English for Exams Karen Kovacs

Track 47 
Sample answers:
Candidate: 
I’d like to te ll you about the tim e I w e n t backpacking around Spain. I can 't quite believe it but 
it w as over a decade ago now. Two frie n d s and I got very good-value ra il passes and travelled 
around Spain fo r three m onths. It w as an un forge tta ble experience.
We s ta rte d o ff in M a d rid be ca u se t h a t ’s w h e re w e la n d e d . We did so m e s ig h ts e e in g -
w e e s p e c ia lly loved th e p a rk s - and w e a te and d ra n k lo ts - o u r fa v o u rite th in g w a s, of 
c o u rs e , th e d e lic io u s ha m . We lik e d th e n ig h tlife in M a d rid , too , n o t le a s t e a tin g o u t - it
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was a real experience. The locals do n 't go out to d in n e r u n til re a lly late, often as late 
as 11pm (I suppose because it's so hot)! So if you tu rn up at a re sta u ra n t at w hat 
w ould be a n o rm a l tim e w here we come fro m , the place is e ith e r closed o r com pletely 
empty.
We then journeyed on to Santiago de Compostela in the north-w est, which was fabulous, 
and my friend is really into a rt so we had to visit the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in the 
north. The w eather was dreadful w hile we were there so we didn't get the best impression, 
but even so we enjoyed it. More people should visit that part of Spain.
Then we moved on to Barcelona, Madrid's rival city. We fe ll in love w ith it. It's so different 
to Madrid, more Bohemian in feel and more m u lti-c u ltu ra l. The Gaudi architecture is so 
w onderfully whacky, looking half the tim e like it's fallen off the page of a fairy tale. We were 
quite sorry to leave Barcelona.
A fte r that we saw Valencia, but not fo r long unfortunately, and then we went on to 
Granada. What a beautiful, beautiful place. There is nothing quite like the Moorish palace, 
the Alham bra, lit up at night. The image has stayed w ith me.
We had wanted to visit Seville and the Extremadura region of the country, but we'd run out 
of money by then so sadly we had to leave.
It was a m em orable holiday because I was w ith two good friends experiencing a ll these 
amazing cities. I don't th in k I could do it now. because travelling so much in a relatively 
short tim e is tirin g , but we were young and carefree and so took it in our stride. It was the 
holiday of a lifetim e.