Transcription
So, let's start off by talking about food. What's your favorite food? Um, I really love Asian food cuz I live in England, so it's harder to get Asian food around, but I like spicy, flavorful, and like just generally savory food.
Do you cook a lot at home? Not as much as I would like to. I would love to cook more cuz I actually enjoy the process of cooking, but I just cook out of convenience and like cuz um every day I've got to, you know, make sure I get my work done and then cook for my kids, which um takes a lot of time. Sometimes we get takeaway, but they like it, you know.
What are popular takeaway meals in your local area? Fish and chips. It's a favorite with everyone. So, you know, that's an easy option, but um generally because of my own preference, I love, you know, just to get Thai and Vietnamese. You know, this is something that I could, you know, just get around my local area. It's very easily sourced.
How often do you eat fast food? I try to eat really healthily, but then I tend to go down the filio fish, McDonald's uh route when I'm traveling. So, I suppose only once every few months.
Now, let's talk about seasons of the year. What's your favorite season of the year? Well, um I love anytime when the sun starts to come out. So, around spring or early summer before it gets too hot, you know, I just love a little bit of vitamin D and it makes me happier as well. So, that is um definitely better than the winter.
What do you do when it gets too hot in the summer? Hide. I tend to also, you know, go into any kind of buildings with air conditioning and I have to fan on every night when it's really hot. So, yeah, when it gets really hot in the summer, you know, I really need a lot of like fans and, you know, kind of just anything I can hold with me when I go out as well.
At what time of year do you normally go on holiday? I try to go outside of the um school holiday season, but because I have kids, you know, we tend to have to go during, you know, the the you know, when when there's term breaks, you know, when when the school breaks. But, um my favorite time of going away would be during Christmas, you know, cuz um I much prefer to be in a warmer climate when it's really really cold. So, yeah, this is just that time before or after Christmas.
Have you ever been on holiday somewhere very cold? Yes, I love Norway. You know, it it was um amazing. It was just everything was like a picture perfect postcard, you know. You could see the fields in the distance and the what you call them icebergs. Um it was an experience, you know, and to ri to to ride the husky sled, you know, was also an amazing experience for me.
Now, let's talk about clothes. Where do you buy most of your clothes? I would like to do, you know, clothes shopping in the shop, but the reality is most of us do it online now, you know, and I um get my clothes from Zara and ASOS cuz I just love the hip and trendy but also timeless look.
How often do you buy clothes for yourself? I buy it more often than I should because I use online shopping and clothes shopping as a form of you know like dopamine hit for me. So it's it's um for me I I love to express myself through my clothes. So um because of that then I need to find different clothes for different occasion very often.
Have you always had the same taste in clothes? No, I have not. Um cuz I see myself as um different identities throughout my life, you know, before I became a mom, during and then also after when work became something that I could express myself, you know, true. So yeah, I've I've had different fashion tastes, you know, throughout the ages.
Now, let's talk about social media. Which social media sites do you use? I use uh Instagram and LinkedIn because I feel like um I run a business and that's where my target audience are. You know, I build a community through Instagram and then on LinkedIn it's where I work on my business to business um leads.
How much time do you spend on social media? Way too much. I shouldn't be spending so much time but I find that it is um once you visit you know social media and you post something it's also about engaging with people to ensure that you know you build relationships. So yeah a couple of hours a day.
Is there anything you dislike about social media? I dislike the addictive quality about it you know because so many of us are connected you know through a tablet or a device now and social media is our form of communication. So it's becoming even though it seems like you're being connected to loads and loads of people, the actual quality of your relationships with your immediate sphere, you know, kind of, you know, kind of falls by the side. So yeah, that's one bad side to it.
That's the end of part one of the speaking test. So now we're going to move on to part two of the speaking test. I'm going to give you a Q card. You'll have one minute to read the Q card and prepare your answer. Feel free to make any notes during that 1 minute. At the end of the 1 minute, I'll let you know and I'll ask you to speak for up to 2 minutes. Is that all clear? Of course. Okay. Here is your Q card and I'll start the 1 minute preparation time. Here's a pen if you want to make any notes.
So, please speak for up to two minutes on this topic, please.
Okay. So, a job that I really enjoyed is being a speaker and a storyteller. And I love doing this job now because when I was growing up, I love writing little stories and, you know, just connecting with people and having conversations. But I never thought that I could become a speaker one day. Um, I started my career, you know, in STEM and then ventured through 16 different industries cuz I didn't really know where in the world of work I fitted into. But eventually I realized that all this became really useful for me to gain all the skills that I needed, you know, in communication and brought it all together in a field that I was deeply passionate about. That allowed me to channel what I really love about my work and a topic that I love, you know, to make a difference in people's lives. Being a speaker is the perfect place to do this because you could influence people's thoughts and inspire positivity in people's lives, which is something that you could do in other places, but the impact is so much more immediate and you are affecting people in such a big way and affecting a bigger audience as well whilst you're doing it. And this is something that I'm very lucky to be able to do now. And I don't take it for granted and know that the journey for me to get here has been really long. But um I'm deeply grateful for being given this opportunity. And why I like it also is that to be able to connect with people in in in a topic that is so personal about me mental health and well-being. you know, we're in some way or other, you know, we're all struggling um in life. But thank you very much. That's the end of the two. Thank you. I could have gone on. You could.
So, now we're going to move on to part three of the speaking test and we're going to continue to talk about careers. What factors do you think are important when choosing a career? I think it's really really important that we are interested in what we're doing and because if you're not interested then it is there's absolutely no chance that you're going to be able to have longevity in that career. We should also choose an industry where there's a potential for you to really grow within that industry because as we're moving now into the future of work, you know, technology is very quickly replacing people, you know, especially artificial intelligence, it's threatening a lot of jobs like writing and recruiting and connecting, you know, with with people. So we need to look at how you know the industry that you're going into has got the potential to go beyond that you know technological capa capacity. What can you bring as a human you know that no technology or anyone could replace you you know if you were to go into it.
Why do you think some people fail in some careers? I think one of the main drivers I think for for people is money and when you do anything solely because of money then it will never work. And the reason people fail I think the biggest reason is because they have failed to align their identity with their work cuz we spend a third of our lives you know in work. So a very big proportion of it you know needs to feel fulfilled and you can only be fulfilled if you're you understand you know what what you like authentically inside you know and and then you know go into a career but then the reality is that most people then you know jump in and figure it out explore and then we work it out you know in hindsight I guess that's what life's about.
Now let's talk about working from home in the future. Do you think most people will work from home? I think it's just it definitely seems that way anyway you know after the pandemic you know hybrid working is becoming more common and a lot of organizations are offering fully remote working now which a lot of people like but there are also people who like human interactions like connections you know people who live by themselves or you know just need some accountability. So being amongst people could be a good thing but I think if technology would to replace you know a lot of the work you know then people would actually eventually do more remote work.
And finally what are the disadvantages of working from home? Well, I guess it's the disconnection, you know, from from people, but also not getting accountability for your work because I I think working from home requires us to have some a sense of agency, you know, and some level of organization, which um some people might not have. So, we're dealing with different personalities here. And I think if we were to ask people what they prefer, then there's a better chance, you know, for like either remote or not, not remote work to work.
That's the end of the speaking test. Well done. Right. I hope you enjoyed that band N performance. What you should do now is watch one of these videos. If you want to compare band N with a band 8 performance, click on this video. Or if you want to know why that was band nine and exactly what you can do to improve to the score that you need, click on this video where I'll explain the key differences between lower bands and higher bands.