IELTS speaking Part 1: the introduction, 54 questions on 15 topics with short band 7 answers, what to avoid

Where is your hometown?

I am from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, which is about forty minutes from Vijayawada. It is a mid-sized city best known for its red chillies; the Guntur chilli market is one of the largest in Asia, so the whole town smells of it in February.

What do you like most about your hometown?

Mostly the food and the pace of life. You can get a proper breakfast of pesarattu and ginger chutney for forty rupees at six in the morning, and nobody is in a hurry, which I miss now that I live in Hyderabad.

Is there anything you dislike about it?

The summer heat, honestly. From April to June it crosses 42 degrees, and the power cuts in the older parts of town make it worse. I also wish it had a proper library, because I had to study for my entrance exams in a coaching centre instead.

Has your hometown changed since you were a child?

A lot. When I was in school the bypass road did not exist, so the whole city was one traffic jam. Now there are flyovers, a couple of malls and a lot of new flats on the Amaravati side, although many of them are empty because the capital project stalled.

Do you live in a house or a flat?

A flat, on the seventh floor of a building in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. It is a two-bedroom place I share with two colleagues; the best thing about it is the balcony, which faces the hills, and the worst is the lift, which breaks down about once a month.

Which is your favourite room in your home?

The kitchen, which surprises people because I am not much of a cook. It is the only room with a big window, so in the evenings I sit at the counter with tea and my laptop. My flatmates have started calling it my office.

Would you like to move to a different home in the future?

Yes, eventually I would like a small house with a garden, probably back in Nagpur where my parents are. A flat is convenient for work now, but I grew up with mango trees in the compound and I want my children to have that too.

What do you do? Do you work or are you a student?

I work. I am a process associate at a US healthcare BPO in Noida, on the night shift, handling insurance claims. I have been there for two and a half years, and before that I did a BCom from Lucknow University.

Why did you choose this job?

To be honest, it chose me; it was the first offer I got on campus. But I have stayed because the company pays for certifications, and I have cleared two in medical coding, which is what I actually want to do long term.

What is a typical day at work like for you?

My shift starts at 6.30 in the evening, so I wake up around one in the afternoon. At work I process around sixty claims, and the hardest part is the calls with US hospitals at two in the morning, when they are busy and I am sleepy.

What are you studying, and why did you choose it?

I am in the final year of a BSc in nursing at a college in Mangaluru. I chose it partly because my aunt is a nurse in Ireland and partly because I wanted a degree that leads straight to a job, which in Karnataka nursing does.

Do you prefer studying in the morning or at night?

Night, without question. My hostel is noisy till ten, but after eleven it is quiet and I can concentrate for three hours at a stretch. The problem is the eight o'clock lectures the next day, which I tend to sleep through.

What was your favourite subject at school?

Geography, mainly because of one teacher, Mrs Nair, who used to bring newspaper cuttings about floods and cyclones to class. I still remember learning about the Western Ghats from her, which is odd for a nursing student, but I enjoy watching documentaries about rivers even now.

Do you think your subject will be useful in the future?

Very. Nursing is one of the few degrees where the demand abroad is real rather than hoped for; the UK, Ireland and the Gulf are all recruiting from India. I also think that even if I stay here, private hospitals in Bengaluru now pay reasonably well for ICU-trained nurses.

What do you do in your free time?

I play badminton two or three evenings a week at a club near my office in Pune, and on Sundays I mostly cook. Badminton started as a way to lose weight, but now it is the only hour of the day when I do not look at my phone.

Did you have a hobby as a child?

Yes, I collected stamps, which sounds very old-fashioned now. My grandfather worked in the postal department in Shimla and brought home envelopes from all over the world, so by Class 8 I had about four hundred stamps in two albums. I still have them.

Do you think people have enough free time these days?

Not really, at least not in cities. Most of my friends in Gurugram spend two hours a day just commuting, and after work they are too tired for anything except scrolling. I think we have free time, but not the energy to use it well.

Is there a hobby you would like to take up?

I would love to learn the guitar. My cousin plays and makes it look easy, and I have been promising myself for two years that I will join a class. The honest reason I have not is that practising in a shared flat annoys everyone.

Who are you closest to in your family?

My elder sister, Deepika, who is six years older than me. She practically brought me up because our parents both worked, and even now she is the first person I call when something goes wrong, before my mother, which my mother does not like.

Do you spend much time with your family?

Less than I would like. I live in Chennai for work and my parents are in Madurai, so I see them once a month, usually a weekend. We do speak every evening on a video call, though, which is mostly my mother checking whether I have eaten.

Who does most of the household work in your family?

My mother, if I am honest, although my father has started cooking since he retired last year. He is enthusiastic rather than good, so Sunday lunch is now an adventure. My brother and I handle the shopping and the bills.

Do you have many friends?

A small group rather than many. There are four of us from engineering college in Bhopal who still meet every few months, and a couple of colleagues I would call friends. I would rather have five people I can call at midnight than fifty I only see on Instagram.

What do you usually do with your friends?

Mostly eat. We have a rule that whoever gets a promotion pays for dinner, so we have been to a lot of restaurants this year. When we have a long weekend we drive to somewhere like Pachmarhi and do very little.

Are old friends more important than new ones?

I think they are different rather than more important. Old friends know your whole story, so you do not have to explain yourself. New friends, like the people I met at my current job, know who I am now, which is sometimes more useful.

What is your favourite food?

Biryani, and specifically my mother's mutton biryani from Hyderabad, which takes her the whole of Sunday morning. I have tried about twenty restaurants in Bengaluru and none of them gets the rice right; it is either too dry or too oily.

Do you cook?

A little, mostly out of necessity since I moved to a hostel. I can manage dal, rice, a basic chicken curry and surprisingly good omelettes. Anything that needs more than four ingredients I order from outside.

Is eating out common in your town?

In Indore, yes, very. The city is known for its street food, and Sarafa Bazaar turns into a food market every night from nine until past midnight. Families go out two or three times a week, which is more than in most Indian cities.

Do you prefer home-cooked food or restaurant food?

Home-cooked, most days, because I know exactly what is in it and it does not sit heavily. But I would not want to give up restaurants completely; eating out is how I meet friends, so for me it is about company more than food.

How often do you use your mobile phone?

Far too often; my screen-time report says about five hours a day. Some of that is work, because our team runs on WhatsApp, but a good two hours is YouTube and cricket scores. I have started leaving it in another room at night.

Which apps do you use the most?

WhatsApp, Google Maps and PhonePe, in that order. Maps is the one I would struggle without, because I drive for work across Ahmedabad and the traffic routing saves me at least half an hour a day.

Do you think children should have smartphones?

Not before secondary school, in my view. My nephew is nine and already struggles to sit through a meal without a screen. A basic phone for calls makes sense for safety, but a smartphone with games and reels is too much for that age.

Is there any technology you would like to learn to use?

I would like to get properly comfortable with AI tools like ChatGPT for my work in accounts, beyond the basic questions I ask it now. My company is clearly moving that way, and I would rather learn it early than be the last person in the office who cannot.

What time do you usually get up?

On weekdays around 5.45, because my office bus leaves at 6.40 and there is no later one. On Sundays I happily sleep until nine. My mother thinks that is lazy; I think it is recovery.

What is the busiest part of your day?

The two hours between four and six in the evening, when the school I teach at closes. I have to finish marking, deal with parents waiting at the gate, and catch the 6.15 bus. By seven I am usually asleep on the bus.

Are you a punctual person?

Yes, almost to a fault; I reach everywhere fifteen minutes early and then wait. It comes from my father, who was in the Army and treated 9 o'clock as 8.50. It does make Indian weddings difficult, because nothing starts on time.

Would you like to change your daily routine?

I would like to move my exercise from evening to morning, because by evening I always find an excuse. I have tried twice this year and lasted about ten days each time, so clearly I need a friend to go with.

Do you like travelling?

Very much, but I prefer two or three long trips a year to many short ones. Last year my wife and I spent ten days in Meghalaya, which was the first time either of us had seen the North East, and we are already planning Sikkim.

Where did you go on your last holiday?

Goa, in January, with four friends from college. It was less about the beaches than about finally sitting together without anyone's manager calling. We rented scooters and ate fish at a shack in Palolem every single evening.

Do you prefer travelling alone or with others?

With one or two people, ideally. Alone I get bored by the second day, and in a large group every decision takes an hour. My brother is the perfect travel partner because he plans the trains and I plan the food.

What is the weather like in your city?

Hot and humid for most of the year; I am from Kolkata, so from March to October it is like living in a steam room. The two months I really enjoy are December and January, when it drops to about fifteen degrees and the whole city goes out for picnics.

Do you prefer hot or cold weather?

Cold, definitely, though I have never lived anywhere properly cold. I did a winter trip to Manali two years ago and loved the snow for exactly three days, after which I could not feel my feet. So perhaps I prefer the idea of cold weather.

Does the weather affect your mood?

Yes, the monsoon in Mumbai does. The first week of rain in June makes everyone cheerful, and by August, when the trains stop and the roads flood, everyone is miserable. I would say my mood follows the local train timetable more than the sky.

Do you enjoy shopping?

For groceries and vegetables, yes; for clothes, not at all. I like the Sunday market near my flat in Jaipur because you can argue about the price of tomatoes with people you have known for years. Clothes shopping I finish online in ten minutes.

Do you prefer shopping online or in shops?

Online for anything standard, like books or electronics, because the prices are better and the reviews are useful. For shoes and sarees I still go to a shop, since the colour on the screen is never the colour that arrives.

Are you good at saving money?

Better than I used to be. In my first job I spent everything by the twentieth of the month, so last year I set up an automatic transfer of ten thousand rupees into a recurring deposit on salary day. If I cannot see it, I do not spend it.

Is there something you bought recently that you regret?

A treadmill, in February. It cost twenty-two thousand rupees and it has been a very expensive clothes stand since March. I should have joined the gym near my office, which would have cost a tenth of that.

What kind of music do you listen to?

Mostly old Hindi film songs, which is unusual for someone who is 26. My father played Kishore Kumar in the car every morning on the way to school in Dehradun, and now I play the same songs while I cook. Lately I have also got into Punjabi hip-hop, thanks to my flatmate.

Did you learn to play an instrument as a child?

I learnt the tabla for about four years, from a teacher who came to our house in Varanasi every Saturday. I was never very good, but it gave me a sense of rhythm that still helps when I dance at weddings. I stopped when board exams started.

Do you prefer listening to music alone or with others?

Alone, with headphones, because that is when I actually listen rather than just hear it. With friends music is background for talking. The only exception is live concerts; I saw Arijit Singh in Mumbai last year and that was better in a crowd.

Do you like reading?

I do, though less than I claim to. I read on my phone on the Metro, mostly non-fiction about business and history, and I finish about one book a month. The last one was a biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, which I picked up because my MBA professor kept quoting it.

What kind of books did you read as a child?

Comics, mostly Tinkle and Chacha Chaudhary, which my grandfather bought me from the station bookstall in Patna. In Class 7 a teacher gave me Malgudi Days, and that was the first proper book I finished. I still reread it every couple of years.

Do you think children read less than before?

Fewer books, certainly, but they probably read more words than we did, just on screens. My niece reads long stories on a Wattpad-type app every night. I think the worry should be about attention, not reading; a ten-minute reel habit is the real competitor to a novel.

Do you play any sport?

Cricket, every Sunday morning on a ground in Vashi with a group of about fifteen people who have never missed a week in three years. I am a bowler, not a very fast one, and I bat at number nine, which tells you everything.

Which sport is most popular in your country, and why?

Cricket, by a huge margin, mostly because of history and television. Every lane in India has a cricket game going because you need only a bat, a ball and a wall. Football and kabaddi have grown with the new leagues, but nothing comes close to an India-Pakistan match.