 Most people think that the secret to IELTS speaking success is learning how to do a few things really well. But after helping thousands of students get a Band 9 in IELTS speaking, I can tell you the opposite is actually true. The real secret is Band 9 students avoid traps set for them by IELTS speaking examiners. And if you fall for them, you will fail. This video will show you what those traps are, how to spot them and how to avoid them so that you can massively increase your score. And at the end of the video, I'm going to reveal the biggest IELTS speaking secret that's contained in one of my favorite movies. Understanding this secret has done more to help my students get a Band 9 than anything else. And you can learn it instantly. The first trick they play is really sneaky and it's the same trick my dad used to play when he worked here as a chef. Young chefs would come into his kitchen and ask him for a job. Sure, my dad would say, come back tomorrow, cook me something. If I like it, you can have a job. And just before they left, he'd say, is there anything you do not like to cook? And when they arrive the next day for the cooking demonstration, he'd ask them to cook the thing they hate it. So what has my sneaky father got to do with IELTS speaking? If you look online for topics that will definitely come up on test day, you'll find these three topics. But if you look at the official Cambridge questions, you'll find very unusual topics that you weren't expecting. You see, when IELTS examiners ask about your home or your work or your hometown, they often get answers like this. I am over the moon that you asked me about my hometown. It is only once in a blue moon that I get to talk about a topic that is so close to my heart. There are a plethora of reasons why one would enjoy my hometown. Let's talk first about the 18th century architecture. But if the examiner was to ask them about a topic they weren't expecting, such as wigs, the examiner might hear an answer like this. I don't know anything about wigs. I've never worn a wig in my entire life. Things are going to get much worse for this student because the examiners are trained to spot memorized answers. And what they will do if they think that you are giving memorized answers, for example about your hometown, they will ask you more and more difficult questions and unusual topics. And here's the scary part. The examiner has your memorized answer and your answer to the questions you weren't expecting. They will not base their score on this answer. They will base their score on this answer alone. Because as my father used to say, a chef is only as good as their worst dish, not their best dish. Your memorized answers are not your real level. Your real speaking level is dealing with questions you were not expecting. So if you do get an unusual question on test day, answer it like this. You know, I've never worn a wig. I think that people who wear wigs sound and look ridiculous. I think they really just do it for attention or to be funny, which isn't funny at all, to be honest. Now, if you thought the examiners were sneaky in part one, you're really going to hate them after I reveal their sneaky trap in part three of the test. Now, before I tell you what it is, let me tell you why they do it. Because once you understand the why, you'll be able to spot it immediately and deal with it much more easily. So when I was a kid in primary school, I really struggled academically. I couldn't even write my own name properly. I couldn't understand most of the lessons and I wasn't allowed to sit with the other kids. But despite all this, I was able to eventually graduate from one of the best law schools in the world. You see, when I did a test, I got all the easy questions wrong. But the few really difficult questions at the end of the test that no other students could get correct, I would always get those correct. And this is exactly what the examiners are trying to do in part three of the speaking test. If they believe that you are at one of the lower bands, let's say a band four or a band five, they will ask you quite easy questions like these ones. But if they think that you deserve one of the higher bands, a band seven, eight or even nine, they will ask you more and more difficult questions. Notice how in the book here, the questions get more and more difficult, but the key here is how you react to these more difficult questions. These questions will come at the very end of the speaking test. When you are stressed, you are tired and you just want the test to end. And when the examiner asks these questions, often students will give answers like, uh, yes, I don't know. The thing you have to remember with these questions is the examiner is testing you. They are testing, are you capable of answering these band seven, eight and nine questions? Because they have to separate out the band sevens from the band eights from the band nines. One of the ways they're trained to do that is ask these really, really difficult questions and then see how you react to them. So what if you know nothing about the topic or you just find that question really, really challenging? Are you going to automatically get a low score? No, let me show you how to cope with those questions. So if I was doing the test and I got this question and I know nothing about this topic, I am a complete idiot when it comes to this topic. I could say something like this. To be honest, I don't know anything about this topic. I'm not from India and I don't know much about cooking. But if I had to give an answer, it's very difficult to predict the future. But what I would say is maybe AI will change how the restaurants take orders and how they deliver the food to their customers. But that's just a complete guess. The best answer in the world? No, but it is much better than and by attempting an answer and telling the examiner what I think about that topic, even though I know nothing about it. I have indicated to the examiner that I am good enough to deal with those questions and they might then steer the conversation to a topic that I'm more comfortable with. And then I can really show them how good I am. The last trap is the sneakiest of them all and it's got to do with how they test your vocabulary. There are thousands of words in the English language and the examiners only have between 10 and 15 minutes to test your ability to use English vocabulary. So they came up with a genius way of testing it in around 10 minutes. So some words we use to talk about this topic, some words this topic and some words this topic. But if we try to use these words to talk about this topic, it doesn't work. These are called topic specific words and we can use them to talk about different topics. Knowing this information is crucial for two reasons. First, the examiners are trained to ask you a range of different topics on test day so that you can't just memorise a list of band 9 words and put them into every answer and cheat the test in that way. Secondly, the examiners are more impressed with a simple topic specific word than a more complex word that doesn't really help you answer the question. This is why so many students fail the test when they were expecting to get a really high score because they memorised lists of band 9 words. And this is why so many of our VIP students get a band 7, 8 and 9, not by memorising lists of high level band 9 words but using the simple topic specific words they already know. It's actually impossible to avoid 100% of the traps that might come up in the speaking test. Not just the speaking test but all areas of the IELTS test. Every part of the IELTS test, reading, listening, writing has traps contained within it. But there is one way that you can spot all of them and avoid all of them and massively increase your score. In the movie Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a criminal that is being chased by FBI man Tom Hanks. Leo's character plays a criminal who pretends to be an airline pilot and a doctor and a lawyer. He also steals money by making fake checks and stealing credit cards. The crucial scene in this movie comes when Tom Hanks asks Leo how did he fake passing the bar exam? The bar exam is an exam all lawyers have to take before they can become a lawyer. It is one of the most difficult tests in the entire world. And Tom Hanks can't figure out how a criminal, how a con man would be able to fake passing this test. And here's how he did it. I didn't cheat. I studied for two weeks and I passed. You see, he didn't need to fake becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an airline pilot. He didn't need to steal money to become rich. He was already talented and smart and intelligent enough to do all of these things without cheating, without stealing. He just needed to stop cheating. All of the IELTS traps are used to catch cheaters. Like Leo's character, most IELTS students don't cheat because they are bad people. They cheat because they lack confidence, they are scared that they're going to fail and then they get desperate and resort to listening to these tricks and cheats and hacks. And the most fascinating thing is this movie is a true story. He now actually works for the FBI and credit card companies have paid him millions of dollars to help prevent future criminals taking advantage of the system. If you believe that you're good enough and you don't cheat, the examiner is going to give you your real score on testing and you'll be rewarded with a new life in a new country getting paid way more than you currently are. You are more than capable of doing that. You just have to show them. But many of you are probably still worried right now and you want some tips to help you improve your speaking score. Check out this video where we help Priyanka jump from about six to about eight by just giving her four simple tips. So we're really going to help you check that video out.