 So let's start off by talking about food. What's your favourite food? I really love Asian food because I live in England so it's harder to get Asian food around but I like spicy, flavourful and just generally savoury food. Do you cook a lot at home? Not as much as I would like to. I would love to cook more because I actually enjoy the process of cooking but I just cook out of convenience because every day I've got to make sure I get my work done and then cook for my kids which takes a lot of time. Sometimes we get takeaway but they like it. What are popular takeaway meals in your local area? Fish and chips. It's a favourite for everyone so that's an easy option but generally because of my own preference I love just to get Thai and Vietnamese. This is something that I could just get around my local area. It's very easily sourced. How often do you eat fast food? I try to eat really healthily but then I tend to go down the Filet-O-Fish McDonald's route when I'm travelling so I suppose only once every few months. Now let's talk about seasons of the year. What's your favourite season of the year? I love any time when the sun starts to come out so around spring or early summer before it gets too hot. I just love a little bit of Vitamin D and it makes me happier as well so that is definitely better than the winter. What do you do when it gets too hot in the summer? Hide. I tend to also go into any kind of buildings with air conditioning and I have to fan on every night when it's really hot so yeah when it gets really hot in the summer you know I really need a lot of like fans and you know kind of just anything I can hold with me when I'm gone as well. At what time of year do you normally go on holiday? I try to go outside of the school holiday season but because I have kids you know we tend to have to go doing you know the the you know when when this term breaks you know when the school breaks but my favourite time of going away would be during Christmas you know because I much prefer to be in a warmer climate when it's really really cold so yeah it's just that time before or after Christmas. Have you ever been on holiday somewhere very cold? Yes I love Norway you know it was amazing it was just everything was like a picture a perfect postcard you know you could see the fields in the distance and the what you call them icebergs it was an experience you know and to to write the husky sled you know was also an amazing experience for me. Now let's talk about clothes where do you buy most of your clothes? I would like to do you know clothes shopping in the shop but the reality is most of us do it online now you know when I get my clothes from the Zara and Asos because I just love the hip and trendy but also timeless look. How often do you buy clothes for yourself? I buy it more often than I should because I use online shopping and clothes shopping as a form of you know like dopamine hit for me so it's it's and for me I love to express myself through my clothes so because of that then I need to find different clothes for different occasions and so very often. Have you always had the same taste in clothes? No I have not because I see myself as different identities throughout my life you know before I became a mum during and also after when work became something that I could express myself you know true so yeah I've had different fashion tastes you know throughout the ages. Now let's talk about social media which social media sites do you use? I use Instagram and LinkedIn because I feel like I run a business and that's where my target audience are you know I built a community through Instagram and then on LinkedIn where I work on my business to business leads. How much time do you spend on social media? Way too much I shouldn't be spending so much time but I find that it is once you visit you know social media and you post something it's also about engaging with people to ensure that you know you build relationships so yeah a couple of hours a day. Is there anything you dislike about social media? I dislike the addictive quality about it you know because so many of us are connected you know through a tablet or a device now and social media is our form of communication so it's becoming even though it seems like you're being connected to loads and loads of people the actual quality of your relationships with your immediate sphere you know kind of you know kind of forced by the side so yeah that's one bad side to it. That's the end of part one of the speaking test so now we're going to move on to part two of the speaking test I'm going to give you a cue card you'll have one minute to read the cue card and prepare your answer feel free to make any notes during that one minute at the end of the one minute I'll let you know and I'll ask you to speak for up to two minutes is that all clear of course okay here is your cue card and I'll start the one minute preparation time here's a pen if you want to make any notes so please speak for up to two minutes on this topic please okay so a job that I really enjoyed is being a speaker and a storyteller and I love doing this job now because when I was growing up I love writing little stories and you know just connecting with people and having conversations but I never thought that I could become a speaker one day and I started my career you know in STEM and then eventually through 16 different industries because I didn't really know where in the world of work I fitted into it but eventually I realized that all this became really useful for me to gain all the skills that I needed you know in communication and brought it all together in a field that I was deeply passionate about that allowed me to channel what I really love about my work and the topic that I love you know to make a difference in people's lives being a speaker is the perfect place to do this because you could influence people's thoughts and inspire positivity in people's lives which is something that you could do in other places but the impact is so much more immediate and you are affecting people in such a big way and affecting a bigger audience as well whilst you're doing it and this is something that I'm very lucky to be able to do now and I don't take it for granted and know that the journey for me to get here has been really long but I'm deeply grateful for being given this opportunity and what I like it also is that to be able to connect with people in the topic that is so personal about mental health and well-being you know where in some way or other you know we're all struggling um in life thank you very much that's the end of the two thank you I could have gone on so now we're going to move on to part three of the speaking test and we're going to continue to talk about careers what factors do you think are important when choosing a career I think it's really really important that we are interested in what we're doing and because if you are not interested then there's absolutely no chance that you're going to be able to have longevity in that career we should also choose an industry where there's a potential for you to really grow within that industry because as we're moving now into the future of work you know technology is very quickly replacing people you know especially artificial intelligence it's threatening a lot of jobs like writing and recruiting and connecting you know with people so we need to look at how you know the industry that you're going into has got the potential to go beyond that you know technological capacity what can you bring as a human you know that no technology or anyone could replace you you know if you were to go into it why do you think some people fail in some careers I think one of the main drivers I think for for people is money and when you do anything solely because of money then it will never work and the reason people fail I think the biggest reason is because they have felt aligned identity with their work because we spend a third of our lives you know in work so a very big proportion of it you know needs to feel fulfilled and it can only be fulfilled if you're you understand you know what what you like authentically inside you know and then you know go into a career but then the reality is that most people then you know just jump in and figure it out explore and then we'll work it out you know in hindsight I guess that's what life's about now let's talk about working from home in the future do you think most people will work from home I think it's just it definitely seems that way anyway you know after the pandemic you know hybrid working is becoming more common and a lot of organizations are offering fully remote working now which a lot of people like but there are also people who like human interactions like connections you know people who live by themselves or you know just need some accountability so being amongst people could be a good thing but I think if technology were to replace you know a lot of the work you know then people would actually eventually do more remote work and finally what are the disadvantages of working from home well I guess it's the disconnection you know from from people but also not getting accountability for your work because I think working from home requires us to have some a sense of agency you know and some level of organization which some people might not have so we're dealing with different personalities here and I think if we were to ask people what they prefer then there's a better chance you know for like either remote or not remote work to work that's the end of the speaking test well done right I hope you enjoyed that band nine performance what you should do now is watch one of these videos if you want to compare band nine with a band eight performance click on this video or if you want to know why that was band nine and exactly what you can do to improve to the score that you need click on this video where I'll explain the key differences between lower bands and higher bands