The IELTS Speaking test has two parts. In part 1, the examiner will first introduce themselves and ask you to confirm your own identity. They will then ask you some general questions on familiar topics such as home, family, work, studies and interests.

When practising, you and your study partner might like to start off with similar introductions to set the scene. Then your partner can interview you using the part 1 questions below.

How to practise IELTS Speaking part 1

Your study partner can either read the prompt questions from a screen or print them out beforehand. Try and answer clearly and naturally. It’s a good idea to record yourself so you can listen back to your answers later.

An easy reminder…

  • How long is IELTS Speaking part 1?
    You should spend 4 - 5 minutes on this part of the test.
  • How many questions are there in IELTS Speaking part 1?
    We’ve included two speaking topics, each with four questions, so 8 questions in total. This is a fair indication of what to expect in part 1 of your official IELTS Speaking test.

Speaking practice test - part 1 questions

Topic Questions
Your home town or village What kind of place is it?
What’s the most interesting part of your town/village?
What kind of jobs do the people in your town/village do?
Would you say it’s a good place to live? (Why?)
Your accommodation Tell me about the kind of accommodation you live in?
How long have you lived there?
What do you like about living there?
What sort of accommodation would you most like to live in?

Listening to the audio

We’ve included audio recordings and transcripts for each part of the IELTS Speaking test to give you an understanding of what it will be like to interact with an examiner on test day.

This is the audio recording for part 1. The answers here are not model answers so don’t try to copy them. Instead, focus on your own answers.

You can read the transcript of the audio to check any words that you did not understand. Do you think that this candidate performed well? Think about how you can improve your own Speaking test.

Transcript of the audio file

Examiner Now, in this first part, I’d like to ask you some more questions about yourself, OK?
Let’s talk about your home town or village. What kind of place is it?
Candidate It’s quite a small village, about 20km from Zurich. And it’s very quiet. And we have only little ... two little shops because most of the people work in Zurich or are orientated to the city.
Examiner What’s the most interesting part of this place ... village?
Candidate On the top of a hill we have a little castle which is very old and quite well known in Switzerland.
Examiner What kind of jobs do people in the village do?
Candidate We have some farmers in the village as well as people who work in Zurich as bankers or journalists or there are also teachers and some doctors, some medicines.
Examiner Would you say it’s a good place to live?
Candidate Yes. Although it is very quiet, it is … people are friendly and I would say it is a good place to live there, yes.
Examiner Let’s move on to talk about accommodation. Tell me about the kind of accommodation you live in ...

Reviewing your Speaking practice test

We recommend completing all three parts of the Speaking practice test before listening back to your own recording.

This will allow you to consider all of your answers together and see how they compare to the audio recording and transcripts provided.

Continue to Part 2
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