English for Exams Karen Kovacs

Track 57
S am ple answ ers:
Exam iner: 
Hello. My name is Pauline Jenkins. Could you te ll me your fu ll name, please?
Candidate: 
Hello. My name is Marie Dupont.
Exam iner: 
Thank you. Can you show me your identification, please?... A ll right. That's fine. I'd now like 
to ask you some questions about yourself. Tell me about where you live.
Candidate: 
I live in Paris, the capital city of France. It's very famous fo r being a rom antic city, the city of 
love.
Exam iner: 
What are the advantages of living there?
Candidate: 
It's lively and fun and you never get bored. You can find any kind of entertainm ent you can 
imagine, from bars and clubs to museum s and galleries.
E xam iner: 
What are the disadvantages of living there?
Candidate: 
It's very crowded, and quite dirty in parts. You have to know which areas to avoid too, as 
some areas have bad reputations, especially at night.
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W e re now going to talk about anim als. What is your favourite animal?
My favourite anim al is the cat. I love cats because they're a lot of fun, very playful, but also 
seem to have bit of character. So, it's always quite amusing to try to play w ith your cat.
Why do you th in k some people like keeping pets?
I would suspect it's mainly fo r the company, so that they don't feel alone when they come 
home in the evening and they have someone w aiting fo r them . I don't have any pets, though I 
used to when I was a kid.
Are there any anim als you are scared of?
I have a phobia of snakes. I reckon it's because of the way the creature looks and they can 
also be venomous. They’re aggressive so if they bite you, you can get very badly hurt. Spiders 
are another anim al I’ m te rrifie d of. I hate the fast, erra tic way they move.
Are zoos popular in your country?
Yes, they are, especially w ith kids. Kids love discovering new things, including new anim als, 
and a zoo is the best place to do that. They can observe a wide range of anim als in a safe 
environment.
Let's move on to ta lk about food. Do you th in k men or women make the best cooks?
It doesn't depend on the sex of the person but on th e ir enthusiasm . The men in my fam ily 
are really good cooks, and they enjoy talking about food as w e ll as cooking and eating it.
Is it im portant to teach children to cook from a young age?
The younger the better. Of course, you w ou ld n 't give a young child a knife, but they can mix 
ingredients together and things like that. The younger they start, the be tte r cooks th e y 'll be 
when they grow up.
What is a typical dish from your country o r region? 
.
Lots of people th in k we eat frogs' legs a ll the tim e. It's a kind of national stereotype. But 
actually I've never eaten them ! I would say a more typical dish is steak w ith chips, and it's 
one of my favourites.
Do people in your country or region eat tra d itio n a l food or international food?
We eat both. I regard it as very im portant to keep culinary traditions alive, but I also love 
Chinese food and Japanese food and Indian food, and loads of other cuisines. I like having 
variety in my diet.
Now I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to ta lk about it fo r one to two minutes.
You'll have one m inute to th in k about w hat you’re going to say before you begin talking. You 
can make some notes if you wish. Here is a pencil and some paper. I'd like you to describe a 
personal achievement you are proud of.
A ll right. Remember, you have one to two m inutes to ta lk on the topic. Don't w o rry if I stop 
you. I'll let you know when the tim e is up.
OK.
Please start speaking now.
OK, so you asked me to ta lk about an achievement I'm p a rticu la rly proud of, so I could have 
talked about when I passed my university exams, or when I bought my firs t home, but in the 
end, I decided to talk about the only tim e I actually won a sports tournam ent.
Only once did I win my village tennis to u rn a m e n t. It was when I was fifteen years old. It 
was p a rtic u la rly d iffic u lt because, to be honest, I'm not a great tennis player and I always 
played m ainly to have fun and not really to win. But that one year I decided. I made it my 
goal: I was going to win the village tennis to u rn a m e n t. So I played many matches, lots of 
them against o ld e r players, much o ld e r than me, who were m em bers of the club, in th e ir 
fiftie s , and it was very d iffic u lt. Playing o ld e r players is always tough. They have more 
experience, they do a ll these im pressive tric k s and they definitely know how to beat th e ir 
opponent. And on top of th a t it's very much a m a tte r of pride fo r them - they don't w ant to 
lose against one of the younger m em bers of the club.