 Hi, everyone. Recently in our VIP group, a number of students shared some recent speaking part two questions and we discussed them together and there were a few common difficulties that came up. So I thought I would share these questions with everyone and more specifically share the difficulties that each student had so that you can learn from them because they're very, very common and they're very easy to overcome. So let's get into it. So we're going to look at how to think of ideas when you are not familiar with the topic. This seems to be a big fear among students that they'll get a topic that they're not familiar with and they'll not be able to speak for two minutes and really there's no need to fear this and we'll talk about that in this video. We're gonna show you how to use the bullet points to help you speak fluently. So there are bullet points and that they give you on the cue card. We'll show you how to use them effectively and a little technique that we use that no one else seems to be using that really does help students. And then we'll also share with you our part two strategy. This is the same strategy that has helped thousands of our students get a band eight and a band nine on the speaking test. So first of all, let's look at what you have to do in part two. Even if you have done part two many, many times, there are many people who do not understand exactly what you must do and what you don't have to do. And it's really what you don't have to do that is the key here. So what you must do is you must speak as fluently as possible about the cue card topic for up to two minutes. So the cue card topic is the main topic at the top of the cue card. If you don't understand that, don't worry. We will show that to you in a second, but that is what you must do. You can use the bullet points if they help you. So there will be four bullet points and you can use them if they help you. But the key word there is if. If they help you, use them. If they don't help you, don't use them. Talk about other things related to the topic if they help you. So you must talk about the main topic at the top of the cue card, but you don't have to talk about all of the bullet points. You can if you like, but you can talk about all of them or some of them or none of them. As long as you are speaking about the main topic at the top of the cue card, that is absolutely fine. So if you want to talk about other things related to that main topic, such as a description of it or how you feel about it or a story about it or maybe something that happened in the past related to that topic or something that might happen in the future related to that topic, you can add those things in. It's all about just making your job of talking fluently for up to two minutes as easy and as comfortable as possible and removing any obstacles that stop you speaking fluently for up to two minutes. So let's have a look at this first difficult question and it actually isn't that difficult. Talk about a book you enjoy reading. So look at three students and why they found this difficult. So you should talk about, so this is the main topic and then here's your bullet points, the type of book it was. Would you recommend this book? Why you decided to read it and explain why you enjoyed reading this book. So why did some students find this seemingly quite straightforward topic difficult? Well, you will always get one student who says something like this, I don't read. No matter what the topic is, they will say I don't know anything about this. So I think where this comes from is it's more psychological than anything and I'm not criticizing anyone here but what people are doing is they're creating an excuse so that when they don't get the score that they need they are able to blame the topic and blame the test and not take really responsibility for their own actions. And when you talk to a student about this, this comes out. So when I was dealing with this student, I said, well, you don't read anything. You've never read a book. And they're like, oh yeah, I have read a book but in my own language, I've not read a book in English. So it doesn't say anything about the book being read in English. Oh well, the books that I read are not fiction books. They're non-fiction books. Well, it doesn't say anything about reading fiction books here. So once you start scratching the surface with these students what you realize is that they are just afraid of speaking for two minutes. They're afraid of failing. And the best way of avoiding failure is preparation and working with someone who can help you with that. So don't automatically look at a cue card and think, I know nothing about that. Remember, you're not being tested on reading. You're not being tested on books. You're being tested on speaking. And you are looking just to give the examiners enough information to judge your speaking. So don't allow your fear to stop you speaking clearly and fluently. Another student looked at this and said, I can't remember. Related to something I just previously said, they are not testing your knowledge of a book. They're not testing your memory of a book. They just want you to speak about any book at all for two minutes. The reason they're giving you this cue card is so that you can demonstrate that you can speak, not testing you on reading. So I said, it doesn't really matter if you can't really remember it. You can make things up. It is not an honesty test. They're not testing whether, they're not going to get the book that you just talked about and check every detail that you talked about. So if you can't remember one book, think of another book. It can be any book at all in the entire world. With this student, what we got down to was, they thought that it was the last book that they read. I was like, no, it's not the last book. And then we talked about a religious book that they read quite regularly. And then, oh, I didn't know I could talk about that. Can I talk about a religious book? Absolutely. It's any book, don't pick the thing that is easiest for you to think about. So don't automatically go into this negative mindset of, I can't do this, I can't remember. Try and stay more positive by, if you got this topic, what is one book that is the easiest book for me to talk about? So that could be your favorite book. It could be a children's book. It could be a book, a very technical book, like you're an engineer and it's an engineering book that you look at every day. Or you could be quite a religious person and talk about a religious book that you read quite regularly. Or a book that maybe has been made into a movie and you know a lot about that movie. You don't have to tell the examiner that you've watched the movie and you haven't read the book. You can just talk about that. The examiner wants you to do well. They're not gonna try and trip you up there. Student three, and this is more about the bullet points here. And the last bullet point, explain why you enjoy reading this book. So the book that they were thinking about was an IELTS book and they're like, I don't enjoy reading IELTS books, but that's the books that I've been reading recently. You don't have to use all of the bullet points. So their previous teacher had told them that you must read or talk about each of the bullet points in order. And if you miss one of the bullet points, you will get a lower score. So they were like, oh, I don't enjoy reading. And this is asking me about, if you get a bullet point that you're not comfortable talking about, don't talk about it. You must talk about why you enjoy a book you enjoy reading, but you don't have to use that bullet point. And if you don't enjoy reading it, again, it is not an honesty test. Just pretend that you enjoyed reading it. All right, even if it is a really boring IELTS book, you can just say, yeah, I was reading this and this is what was in the book and that's all you need to say. Don't worry about the examiner is not going to start accusing you of lying to them or anything like that. So yeah, you might look at this and think, that's quite an easy topic, but many students do struggle with that and it is really down to either negative thinking or just a misinterpretation of what they need to do. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to talk about this just to demonstrate the strategy that we use. So the strategy that we use is we tell students, look at the main topic, look at the bullet points, use them if you feel comfortable using them and then add in other things, other bullet points related to that topic that are designed to help you speak fluently for up to two minutes. So let me get my timer out and I'll do this. So a book I enjoy reading is a book called The Daily Stoic. The Daily Stoic is a book all about philosophy and specifically the philosophy of stoicism and what The Daily Stoic does is it just gives you one little lesson each day. So there are 365 lessons in the book and it is divided into like 1st of January to the 31st of December. So the reason why I enjoy reading this book is kind of twofold. One, it makes philosophy and stoicism a lot more digestible than picking up a more dense book such as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius which is a great book but it is quite difficult to get into. So what the author of The Daily Stoic has done is just take basically paragraphs or single sentences of those more dense books and put them on one page and then he explains what that sentence or what that paragraph means and what he normally does is he relates it back to modern life because most of these lessons were written down maybe 2,000 years ago. And the other reason why I really enjoy reading this book is it becomes a habit because it's quite easy to read one page of a book per day whereas if you give yourself a big challenge of maybe reading one book a week or it becomes quite difficult and then life gets in the way and you don't really end up learning anything. So it is very digestible and then it also builds that habit up of reading and learning each day and it's just a great way to start the day each morning. So what I did there was I talked about the book but I only really mentioned two bullet points. The type of book it was and explain why I enjoy reading it because those two are the easiest for me to talk about. Would you recommend this book? I could have talked about that but it would have been very, very short. Yes, I recommend this book. Why you decided to read it? I can't really remember why I decided to read it. I probably could have talked about that but I would have had to really think about that and we don't want to be thinking too hard because if we're thinking too much then that could affect our fluency. So that demonstrates the strategy of just picking the bullet points you want to talk about. Okay, so the second difficult question, talk about a cafe you recently visited. You might look at that and think, God, that's really, really easy but some students did find this difficult. So you should talk about where it is, what food or drinks they serve, who you went there with and explain if you liked it or not. So why did some students find this difficult? Well, the first student, I don't go to cafes. So again, this is one of, we've talked about this already. We won't talk about it too much but you could show a picture of the student's own first born child to them and they're like, I don't know them. If you give them anything this negative defense mechanism kicks in and I don't know anything about this. We've already talked about that so we won't dwell on that too much. I find cafes boring. Okay, so it is talking about if you liked it or not but this student has been taught that you need to impress the examiner. So if you don't talk about interesting things or exciting things or you don't sound like you're interested or it's going to affect your score, this is total nonsense. Not to criticize teachers or anything like this but if your teacher has taught you things that don't matter, then it means that you are not focusing on the things that do matter. So this student was focusing on sounding interesting. You can be the most boring person in the world and still be a great communicator. Many people would think that I am boring but I'm pretty good at communication. You don't have to sound interesting or exciting. So be very careful to make sure that what you believe about the test and what the examiners believe about the test are the same thing. Student three, I only go to cafes on my own so one of the bullet points here who you went there with. So this student was panicking because I'm a busy person. I think this person was a doctor and they said that when they have time they just go to the cafe in the hospital by themselves and they're really tired and they just go there to get coffee to wake themselves up and they were like, I don't go there with anyone and we're like, okay, don't worry about that. Again, this student had been taught that you must talk about every single bullet point. It says you should talk about them, not you must talk about them. So we've already talked about that. So just talk about things that are easy for you to talk about. So I'm going to demonstrate how I would answer this question and then after explain how I answered this question. Okay, so a cafe I recently visited I was in a place called Austin, Texas. I was on holiday and I woke up at around 3 a.m. because I was suffering from jet lag and I checked Google and there were no cafes open until 7 a.m. The only cafe was a place called The 24-Hour Diner. It was called The 24-Hour Diner but it only opened at 7 a.m. So I waited and I got an Uber to the cafe and the great thing about that cafe was it was a typical American coffee shop with a big bar and the lady served me a bottomless coffee which was great. They have that great strong filter coffee in American coffee shops and just you can drink it all day and they just keep topping you up for free. And one of the things that caught my eye on the menu was something that I've never seen before which is chicken and waffles. So fried chicken, kind of like what you would get in KFC and waffles, like Belgium sweet waffles. And I've never even heard of this combination before. So when I'm on holiday, I like to try unusual things that I wouldn't get back home. So I tried it and it was absolutely amazing. I didn't think that having basically a Belgian dessert and KFC for breakfast would be good but it was amazing. And the thing that was quite funny was after she came and cleared the plates and I completely demolished it, she said, would you like dessert? I was like, welcome to the USA. Only in the USA after you have eaten something the size of your head, would they then offer you dessert at 7.30 AM. So it was a great experience but I don't think I would go there every day because I would be the size of a house if I ate that every morning. So what I did there was I didn't even look at the bullet points because I had recently had a good experience, a memorable experience at a coffee shop and it was quite easy for me to just recall that it happened last week. So if you get something in part two or maybe one of the other parts that it's easy for you to tell a story, stories are very easy to talk about. We are all born natural storytellers, I think. So it's just easy to think of a story that happened and talk about that very, very fluently. And all I did was talk about that coffee shop for two minutes and it was very, very easy for me to do that and I didn't even look at the bullet points. I probably did talk about some of them but I wasn't looking at them and I wasn't relying on them and the best part two performances are normally like that. Okay, so the last difficult question, talk about a walk that you enjoyed. So before we look at this, I just want to focus in on the three topics. A walk that you enjoyed, a cafe you visited and a book that you read. Cambridge do spend a lot of time thinking about these questions and specifically trying to make them relatable to anyone in the world. So it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, you probably have gone for a walk in the past. You have probably been to a cafe or a coffee shop. You have probably read a book. A lot of people fear these questions because they're worried, you know, what if I get something that I have never seen before? That is extremely rare as these real questions demonstrate. If you're seeing part two questions that are on topics that are very, very unusual, either that you are incredibly unlucky or more likely you are looking at fake questions. Most of the questions that you'll find online, especially are not real. They are not produced by Cambridge and people who are producing these questions, if they don't know what they're talking about, what they generally do is they make them more difficult than they really are in real life. So, you know, don't panic too much about whether you will understand the topic because most of them are designed so that, you know, anyone in the world will be able to think about them. So you should talk about where the walk is, when you went on that walk, what you saw on that walk, explain why you enjoyed the walk. So pretty straightforward, but why did some students find this difficult? So I don't like walking. Again, we've already talked about this. This is just one of these very negative students that, you know, they don't like anything. They don't know about anything when they do, all right? And, okay, I don't like walking. Well, you don't have to talk about whether you liked, you know, it does talk about a walk that you enjoyed. Make it up, you know. Most people do enjoy walking and they can think of it, even if they don't like physical exercise, they can think of one walk in their life that wasn't terrible. Either pick that walk, you know, you might have had a nice romantic walk or a walk with your kids or, you know, you were on holiday and you had a nice walk, pick that, or you know what a walk is. You are aware that some people do enjoy walking. Pretend for two minutes that you are someone who enjoys walking. You know, it's not that difficult. Student two, I can't talk about this for two minutes. This is very, very a legitimate concern because it is difficult to talk about this for two minutes. So let's look at the bullet points. Where, so imagine I'm talking about this. Where it is, a forest, that's, you know, if I just mentioned the forest, that's five seconds or less when you went on that walk last week, you know, two seconds. What you saw on that walk, trees, it's a forest. Explain why you enjoyed that walk. I like trees. So the bullet points often lead to very short answers naturally when you went on that walk last week. It's very difficult to talk for more than 30 seconds about when you went on that walk. So that is why we tell students, use our strategy of adding in things that are much easier for you to talk about. So you can say, you know, I went for a walk in a forest last week and I saw lots of trees and then talk in more detail about why you enjoyed that walk or then add in other things. Another student said, can I talk about a past walk or a future walk? So again, not to criticize other teachers or anything like that, but a lot of teachers teach something called PPE, past or PPF, past present future. So when you get a question, talk about the past, talk about the present, talk about the future for part two. Now some questions that does work, but a lot of questions like this one, it doesn't work because it's talk about a walk that you enjoyed. So if you talk about something that happened in the past, okay, that's a walk that you enjoyed, but then you might run out of time. And then so you talked about a past walk, then are you going to talk about a present walk? That's, you know, you're not walking presently. And then a future walk, are you going off topic because you're not now talking about a walk? So some of these methods that are being taught do help, but they also can hinder your performance as well. So that is why we teach our strategy, which is very flexible. The great thing about our strategy is it gives people the flexibility to talk about whatever they feel comfortable talking about. So for this student, we said, you know, don't use that very rigid structure, just add in things that are easy for you to talk about. Okay, so I'll talk about this one. And what I'll do is I'll go through the first three bullet points very quickly and then demonstrate what I will do next. So a walk I love to take is a walk in a place called Tollymore Forest Park, which is about a 15 minute drive from my home. The last time I went on that walk was last week and it is a huge forest, so it's mostly trees. There are some rivers and mountains as well, but mostly what you're looking at are trees. So I enjoyed this walk for a few different reasons. Number one, it is a place of outstanding natural beauty. So it's very rare to be in a place that has trees, so you're in the forest, but you're also looking at mountains, rivers, and the sea all at the same time. So one of those things is pretty good, but when you can walk through the forest up to the mountain and then you're looking at the other peaks floating down to the sea, it's really, really special. And you can also see my house from up there as well. So often you'll just stop and look at just a breathtaking view. And then the other reason why I like going up there is there's no phone reception. So I run quite a busy business and I'm always attached to my phone. I'm always getting notifications. So it kind of forces me to switch off. And the other reason is you will sometimes see movies and TV shows being made up there. There's quite a famous scene in Game of Thrones in the first episode of the first series where they find the dire wills. That was all filmed inside that forest because it is so beautiful. So what I did there was the first three bullet points only took me less than 30 seconds to talk about. And what happens is that a lot of students get through the first three bullet points very, very quickly and then they panic and they start to run out of things to say. And if you are only really talking about this topic for one minute and then the rest of it, I don't know what to say, you're probably not going to get as high a score as you deserve. So what I talked about was I really went deep into why I enjoy that walk. So I thought of a couple of reasons why I enjoyed that. And then I just added in something extra about the forest that I go for a walk in and they do film Game of Thrones or did before. And they film lots of movies and stuff up there. And often you do see movie stars and film crews and stuff up there. So I just added in that little extra detail. It's not really in the bullet points, but it is talking about that walk and why I enjoy it. So to summarize, you need to speak as fluently as possible about the cue card topic for up to two minutes. So do whatever helps you do that and don't do whatever hinders you speaking as fluently as possible for up to two minutes. Use the bullet points, but only if they help you and feel free to not use them at all or only use some of them and talk about other things related to the topic if they help you. Hope that you enjoyed that. If you wanna get in touch, go to ialtadvantage.com where you'll find all of our socials and you'll find hundreds of free lessons and resources. Or if you have any questions, feel free to email me, chris at ialtadvantage.com. Hope that you enjoyed the lesson and feel free to get in touch if you need anything else.