IELTS Speaking grammatical range and accuracy: what moves your band

Hmm, I think it's both better and worse. Better because now we can talk with people in other countries very easy, for example I make video call with my uncle who lives abroad every week, and it's free. Before, people had to write letters or pay a lot for phone calls.

But, er, also it's worse in some way, because people are always looking at their phone, even when they are sitting together with their family. So the communication face to face is becoming less. Also young people write very short messages with emojis and they don't, how to say, they don't express their feelings properly. So I think technology is good but we should use it in a balanced way.

I'd say it's made communication easier, but not necessarily better. On the plus side, distance hardly matters any more. I video call relatives abroad every week at no cost, which would've been unthinkable for my parents' generation.

The downside is that being constantly connected seems to have made us a bit less present. You often see families at a restaurant all scrolling through their phones instead of talking to each other. And because so much of our contact is through quick messages, I think we've lost some of the depth you get from a proper conversation, where you can hear someone's tone or see their reaction.

So overall it's a mixed picture. The tools themselves are great, but it's up to us how we use them.

I think it's made communication far more frequent but not always more meaningful. The gains are undeniable: I can see and speak to relatives on another continent every week for nothing, which was simply out of reach a generation ago.

What concerns me is the trade-off in quality. When contact is constant and effortless, it tends to become shallow, a stream of quick reactions rather than real exchanges. Text strips away tone of voice and facial expression, so misunderstandings are more common and harder to repair. And there's the odd paradox of people being physically together but mentally elsewhere, each absorbed in a screen.

That said, I'd be wary of blaming the technology itself. It amplifies whatever habits we already have, so the real question is whether we use it to supplement face-to-face contact or to replace it.

I'm a student. I study civil engineering in the university, this is my third year. What I enjoy is, er, the practical part, when we go to the construction site and see how they are building the things. The theory sometimes is boring, but when I see it in the real life it make more sense to me.

I'm a student at the moment, in my third year of civil engineering. What I enjoy most is the site visits. You spend weeks looking at diagrams, and then suddenly you're standing under an actual bridge and it all clicks. To be honest, I find the theory quite dry sometimes, but those trips remind me why I picked the subject in the first place.

I'm studying civil engineering, I'm in my third year now. What keeps me going, really, is the moment theory turns into something physical. Had you asked me in my first year, I'd have said the maths was the whole point, but standing on a site and watching a structure take shape is what's made the subject come alive for me.

I want to talk about a small fishing village which I visited last summer with my cousins. It is on the coast, about three hours by car from my city.

We stayed there for four days in a small guesthouse. The owner was very kind, she cooked breakfast for us every morning, very fresh fish and bread. In the day we walked around the village, we went to the harbour and watched the fishermen when they come back with the boats. One day we took a boat trip to see the cliffs, it was really beautiful but, er, little bit scary because the sea was rough.

Why it was interesting for me... I think because it was very different from my city. In my city everything is fast and noisy, but there, people live in a more slow way. There is no big shops, only small ones, and everybody is knowing each other. Also I learned some things about how they catch the fish, one fisherman explained us, it was interesting.

So, it was a nice experience and I want to go back there again maybe next year.

I'm going to talk about a little fishing village I went to last summer with a couple of my cousins. It's on the coast, roughly three hours' drive from where I live.

We stayed in a family-run guesthouse for four nights, and the owner made us breakfast every morning with fish that had been caught that same day, which was a real treat. Most of the time we just wandered around. We'd go down to the harbour early to watch the boats come in, and one afternoon we took a trip out to see the cliffs. That was stunning, although the sea was quite choppy, so I spent half of it holding on tight.

What made it so interesting was the contrast with home. My city is busy and noisy and everyone's always rushing, whereas in the village life seemed to move at a completely different pace. There weren't any chain stores at all, just a handful of little shops, and people stopped to chat everywhere. One of the fishermen spent ages explaining how they read the weather before deciding whether to go out, which I'd never really thought about before.

So it wasn't a dramatic trip, but it's stayed with me, and I'd love to go back.

The place I'd like to describe is a small fishing village I visited last summer with two of my cousins. It sits on a fairly remote stretch of coast, about three hours' drive from my city.

We spent four nights in a guesthouse run by a retired couple, and breakfast was the highlight of every day: bread still warm from the oven and fish that had been landed a few hours earlier. We didn't have much of a plan. We'd drift down to the harbour at dawn to watch the boats unload, and one afternoon we hired a boat to see the sea cliffs, which were breathtaking, if slightly unnerving in a heavy swell.

What fascinated me was how differently time seemed to work there. Back home everything is scheduled and hurried, whereas the village ran on the tide and the weather. There wasn't a single chain store, and a trip to buy milk could easily involve three conversations. One of the older fishermen talked me through how he judges whether it's safe to go out, reading the cloud cover and the colour of the water, and I was struck by how much knowledge was carried around in people's heads rather than written down.

It was hardly an adventurous holiday, but it shifted my sense of what a good pace of life might look like.

I'd like to talk about swimming. It's a bit embarrassing because I learned it quite late, when I was twenty-two.

When I was child I never had a chance to learn, because there was no swimming pool near our house, and my parents also didn't swim. So when I started university, I saw there is a pool in the sports centre and they have lessons for adults, so I decided to join.

The difficult part was, um, not the movement of arms and legs, it was the fear. Every time I put my face in the water I was panicking and I stand up immediately. The instructor was very patient. He told me to just work on my breathing first, er, like blowing bubbles, for many weeks. It sounds very easy but for me it was really hard. I think I went for maybe three months before I could swim one length of the pool without stopping.

Now I feel really proud of myself. I go swimming two times in a week and it's good for my health and also for my stress. If I didn't learn it, I think I will always feel a bit worried near water, so I'm very happy I did it.

I'm going to talk about swimming, which I only learned in my early twenties, so it's slightly embarrassing to admit.

I never had the chance as a child, because there wasn't a pool anywhere near where we lived, and neither of my parents could swim. Then, when I got to university, I found out the sports centre ran beginners' classes for adults, so I signed up, mostly because a friend dared me to.

The hardest part wasn't the technique at all, it was the fear. Every time I put my face in the water, I'd panic and stand straight up. The instructor was incredibly patient. For the first few weeks he had me doing nothing but breathing exercises, blowing bubbles in the shallow end, which felt ridiculous. It took me about three months before I managed a full length without grabbing the side.

These days I go twice a week, and it's become one of the main ways I deal with stress. Looking back, I'm really glad I stuck with it, because if I hadn't, I think I'd still be nervous anywhere near water. It also made me realise it's never too late to pick something up.

The skill I'd like to talk about is swimming, which, slightly embarrassingly, I didn't learn until I was twenty-two.

Growing up, I never had a pool within reach, and since neither of my parents swam, it was never really on the agenda. It was only when I started university and noticed the sports centre offered adult beginners' sessions that I thought I'd finally tackle it, partly out of curiosity and partly because a friend wouldn't stop teasing me.

What I hadn't anticipated was that the technique would be the easy bit. The real obstacle was fear. The moment my face went under, some instinct took over and I'd shoot upright, spluttering. The instructor, to his credit, never rushed me. He had me spend weeks on nothing but controlled breathing in the shallow end, which felt faintly absurd at the time but turned out to be exactly what I needed. It was a good three months before I swam an unbroken length.

Now I swim twice a week, and it's become my main way of switching off. Had I given up in those first few weeks, I suspect I'd still be uneasy around water. More than anything, it showed me that the barrier to learning something new is often emotional rather than physical.

Yes, I think it's important, because many young people finish the school and they don't know how to do basic things, like how to pay the bills or cook a simple meal. For example, my friend moved to another city for university and he was spending all his money in the first month, because nobody teach him how to make a budget.

But I don't think schools should stop the academic subjects, because they are also necessary for university and for the jobs. Maybe they can add one or two lessons in a week for life skills. If schools will do this, students will be more ready for the real life.

I think there's a strong case for it, although I wouldn't go as far as replacing academic subjects. A lot of people leave school without knowing how to budget, read a payslip or cook a basic meal, and they end up learning the hard way. A friend of mine ran out of money within a month of starting university simply because nobody had ever shown him how to plan his spending.

At the same time, academic subjects give you the foundations for further study and a lot of careers, so I don't think you can drop them. What I'd suggest is a compromise: a couple of hours a week of life skills, perhaps built into maths or science lessons. If that were done well, I think students would leave school far better prepared.

I'd argue for a rebalancing rather than a swap. It's striking how many people leave school able to solve equations but unable to make sense of a tenancy agreement or plan a monthly budget, and they usually learn those things through costly mistakes. A friend of mine burned through his entire student loan within weeks of starting university, not out of carelessness but because nobody had ever walked him through budgeting.

Having said that, academic subjects aren't a luxury. They're what keeps doors open to higher education and to a huge range of careers. The more sensible approach, in my view, would be to weave practical skills into existing subjects: interest rates in maths, nutrition in science, and so on. That way, students gain the skills without losing the depth, and arguably the academic content becomes more relevant as a result.