 Hey Chris here from IELTS Advantage and in IELTS Speaking Test there are a certain number of phrases that students think are helping them but they are actually lowering their score and what I'm going to do in this video is reveal to you these overused phrases so that you can stop using them and I'm also going to show you what you can do instead and it's a really simple change that can mean the difference between you being stuck at a 6 or 6.5 and moving up to a band 7 8 or 9 because band 8 and 9 students especially never really use these phrases and band 6 band 5 students use them all the time so that tells you what the examiners are listening out for and what the examiners are going to either penalize you on or reward you for and what we're also going to do is show you exactly what you can do instead to improve not only just your phrasing and your answers but how to prepare better and more effectively for the IELTS Speaking Test so without further ado let's look at what these overused phrases are so that you can stop using them so what is the big mistake that a lot of students make in their speaking test it's overusing fillers and memorized sentences so if you don't know what that means let's look at some examples so here are some examples of memorized fillers and these are just examples there are lots more of these this is just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about so it's not just limited to these examples so starting off your answer with that's an interesting question or I'm glad you asked me that question I've never thought about that before but if I had to give an answer I would say so starting your answer in that way it is my personal opinion that I am of the opinion that it depends on so as I said these are just some examples of memorized sentences that students mostly use at the beginning of their answers so why are these such a problem the examiners know that you have memorized these answers they know for a fact that these are not natural normal answers it does not matter how good your grammar and vocabulary is memorized answers do not count so the main reason why students memorize these answers is because they think that the grammar is good the vocabulary is good they might have practiced very hard to make sure that the pronunciation is good on the fluency is good for these answers so they think that these answers will really boost their score and help them get a good score it won't the examiners know for a fact that these are memorized they've heard them a thousand times before and they do not count towards your score for pronunciation for vocabulary for grammar for fluency it's like you didn't say them at all and also you're answering the question in a very unnatural way it might sound silly but lots of students I've I've said to why are you doing IELTS test or what's your name or where do you come from and they say that's a very interesting question if you met someone for the first time and you were talking to them and they asked your name would you ever say that's an interesting question or I'm glad you answered what's you how old are you I'm glad you asked that question you would never do that in a in a natural conversation so why would you do it in the IELTS test and this is especially true for parts one and two so parts one and two you shouldn't be using these phrases at all part one is just general every day familiar topics like and talk about yourself so things like your work and your study where you're from your likes and dislikes so general everyday things you would never say no one has ever asked me that question before but if I had to say or in my opinion I am from blah blah blah wherever you're from you would just never use these phrases for normal everyday conversation part two you have a minute to prepare before you start talking so there is no need for you to use these questions you're just using up time that would be better spent actually answering the question directly so when is it acceptable to use these phrases so these fillers and memorize sentences can be used in very limited circumstances so I tell my students sometimes and it's only sometimes when you need a couple of seconds to think so maybe the question in part three is very very difficult and you don't know straight away how to answer it you just need a couple of seconds so you could use a filler such as I've never thought about that before but if I had to say or something like that but it should only be in part three and it should only be for questions that you can't think of an answer for so you might only use it once in the entire 15 minutes of the test it shouldn't be a habit you really are giving your opinion so lots of students say in my opinion or using in my personal opinion or something like that a memorized sentence like that and then they don't give their opinion so you're showing the examiner one that you've memorized the answer and two that you don't know how to use the memorized answer think about the function that you're using it for so if someone said in my opinion and then they start talking about someone else's opinion then that's not your opinion or if you said something like some people say that which is talking about what other people think and then you give your opinion that's not using a correct function so you're going to lose marks because you're not using it correctly so so if you're not going to answer the question directly and you're going to start your sentence with something like in my opinion make sure you're using the correct it correctly you really don't know much about the question so this is probably the only time that I ever advise my students to use a filler or a memorized question or something like that so it's in part three only in part three when they ask you something that you have never thought about and you really have no idea then it would be okay to say something like I know nothing about this topic but if I had to say something I would say this or I've never thought about this question before and I don't really know much about it then you could say this but again only when this happens to you you should not begin every single question with I've never thought about this before or I don't really know so what can you do instead practice your speaking don't memorize answers so don't sit with a list of memorized answers and try and perfect these you won't get any marks for them you'll sound really unnatural and you'll probably mess them up anyway you won't use them correctly instead it is a speaking test it is a skill you have to practice a skill practice your speaking don't memorize answers answer the questions directly there's no need to put in my opinion or all of these things before the answer before you actually answer the question just answer the question directly that's what the examiner wants wants to hear they want to hear you answering the question they want to hear you talking read lots of students use these memorized answers when it would be better if they were reading what does reading do it helps you understand a topic it helps you understand vocabulary it is the best way to improve your vocabulary it improves your grammar it really improves everything so that when you go into the speaking test you're confident that you have enough language and also listen listening will help you with your grammar and vocabulary just like reading but it will also help you with your pronunciation with your fluency because you'll be listening to how native english speakers talk in real life and you'll be able to copy them and practice using that listening so now that you know which phrases to avoid and you know how to improve your speaking it's probably a good idea for you to see what a real band age student looks like and listen to their performance and listen to the feedback that i gave them so what i'm going to do is put a link to a video up there and you can watch and listen to a real band age student and listen to their answers they're not using fillers they're not using memorized phrases they're just answering the questions naturally so click on the video and you can see what they did