A topic where the honest answer is often 'not much', and where that answer can still score well if you handle it properly.
It invites comparison between paper and screen, childhood and now, and it produces natural frequency language. It is also a soft test of whether you can discuss a habit you do not have.
Asked quickly, one after another, with no comment on your answers. Read them aloud and answer each in two or three sentences before you look at the approach below.
an avid reader
or its honest negative, 'I'm not much of a reader'
get through
for finishing books — 'I get through two a month'
a page-turner
for a gripping book
in print
for paper as opposed to digital
dip into
for reading a bit at a time
I never got into it
for a habit that never took
The follow-up question is always 'what have you read recently'. An honest 'I read very little, mostly news on my phone' is safer and speaks more fluently than an invention you cannot support.
Read these for the shape, not the words — two or three sentences with a reason or an example attached. The details are invented and yours should be your own; an examiner can hear a recited answer, and it costs you more than the answer gains.
More than I did, because of my commute. I get about fifty minutes each way where there's nothing else I can usefully do, and that's turned into two or three books a month without any deliberate effort. It's the only habit I have that I didn't have to build.
Why it worksAttributes the habit to a mechanism rather than to virtue, which is both honest and specific.
Mostly novels, and increasingly ones where not much happens. I used to need a plot and now I'd rather spend three hundred pages inside somebody's head. I read some history as well, though I've noticed I buy far more of it than I finish.
Why it worksDescribes a shift in taste and then admits an unflattering habit, both of which read as genuine.
Physical, though I accept that's partly sentimentality. I read faster on paper and I remember where things were on the page, which I don't get from a screen. I use an e-reader for travel purely because of weight, and I always slightly resent it.
Why it worksConcedes the counter-argument before making its case, which is a mature structure for a simple question.
Works for people who do no sport at all — watching, school memories and opinions are all valid material.
The online-versus-in-person comparison is the whole topic, and it is the one question everybody answers the same way.
Invites an opinion, which is unusual for Part 1 — and the balanced opinion scores better than the enthusiastic one.
A routine topic that runs almost entirely on frequency adverbs and time expressions — which is exactly what it is testing.
Splits cleanly into pets you have, pets you had and animals in general — three answers from one topic.
A description topic that needs adjectives most candidates have never had to produce out loud.
Oliver asks Part 1 questions the way the real examiner does — quickly, with no reaction, moving on before you have finished deciding what you think. Reading them is not the same exercise. The first test is free.
This guide is written from the publicly published IELTS Speaking band descriptors, in our own words. For the official wording, see the British Council's band descriptors. MockLive AI is an independent practice tool and is not affiliated with IELTS, the British Council, IDP or Cambridge Assessment English.