突破雅思口语瓶颈之面对抽象话题无从下口

There are many topics and questions in IELTS Oral English that gives candidates a hard time to tackle or give impressive answers. Most of them would blame these facts to their inadequate oral English ability or lack of vocabulary. However, after teaching for many years, I found out that this happens not only because of very poor English but also because the candidates does not have knowledge about the topic or know little information about it. Below were some headaching questions of IELTS Oral English and some suggestions on how to answer them.

Q: Is result more important than process when you pursue success?

This topic is hard to discuss because most of the students are young and does not have enough social experience in life so they can not differentiate the difference between result and process.

Basically, result is actually the ending of anything you do, and there are only two choices you can choose from either good result or bad result. Most of the people who have high positions in companies would only care for result such as the total sales of their products in a month or did they reach their sales quota at the end of the year. These people would not care how hard was it to sell , like if its raining and their employees have to go to their clients to explain the products of the company or to wait for long hours to cue up to be able to see an important boss to make sales. They would only look at the numbers in each chart for total sales and base the staff performance on this result. However, there are some who would think that process is important to be able to have a good result. For them, in the vast majority of cases, process is way more important than results. Unlike results, process is repeatable, measurable and improvable. They think that to be able to achieve an excellent result, one should go through harsh process and terrible experiences They believe that without process and its documentation, it is difficult to know what made the outcome of a project good or bad. For example, if an employee works very hard day in and day out and his aim is definite then most probably he would have an excellent result in the end. Plus, some people would learn each day from the process he has and gain adequate knowledge and experiences from it. Therefore, with these things gathered together, these people would definitely achieve success in the right time.

Sample answer:

Personally, I choose process over result as I read in one article that says: “When the outcome drives the process we will only go to where we’ve already been. If process drives the outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.”

Q: Are there any communication differences between males and females?

One hundred percent of my students in my class gave me a blank facial expression when I asked them about this question. It made me think for a while why they did not have any reply, then after thinking for a short time I came to a conclusion. It is because they do not know that there are differences or they did not even think that there are communication differences between males and females. Actually, the main reason is simply because men and women got differences in interests and topics. If you would observe, men tend to talk about masculine topics when they gather together. Most of the time, they talk about extravagant cars , sports, and how to make themselves more muscular which shows that they care about the things about manhood while women are usually concerned about how to be feminine and how to look good. Women are more interested about fashion, cosmetics and shopping which are the things that can make them look better that is why there is a communication differences between the two of them. And also, how they express themselves are also different, a male person usually got more direct way of expressing their thought and opinion as they do not care much about the feeling of the listener. In contrast, a female person tries to be modest and tact with how she relays her views and she would have more expressive ways while communicating with others. Another fact is, males are more objective in the way they think and speaking. They try to weigh things over objectively and they would consider all possible factors

On the other hand, females are more focus on the emotional aspect and sometimes, not paying attention to things, or should say they aren't too objective because they are more of "feeling people".

Sample answer:

There are times that I find conversing with males quite difficult as we have nothing incommon. As a female, when I go shopping, I care more about the quantity of the things that I buy and males would usually choose quality. Men are after brand names to prove the thing they buy has good quality so the more expensive, the better they think the product is .While for me, I am after brands too but if things look nice and pretty then that would be an exception.

Q: Why are some famous people remembered for a long time and others forgotten quickly?

Students may know many things about their movie star or sports idols, they spend hours surfing the internet for related news about them or read gossip magazines to catch the latest updates of these famous people. However, if there is a new star ,they easily forgets the one they idolizes before that is why student would never analyze why some famous people are remembered for a long time and others are forgotten quickly. Fame is build with various reasons and abilities. For some, they are not remembered for a long time because the fame was given to them since birth, they do not have to work hard or strive for it. These are those who belonged to celebrity families, those who do not have any talent or special capability that can let them obtain a long time of being famous. They just rely heavily on the fame of their family members and make the most out of it. In contrast, others are always remembered for a long time because they try their best to improve their craft and make themselves competitive as the time goes by. These people try to do the best they can out of their fame as they believe that being famous is not forever. Another reason is that their attitude towards fame is different. Some just splurge their earnings in buying luxury houses and cars or they would show off their fame by fooling around in bars and discos. Thus, makes them less competitive from others so its very easy for them to lose fame.

Sample answer:

I think some famous people are not remembered for a long time because they do not know how to cherish the blessings and the fame that they have. Instead of cultivating themselves, they would rather show off their fortune or be very arrogant of what they have. Being famous is not a long lasting thing so famous people should learn to strike while the iron is hot and try their best to maintain the popularity they have as it will not be forever.