IELTS Speaking - 9 Most Common Sentence Patterns

in this video I'll reveal the most common sentence patterns used by Band 7 8 and N students we've used AI to analyze thousands of band 78 and N performances so that you can learn from them and improve your score we'll also be playing a little game throughout the video and if you get enough points you'll win a very special prize at the end so let's start off with question one which of these sentence patterns is the most common for about seven eight and nine students in part one of the speaking test I'm a my role

entails in my professional capacity and I am responsible for final answer the correct answer is a I'm ah so when asked do you work or study which is the most common question that you'll get in part one of the speaking test the most common response from band 7 8 and N students is simply I'm a teacher worker whatever you do but isn't that a little bit too simple for a band 7even eight and N student well let's continue and we'll explain later in the video question two which of these sentence patterns is the most common

for b seven eight and N students in part one of the test I originate from I hail from I'm from I am a product of final answer and the correct answer is I'm from so like question one all of the wrong answers are technically correct the English is absolutely fine but in general students that try and use those more advanced options tend to get a lower score I know that doesn't make any sense right now continue to watch the video and we'll explain why that makes sense and how to improve your score question three which

of these sentence patterns is the most common for about 78 and N students in part one I prefer I like I normally I live in final answer and the correct answer is I like but these are actually all very very common sentence patterns in part one of the speaking test we use I like and I prefer to discuss things that we like doing we use I normally to talk about daily routines and we use I live in to talk about the accommodation that we live in or maybe talk about where we're from again you're probably

extremely surprised that these highlevel students use such simple language it must get more complicated when they start talking in part two of the test let's move on to part two of the test to find out which of these sentence patterns is most used by about s eight and N students in part two two of the I speaking test we went to we were going they had gone we had been going so this is a tricky one would you like to phone a friend we use things called narrative tenses to tell stories about past experiences and

looking at these four options these are all narrative tenses one is past simple one is past continuous one is past perfect and one is past perfect continuous any of these could be used to tell a story about the past but the most common tense among these is past simple so I'm going to go for we went to Final Answer correct so now that we know that it's very common to use narrative tenses in part two let's look at how to use them in question number five which of these sentences is incorrect I went to London

for three years I was watching TV when the phone rang he realized he left his passport at home I've been walking for hours before we find a restaurant final answer and the correct answer is I went to London for 3 years this is very very important because it shows a crucial point about part two of the speaking test it is not about which sentences you use or the range of different tenses that you use it is about choosing a sentence that is appropriate and accurate so in part two you'll be given a range of different

bullet points and the last bullet point the most common one the most popular one will look like this and explain how you felt about that thing so let's move on to question six all about how you feel to thank you for watching in this video I want to give you a free course that has helped thousands of students improve their I speaking score what it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part one part two and part three and also allow you to practice at

home for free and get feedback to sign up for that for free all you have to do is just click the link in the description thanks very much and let's get back to the video which of these sentence patterns would get the highest score I felt sad I was over Moon I have a feeling of overwhelming Joy words cannot describe the depths of my feelings so that's a tricky one do you want to ask the audience audience please pick the correct answer and if you want to play along at home in the comments write A

B C or D so let's look at the results 49% think that it's D 19% C 17 15% a and 15% think it's B so 49% of you are wrong it's wrong for two reasons one you didn't actually answer the question that's not actually saying how you feel about anything and examiners are trained to spot memorized answers this sounds like a memorized answer so you would actually get a lower score rather than a higher score 19% of you are wrong because this is simply the wrong verb tense remember it's not just whether the sentence is

appropriate but it also has to be accurate 15% of you are wrong because this is simply inaccurate it is wrong to say I was over Moon it is I was over the moon if you say to the examiner I was over Moon again you are lowering your score you're not increasing your score because you used some magic idiom and well done to the 17% of you playing at home who got got it correct it answers the question and it is grammatically accurate it is better than all of the others therefore so let's move on to

the final round where we're going to look at part three of the speaking test part three is the most challenging it is the most difficult it has the most difficult questions and requires the most complex answers of the whole test so question seven what was the most common sentence pattern for B 7 eight and N students in part three of the speaking test I totally agree not necessarily it's possible that in my opinion so all of these are very very common but let's look at what they do so I totally agree we use that functional

language to do the job of agreeing with someone not necessarily again the function of that sentence pattern is to disagree with someone it's possible that the function of that is slightly different it's possible that is to consider someone else's opinion and in my opinion you are expressing your opinion and B 78 and N students use this type of language this functional language all the time because it helps them do things they're not thinking about the most advanced pattern to use or the most highlevel structure to use they're thinking what do I want to say and

what sentence pattern helps me do that in other words they're just solely f focused on clearly answering the question and the most common one is to thank you for making it this far in the video I want to give you 10% off our VIP course I VIP course is the most successful I course in the world that is a fact because we have more band seven eight and N success stories than any other I course in the entire world we do that by simplifying the whole I process supporting you with some of the best is

teachers in the world and being with you every step of the way until you get the score that you need all you have to do is just look down in the description just click that and you can sign up if you have any questions about the VIP course always feel free to get in touch with us we answer 100% of the questions that we get hope that you become a VIP if not enjoy the rest of this free video and the most common one is in my opinion because you will be giving your opinion a

lot but you're not done there you can't just give lots and lots of opinions and get a high score you must back it up with explaining your point of view question eight which of these is the most common way b s eight and N students explain things like in other words that is to say that because now all of these are actually fine to use all of them are correct all of them can be used to explain why you believe something is true or why you have that opinion but the most common way is because

to simple well no because because is the most common way native English speakers use that's the most common sentence pattern that they use to explain things would a native English speaker get a low score because they use everyday normal English like because so will you get a ban nine we're down to the final question question nine so you've stated your opinion you've explained that opinion but you need to go even further and there are few few options open for you to help you expand your part three answers even more question nine which of these sentence

patterns is the most common way for band 78 and N students to expand their answer even further in part three on other hand for example to sum up a nutshell you're probably going to need a 50/50 for that one do you want to take a 50/50 computer please take away two wrong aners so they've got rid of to sum up why is to sum up wrong again think back to what we talked about functional language to sum up is to summarize something it is actually quite rare for high level students to summarize what they're saying

in part three so to sum up isn't technically wrong it is just quite rare for a student to do that in nutshell again we would use that to summarize something we don't normally summarize things as we just said but in nutshell is wrong because it is inaccurate it is not in nutshell it's in a nutshell so that leaves us with one wrong answer and one correct answer well you get them all right on the other hand is good showing the other side of the argument is one of the best ways that you can expand your

answer even further in part three so you talk about one side of the argument and then you talk about the other side of the argument if you can think of it so it's good but it's not right because it's not on other hand it is on the other hand again this is why a lot of students mess up because they go and memorize a bunch of sentence patterns before the test and that's why you clicked on the video isn't it and they use them incorrectly so the correct answer is for example which is just a

nice simple way of giving an example so if you you use the sentences the sentence patterns in this video are you guaranteed to get a band nine absolutely not the reason why you clicked on this video is because you want to memorize things many of you have been brought up in education systems where you have been taught that memorization is a skill unfortunately ielt is not a memorization test it is an English communication test memorization is the opposite of clear communication the key for the speaking test is to understand what type of questions might come

up and then have appropriate and accurate simple correct ways of dealing with all the most common questions that is why B 7 8 and N students use Simple language but is there a way to guarantee that you can answer any question that the examiner throws at you on test day absolutely just click here and I'll show you a technique that will allow you to answer any question that the exam exer asks you on test day