IELTS Preparation with Liz: Free IELTS Tips and Lessons, 2024
Hi, I'm Liz. Welcome! Enjoy your IELTS journey to success!
Learn some useful tips for improving and developing your answer to one of the most common questions in IELTS speaking part 1.
In this lesson you will find out what mistake many students make when they answer this question as well as how to create a higher band score answer by adding more information to your answer.
Ideas and vocabulary for a common type of question in IELTS speaking part 3 – How to compare urban and rural life. The ideas and language can also be used in your IELTS writing task 2 essay.
Recommended IELTS Speaking Video Lessons:
How to improve your speaking at home
What’s your favourite…? Part 1 question tips
hello welcome to another IELTS
lesson in this lesson we’re going
to look at a very common topic
for IELTS for the speaking test and that is
the topic of
can you guess it’s the topic of homes and
today I’m standing outside a beautiful
old English country home it’s
really lovely here
now my question for you is from speaking
part 3
so that means it’s going to be more
difficult are you ready for your
question
do you think it is better to live
in the countryside or in
a city I would like you to answer that
question
I want you to take your telephone record
your answer and then
check your answer and see how you
can improve that and please do this
before you continue with the video
because now I’m gonna go to the white
board
and I’m gonna give you some vocabulary
and ideas to improve your
answer so record your answer and I’ll see
you
in a minute here is your question
do you think it’s better to live
in the countryside or in a city
have you recorded your answer I hope so
now let me give you some
ideas for the countryside and
for the city and you need to think of
advantages
to living in one up those places let’s
look
at the countryside and see what
advantages
there are the first one is
of lower pace of life
and this means that life
in the countryside often moves more
slowly
than in the city it’s often
more relaxed less stressful
and some people believe pleasanter
so that’s one benefit to country
life
another advantage is less
pollution and also less noise
the pollution is generally air pollution
now less air pollution and less noise in the
countryside
is because there is less industry
there’s less traffic less building work
than in a city and therefore
it is considered healthier to live
in the countryside so that really is a
a big positive point another
plus point to life in the countryside
and that is stronger communities
now what does that mean exactly
well in the countryside people often
live in a town for their whole life
and families live
in the town generation after generation
and that means that they know each other
very well
and therefore the community is quite
close
and neighbours have a good relationship
with each other
this means that the countryside
often gives people a good support
network
because the community is so close
so that is definitely a plus point
the next advantage now that depends
on which country you live in but
in England for example in the
countryside
houses are cheaper than in a city
so that means that they can have bigger
houses
bigger gardens there’s more space you
remember the beautiful house
from the beginning of the video that was
an English
country house over 150 years old
so the owner of that house couldn’t
have the same building if they lived
in a city so those are four
plus points four advantages to
country life now let’s look at cities
maybe you prefer living in the city
now one
definite advantage about that the city has
over country life is
there are more amenities
in a city what are amentities
well another word for amenities is
facility now the facilities and
amenities
that we’re talking about are things like
better restaurants
better sports facilities more leisure
centres for example
also the transport is better a
the roads are better there are so many
more things that you can do
their cinemas shopping malls opera houses
many many more amenities and
facilities
in a city than living in the countryside
in a small town or village
now let’s check the pronunciation of these
words
the first word is amenity
so that four syllables
A Men I Ty
this is ah ah
sound amenity
here is the stress amenity:
amenities so
singular amenity and plural
amenities the next one
facilities Fa
Cil I Ties
this also is ah fa
and the stress of is here
in the second syllable facilities
so the city has more facilities
and amenities to offer than the
countryside
the next positive point
to city life and that is in the city there
are often
better prospects do you know that word
well prospects often mean opportunities
there are more opportunities for people
in the city
the word prospects we often use with
employment and this means that when
there
are better prospects it means
that it’s easier to get a good job
so there are more jobs available in the
city
more prospects and more opportunities
to do what you want to do
and advance get promotion
and improve your life
the next advantage is very clear
better public transport there are more buses
and
trains and undergrounds in
cities and of course in the countryside
there’s often very little public
transport
people need their own transport to get
around
but in the cities if you don’t have
your own transportation
you can still get around and you can
travel using
public transport and the last
advantage again this depends on which
country you live in
but in many countries there is better
education
in the cities than in the countryside
nearly all universities are in
cities often the facilities
at school in the city
they are better than in the countryside
so for example city schools have better
technology
more laptops and computers and high
technology for their students
and the standard of education is often
higher
better teachers so
there are 4 clear positive points to
city life now before we finish
there’s something I want to tell you about
this question
obviously you need to choose
living in the country or living in
city and when you choose one
you really need to compare it with
the other because when you use
a language of comparison when you give a
comparative
sentence it will help your IELTS
speaking results the examiner does need to
hear
a range up different grammar
so we say less and
more well better
say for example there is less pollution
and noise
in the countryside than in
a city there are often better
prospects for work in a city
compared to the countryside
so remember when you give some ideas that
you need to compare them
now these are only 4 ideas for each one
maybe you’ve got some more ideas if you
have
let me know it’s always good to share
ideas
for IELTS well that’s all for this lesson
I hope that was useful and I will see
you again
in another IELTS lesson
here are some more useful IELTS lessons
to help you prepare for your IELTS test
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Google+ or Twitter
Practice lessons and tips for IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions. These types of questions appear often in the IELTS reading test. They require you to locate information in a reading passage and decide on the best answer option from a given list. They are easier than they seem.
There are different kinds of multiple choice questions.
A. Multiple Choice Question: a question to answer
What is the most important task ahead?
- A organising information
- B informing people of decisions
- C collecting data
As you see, you are given a question with three possible answers. There are nearly always three options. You must locate the information given in the question, in the passage and then choose the right options as an answer. Each option is a letter. Your answer must be a letter, for example A. If you write words as your answer, it will be marked wrong.
B. Multiple Choice Question: a sentence to complete
Procrastination is problematic because
- A it is a time waster.
- B it damages people’s health.
- C other people are affected by it.
Each of the answer options offers a possible ending to the sentence. You must locate the sentence in the passage and select the right ending. Again, your answer must be a letter or your answer will be marked wrong. Your answer cannot be a word or words.
Below are two reading passages for you to practice Multiple Choice for IELTS Reading. The levels of these passages vary to help you gain familiarity and confidence. Both GT and academic candidates can benefit from these exercises.
An easy introduction to MC questions for you.
All About Rice
The first rice may have been grown in East and South Asia as long as 15,000 years ago, when people began to settle in river deltas and domesticated wild rice. Today it is grown practically everywhere, except Antarctica! Rice is grown on flooded land and on dry land, in tropical rain forests of Africa and in arid deserts of the Middle East, on coastal plains and on the Himalayan mountains.
In the year 2003, the world produced about 589 million tonnes of paddy rice. Most of that (about 534 million tones) was grown in Asia. In 2002, it is estimated that rice fields covered almost 1.5 million square km of land. Again, most of those fields are in Asia – around 1.3 million square km.
Questions 1 – 2: Choose the correct letter (A-C) for your answer.
1. Where is rice grown?
A everywhere
B almost everywhere
C mainly on flood lands and coastal plains
2. In 2002, rice fields covered about ……………
A 1.5 million square miles of land.
B 1.3 million square km of land in China.
C 1.5 million square km of land in the world.
ANSWERS
Click below:
ANSWERS.
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GM Foods
Genetically modified food is produced from plants which have had their genes tweaked in the lab. Scientists “cut and paste” a gene from another organism into a plant’s DNA to give it a new characteristic. This can be to increase yield or to allow the plant to exist in a more hostile environment than normal. Pro-GM scientists say this means cheaper more plentiful food but opponents argue we do not know the consequences of meddling with nature.
Farmers have modified their crops for thousands of years by crossing similar species. However, modern GM is controversial. Critics say the modified crops could “escape” and cross with wild plants, with unknown consequences. They also argue that more chemicals are used on some GM fields which may have a negative impact on wildlife. And while no study has found GM food to be harmful to humans, opponents say it is too soon to be sure.
A group of biotechnology experts say it is time to loosen Europe’s draconian regulations on genetically modified crops. In a report released today they argue that genetically modified crops have been used safely for decades, so no longer need to be automatically treated as unsafe. They also say that genetically modified crops should be reclaimed from multinational companies and treated as a public good.
Questions 1-5: Choose the best answer from A-C.
1. The genetic makeup of GM foods has been………
2. By genetically engineering plants, they are……………
3. One issue with GM plants is the potential to………
4. It is thought, by specialists in biotechnology that policies governing GM crops should be…….
5. GM foods ought to be ……….
ANSWERS
Click below to reveal answers:
AnswersPassage adapted from: BBC News and New Scientist
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ADVICE: GM food topic can appear in IELTS Writing Task 2 and also Speaking Part 3. Always use my reading passages to review language and ideas for other parts of the IELTS Test.
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RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
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Grammar is 25% of your marks in IELTS writing task 2 and to get band score 6 and above, you must have complex sentences. Watch this video to learn how to connect two sentences together to make one complex sentence.
Prepare the questions below by underlining keywords and paraphrasing before you listen to the recording.
Reading City Travel Information
Questions 1-3
Answer using no more than two words and/or a number.
1. How long is the journey from Heathrow to Reading by express bus?
2. On the intercity from Paddington, which stop is Reading?
3. How long is the train journey from London to Reading?
Recording
Answers
You notice that I use all capital letters when I write my answers – this is the best way to write your answers for both reading and listening. See the IELTS Exam FAQ page for more information about IELTS
Learn how to make 4 different complex sentences for a line graph report. It is important to show the examiner that you can make a range of complex sentence structures.
It’s not difficult. You can easily improve your range of complex sentences.
Transcript Hello in this lesson I’m going to show you different complex sentences for a line graph report in IELTS writing it’s very important when you write your body paragraphs for your IELTS task 1 that you have a range of different complex sentences to show now in a previous lesson I showed you how to write a sentence similar to this if you haven’t watched lesson please watch it is very important the sentence so what I’m going to do is the same information and change the order so that we have different let’s have a look at the sentence first the number of people becoming a vegetarian that is our subject it’s quite long after the subject we’ve got the verb and if you look at the dates you can see the past tense after the verb we need to described the movement and that is we say its increased steadily so that’s our adverb after that we had the numbers and after the numbers we had that date so let’s change that a little bit and write the well one way we could change as we could so between 2004 and 2007 the number of people we say becoming vegetarian increased steadily from about 75 to 200 I’ll stop there often when we have a comma after that and then we have the number of people so that’s one way to change it now there are more ways let’s have a look at the next way I’m gonna show you to is can you see this word here increased now that’s a verb but we could also use it as a noun an increase so I’m gonna write a sentence this word as a noun to do that we need there was an increase okay we always start with there was if it so there was and lets stop for a minute because here we’ve got the word steadily which is an adverb now we still want to use that word but because this will be a noun we need as an adjective so if we have an adjective it usually comes before the noun so that means we need to and the form of the word so there was a steady increase so again very important remember if it’s afterwards if it’s a noun you have adjective in front and to steady so there was a steady increase now we need to give this information but to do that we need to use a and the preposition is in so there was a steady increase in the number of people we could say becoming vegetarian if we want to develop that so we’ve got now we need the numbers from about 75 to 200 and what’s missing well the dates are missing got between 2004 sorry 2004 and 2007 so that is another way to structure your sentence and still give all the information we need with the and the dates now there;s one more way that I’d like to show you so let’s have a so the last way I’m gonna show you in is again to use this as an noun but we changed the sentence again so the number of people becoming vegetarian experienced a steady increase so with this sentence we’ve got the verb the number experience the figure we could also say witnessed after the verb we’ve got the noun a steady adjective a steady increase and we got a steady increase from about 75 to 200 between 2004 and 2007 so now we’ve added the numbers and the dates well those are the 4 main complex sentences you can use when you write your line graph report writing task 1 there are other four main ones that you need to practice and perfect which means write without too many mistakes remember the more mistakes you lower your band score will be so please practice writing those well that’s all for this lesson I please remember to press like or share it if it was useful well I’ll see you in another IELTS lesson
how to write
task 1
the examiner
that
that you understand how to make
I’m gonna take this sentence
structures
that it is
sentence in a different way
start with the dates
we put the date first
another way
change that
using
to start with
past tense of course
to use this
change the order
a verb you have the adverb
we change from steadily
preposition first
that
numbers
look
this lesson
structure
experienced
experienced
for IELTS
sentences we can use but they are the
make
sentence structures
hope that was useful for you
with your friends
again
A new topic in IELTS speaking part 1 this year. Learn some useful vocabulary and ideas for the topic of Dictionaries by watching this lesson.
Hi, my name is Elizabeth (Liz). I am your teacher and the author of this website. I am an experienced, qualified English teacher specialising in IELTS test preparation since 2008. Please enjoy the 300 plus pages of free lessons, tips, model answers, topics etc.