that in that situation what most students do is start off and go um I don't know I have no idea or they'll be like I don't know because this is the end of the test and most people are tired they just want it to be over so they'll give very short unsatisfactory answers you actually despite not knowing a lot about this topic you gave a guess you gave some kind of an answer which is a plus point which is a good thing so don't worry too much about about that let's move on to your scores for fluency and coherence coherence is answering the question because you did quite a bit of listing in some in part one you struggled with a few of the questions in part three and we're not sure whether Bali is a city or not um some examiners would give you wouldn't give you the top mark for that the way that fluency coherence works is it's in one band and whichever is lowest that's your score so if you're band nine for fluency but band eight for coherence you get a band eight all right I think your fluency is at a band nine but I think because those little problems would add up you probably get would get a band eight for coherence so overall fluency and coherence you probably get a band eight but it is very fixable don't list stuff in part one develop your answers pick one thing like I love the fob because it has a really deep flavor and and it's quite rare to get it you know so instead of listing stuff to pick one thing or two things and develop them as I said before be careful with your part twos make sure you're answering the question some people would say well she didn't answer the question I think it's debatable whether you answered the question as I've already said so I wouldn't give you a really low score but I just would be be careful with that and again if you get a difficult question in part three do what you did which is at least attempted pronunciation I think is your strongest point and the examiner will be thinking two by two things number one can they understand a hundred percent of what you're saying I can understand a hundred percent of what you're saying no problem at all second thing is they'll be thinking about higher level and pronunciation features such as intonation your voice going up your voice going down and your intonation is excellent it helps you convey meaning you sound friendly you sound polite and often we do that through intonation so if I said please sit down sound very rude please sit down sounds very polite so intonation can convey meaning and you do a very good job with that same with word stress and sentence stress so word stress for example is I love this iPhone you know so I'm emphasizing the word love but if I said I love this iPhone that means you don't love it but I love it so you you use word stress sentence stress very very effectively and you also use connected speech so instead of saying do you want to go to the cinema that you don't pronounce every word do you want to go to the cinema you know so you connect the words and the signs together you do a very good job so you would get a band nine for pronunciation some people would say who aren't examiners that don't know oh she's got an indian accent say you're not being judged on which accent you have you don't get higher marks for sounding british or american or australian or irish you get extra marks for the clarity of your words and your communication so it doesn't matter what accent you have you would get a band nine no problem at all grammar so this is the area that I think that you need to work on the most so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to show some sentences and we're going to figure out what your your grammar problems might be so as you can see sometimes you make little slips with articles so articles are words like ah and the and sometimes but when you especially when you're thinking a lot about the answer so those questions that you weren't that sure of the way I explain it to people is your brain is like a computer and if you too many programs open at the same time they can slow down so if you're really thinking about AI in the future and cities and that part of your brain is working very hard the part of your brain dealing with grammar and articles can slip a little bit overall your grammar is very good and but you are making those little mistakes they're not huge errors that cause problems for the listener so those are big catastrophic errors that the listeners like what did she say I have no idea what little slips like you made here don't stop me understanding you but you're making a few too many of them to get one of the higher bands so you would get a band eight for grammar because the vast majority of your sentences are error-free but sometimes you're making these little slips and they're just a little bit too frequent to get one of the one of the higher bands your vocabulary there's some excellent topic specific vocabulary that you're using and some idiomatic vocabulary such as this but sometimes you're using less precise phrases idioms such as this and as we can see here you're sometimes repeating that a little bit too much and so again we wouldn't be giving you one of the very very high bands the vast majority of your sentences very high level vocabulary as we've seen very precise but there are just a few too many of these little slips to get one of the higher bands so again you get a band eight for vocabulary so you're nearly there you're nearly there and what I would like to do is invite you back okay and we can do another one if you work on those little mistakes we can do another one and see if you improve to a bad night okay perfect okay good thank you welcome