Hi

Do you think you could answer the following IELTS speaking questions within a few seconds of an IELTS examiner asking you?

• Some people think that education should be about memorising the important ideas of the past. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
• Should education encourage students to have their own new ideas? Why?

If you get asked a difficult question in your IELTS speaking test and you can’t answer straight away, one way to sound less hesitant is to buy yourself some thinking time.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Ask the examiner to repeat the question.
2. Repeat the question in your own words, e.g. ‘Are you asking me…?’
3. Use some or all of the following phrases:
   • Let me think…
   • That’s a difficult question…
   • I haven’t thought about that before…

If you use one or more of these, it may help you sound more fluent and give you a better chance of getting the IELTS speaking band score you need.

For more examples of difficult IELTS speaking questions, check out last week’s post ‘A challenging IELTS topic‘.

Pete

See our IELTS tutoring options to find out more about how we can help you improve your English for the IELTS test.

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1. How to answer difficult questions in the IELTS Speaking test
2. Don’t get stuck on the difficult questions