IELTS Speaking Test 001: Weekends, Jobs and Skills

Part 1

The examiner asks the candidates about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.

Weekends

• I usually spend my Saturday working at home and have brunch with my friend. On Sunday, I tend to do my laundry and grocery shopping. In the afternoon, I just watch movies or play computer games.
• Saturday lunch time is my favorite part because my friend and I try different restaurants in our area. We both work at home and we barely go out during weekdays. It is the highlight not just that day but also the whole week.
• Not really since during Saturday, I still work until evening and on Sunday morning, I do my laundry so I can only have my free time around Sunday afternoon.
• It is really important for it gives the person’s rest not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. Our body requires rest if one fails to rest and continue to work without resting especially during weekend, this person can burned out. For example, I was exhausted both physically and I just wanted to quit that time because we are  we were not allowed to take our rest-day for three weeks. That is the reason why people should take a rest especially during weekends to recharge themselves on the next working week.

Part 2

• You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes.
• One minute to think about what you are going to day.
• Make some notes to help you if you wish. 

Gordon Ramsay is a celebrity chef and can cook really well. I started to watch his cooking videos and I was amazed on how fast and easy it seems for him to cool.

I never personally met the guy but a friend of a friend did met him once.

He really knows how to cook and the way he prepare food is so simple. When I watch his videos his knife handling is really superb, like a hot knife through butter. It seems so simple for him while other people struggle. For instance, I tried to cook my own steak while watching his video instruction, I followed how he does it but he is so fast and efficient that I cannot follow him.

Part 3

Skills and Abilities

• The skills that most people want to have are engineering skills and programming skills. Most parents nowadays are aiming their children to focus on STEM as it has the most high paying jobs for the next couple of decades. Once one can acquire the said skills, they can get a good paying job even at the entry level. The ability to learn fast or to adapt to different situation are also desirable as the faster you learn the faster you can apply which in turn makes money. The ability to adapt is to connecting to different network of people.
• When it comes at home, housekeeping and maintenance are the skills a child should learn at home. This is a ground foundation to any jobs. For example, cooking and preparing food is a skill that will apply at work such as cook or chef. Skills from gardening is a stepping stone for agriculture. Maintenance such as how to fix appliances will help them learn how to troubleshoot other things from mechanical to problem solving problem at work.
• Children should acquire the skills of reading and communication skills at school. Access to different reading materials and expert for questions are all available at school while learning how to talk to fellow students or superior is how you train a child how to talk in workplace.
• Skills involving problem solving and analytical will be much more important in the future. As technology grows, a lot of avenue opens for new discovery. Newer discovery requires people to solve problems. For example, after the discovery of black hole in recent years open the opportunity to explore the cosmos. People with analytical skills and can solve difficult math problem are required to explore the frontier.

Salaries for Skilled people

• Jobs in the STEM and banking industry have the highest salary in my country. Since our country is developing, more investors are investing on infrastructure does the demand for engineers, IT including medical advancement. With the same reason, more banks and financial institution are opening to support this demand. This high demands requires higher standard thus having a good compensation for employees in these industries.
• People who clean septic tank only get USD 4 per day, however they are required to clean septic tanks. It seems that the hazard, and danger does not commensurate to their daily rate. Another job that should be given more monetary incentives are teachers. Competent teachers are living the country due to low rate thus the government needs to incentivize teachers so don’t leave the country.
• The concept of universal income has been a topic by many especially in the US. In my two cents, universal income should not be applied. Salary is equal to the job role , including experience and plus job risks and responsibility. For example, a CEO whose main role is to keep the business running with a decent growth and required to have a higher qualification, thus needs to be rewarded for a higher pay. However, if the business failed the CEO should do the legal things to save the company and also to pay all the severance of all employee. Compare to a receptionist whose job requires only basic experience and not required to have the same credential as the CEO. If the business belly up the receptionist is not require to do anything. Therefore, having a same salary should not be pushed.

Source: Cambridge IELTS 10 – Test 01

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Ian

Ian Tanpiuco is an ESL and virtual assistant. With a decade of experience, he has become an expert in his field. Dedicated to helping others achieve their goals, Ian works tirelessly in the classroom or as a virtual assistant.