LegitEnglish|Ray
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IELTS part 2 Speakingの回答例（Challenge）
It was quite tricky to decide what to talk about because ‘challenge’ implies something incredibly difficult so nothing immediately came to my mind then I suddenly remembered having to do a presentation at work, which for some might not seem too tricky, but for me tho, the thought of it was a nightmare so I’ve decided to talk about that particular time. I can’t remember precisely when it was but it was a couple of years back when I was working in a different role to my current one. In that job, I was responsible for the admin mainly and my team leader was in charge of any presentations. Unfortunately though, she had a nasty accident which meant she was off work for a couple of weeks and she was supposed to give a presentation to some clients. She had prepared most of it, it only needed a few tweaks, which I happily did, but then the big boss asked me if I could deliver it. My immediate reaction was no, absolutely not. I was not comfortable with giving presentations. He said it was fine but asked if I could run through the presentation with him. Whilst I was doing it, I realized that I did know the content inside out because I had written it so at the end when he asked ‘Are you sure you can’t do it?’ I gave in and said ok, The night before the big day, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking ‘have I bitten off more than I can chew’? I nearly phoned in sick, but I had agreed to it and I hate letting people down. There were a few technical issues in the first minute with the PowerPoint, but once I got going it all went smoothly and the big boss kept giving me the thumbs up to encourage me. In my current job, I have done quite a few presentations and I’m glad I did that first one to get over my fear of public speaking.
IELTS Speaking Part 2_Tradition
I know there are many things when it comes to tradition, but I think the one that comes to mind quickly for me personally is New Year's. I believe the Japanese New Year is different from that of other countries, so I would like to talk about it. In Japan, I believe that most people spend the New Year's holiday with their families. To speak briefly about the traditional Japanese New Year's Day, it is common to go and see the first sunrise on New Year's Day. We called this Hatsuhinode in Japanese. After that, we go to Hatsumode, where we go to the shrine and pray. When we go there, we usually report and thank for the past year, and then make new wishes and prayers for the year ahead. We also often pray to God for safety and health for ourselves and our surroundings for the year ahead. And At that time, some people buy a fortune slip, what we call Omikuji in Japanese, We buy this Omikuji to predict our fortune for the year ahead. So, when I was a child, I remember getting excited because it was either a bad fortune or a good one. and I remember buying another fortune slip or Omikuji when it turned out to be a bad one. Most of the time we spent time with my family, so after we got home, we often eat traditional Japanese food and watch TV together as a family. Growing up as a kid, I remember looking forward to this New Year's every year because I could get New Year's money or New Year's allowance. But now that I am all grown up, I am on the side of giving out New Year's gits. I guess age isn't just the number. It comes with responsibility.
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IELTS Speaking Part 2_Favorite_Weather
To be perfectly honest, the weather is not something I’ve really given that much thought to. I don’t really have a preference but if I had to pick a favorite, then I guess it would be a mild spring day – neither too hot nor too cold. In Japan, spring generally starts in March and ends before June depending on where you are in Japan of course, and in Spring, I feel like everything is waking up. I feel re-energized and more positive and optimistic. The winter is not too harsh in my country, however, there is a lack of color and the flowers, trees and such like tend to die off during this colder periods so when spring comes round they all come back to life. That’s why I feel re-energized and I like spring I guess. When spring comes, I go out for walks and do the stuff that I wasn't able to do over winter. Spring in Japan is the season when school starts and also the time for cherry blossom viewing, so people, including myself, often walk outside. I suppose many people take on new challenges because of the image of spring as a time to take on something new. Don’t get me wrong, it can be either freezing at this time or scorching hot, again, depending on where you live in Japan, but there are certain days when there is not a cloud in the sky and the sun is shining and that just gives me a spring in my step.
IELTS Speaking Part 2_Art_exhibition
I apologize in advance for my answer because I’m just not into art so visiting art exhibitions is not something I do or have done on a regular basis. The only thing I can think of that I can talk about is an art exhibition that was held at my university/school a few years back. I visited it with a few friends, but to be perfectly honest, we were just killing time because art is just not my thing I can’t remember precisely when it was because I don’t have a head for dates but it was when I was studying at university and the event was being held in the library. One day, we were preparing a presentation there and we finished earlier than expected and had an hour to kill time before our next lecture. We decided to have a quick look around the exhibition. I don’t really know the technical terms for art, but I think it was abstract art. I’m not dissing it and it looked incredibly professional. I certainly couldn’t produce anything like that, but it’s just not for me. I’m more into photography rather than art so my home is filled with photos, for example, landscape and portrait photography. I have loads of photos on my walls. They are my memories so are more meaningful for me. Like I said, it isn’t my thing at all; however, I was impressed by it and I wish I could produce something similar. I can’t draw to save my life and I didn’t study art at school so that is one of the reasons I’ve never got into it. Maybe, in the future, I will appreciate it more. I think I should start by going to photography exhibitions because I think I would enjoy them more.
IELTS_Speaking Part 2_Prize
I was struggling to come up with something because I don’t enter many competitions so I’m not someone who wins prizes on a regular basis, but I remembered that I won an award a couple of years back and although it wasn’t a massive prize, it really made my day back then. It was when I was studying at university, I used to use Facebook a lot back then, and this competition, which was run by a cat food company, appeared on my feed. It was a competition to win a year’s supply of cat food and you had to submit a funny or unusual photo of your cat. It was pretty simple to enter, you just had to upload the photos. I didn’t give it a second thought and a month or so later, I got an email saying that I’d won. I couldn’t believe it at the time! I was so surprised. It was the first time I had won anything and it was such a great feeling actually. They sent me vouchers for the cat food and I was happy with them. I honestly don't know why I got the award. As a matter of fact, I was not able to see the other submissions with the cat pictures, so I could not compare them. After winning that prize, I was motivated to enter more competitions, but I didn’t win anything else so I got a bit fed up and I haven’t entered one for ages. It is an amazing feeling when you win though, I was buzzing for days. Maybe, I should start doing it again.
Skills
I was struggling to come up with something because I don’t think of myself as particularly talented or gifted so I wasn’t sure what skill I could pass on to others. I’m pretty good at using a computer so if someone wasn’t computer literate I could teach them a thing or two, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure when I first used a PC or how I learned how to use it. It’s been a gradual process and it’s something I’ve picked up over many years. I’ve had no formal training. I’ve been using one for the best part of a decade now so I kind of know what I’m doing. It’s not that I’m an expert, but I could teach someone the basics of Word, PPT, Excel, and so on. In order to share my skills and knowledge, I would feel most comfortable doing it face-to-face because you can see what they are doing and guide them much more easily than doing it remotely I did this kind of thing a few times when I was studying at university and we were working on group projects. Some of my classmates weren’t confident with using PPT so I went through how to put together a presentation with them before we started. I do it from time to time in my current job. What’s funny is that it’s never written in my job description. I don't think I would tell you this in a job interview or in any other setting since it could be very basic skill sets in most jobs.
IELTS_Part_2_Team_Work
It was quite tricky to decide what to talk about because it’s not something I do that much nowadays but I remembered working on a team project in high school so I will talk about this. That being said, I think you can pretty much guess why by now, but this project was part of an assignment in school, so it was never my choice. Personally, given the choice, I prefer to work by myself. I’m not a loner, by any means, but I just find working alone a lot easier and less stressful because you don’t have to worry about group dynamics. Having said that though, on this particular occasion, it all went without a hitch and I did enjoy it. I think what made it successful was that we appointed a group leader and she led the group well. Surprisingly, there was no competition between members and the group was cohesive. The project that we were given was to create a five-minute video about climate change. We were given a four-week time limit to carry out the project and what worked really well for us was that we spent the first week planning it carefully. There were five of us in the team and we allocated different roles to different members such as research, script writing, presentation, editing and so on. I was delegated the research role and it suited me because I prefer to be behind the camera. After completing this project, I felt that good teamwork skills are essential. There is a saying ‘there is no I in a team’ and it is vital to remember this. Having a good rapport with your teammates helps and I think this was key to our successful teamwork on this occasion.
