IELTS Speaking Part 1: Shopping
The online-versus-in-person comparison is the whole topic, and it is the one question everybody answers the same way.
It produces preference language, frequency, and a natural contrast between two ways of doing the same thing — a comparison the examiner does not have to set up.
Questions you can expect
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.
- Do you enjoy shopping?
- Do you prefer shopping online or in shops?
- How often do you go shopping?
- Do you prefer shopping alone or with someone?
- What was the last thing you bought?
- Do you plan your purchases or buy on impulse?
- Are there good places to shop where you live?
- Has shopping changed in your country in recent years?
- Do you compare prices before you buy?
- Do you find shopping stressful?
How to answer this topic
- Split the answer by what you are buying. Food, clothes and electronics are three different shopping habits and saying so is a strong answer.
- Give the online-versus-shops answer a reason on each side before choosing.
- 'What was the last thing you bought' is past simple and wants a real object. Have one.
- The impulse question is a personality question — it is the easiest place in the topic to sound like a person.
Vocabulary this topic invites
browse
for looking without buying
on impulse
the exact phrase for unplanned buying
a bargain
for something bought cheaply
stock up on
for buying a lot of something at once
window shopping
the fixed expression
I can't stand crowds
a real reason for preferring online
What costs people marks here
Saying you prefer online shopping because it is convenient, and stopping there.
Every candidate says convenient. Say what you specifically buy online and what you refuse to — shoes, food, anything you need to try on. The distinction is the answer.
Three of these, answered at band 8
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.
Do you enjoy shopping?
For some things and not others. Food shopping I genuinely enjoy, especially markets. Clothes shopping I find exhausting and I do it about twice a year with a list, under duress. So it depends entirely on whether I'm choosing between things or looking for something specific.
Why it worksSplits the answer by category and identifies the underlying variable, which is more precise than yes or no.
Do you prefer shopping online or in person?
Online for anything I've bought before and in person for anything I haven't. I want to see a coat and I don't need to see a printer cartridge. The one exception is books — I buy those in person even though it's slower, because I only find the good ones by accident.
Why it worksGives a rule, an example on each side, and then a stated exception.
Has the way people shop changed in your country?
Massively, and the visible effect is on the high street. The shops that survived are the ones you can't replicate online — cafés, barbers, restaurants — and the ones selling objects have largely gone. Whether that's bad I honestly don't know. It's convenient and it's also left a lot of empty units.
Why it worksFollows a cause to its consequence and then declines to moralise, which reads as genuine thought.
Other Part 1 topics
Technology
Invites an opinion, which is unusual for Part 1 — and the balanced opinion scores better than the enthusiastic one.
Sleep
A routine topic that runs almost entirely on frequency adverbs and time expressions — which is exactly what it is testing.
Animals
Splits cleanly into pets you have, pets you had and animals in general — three answers from one topic.
Clothes
A description topic that needs adjectives most candidates have never had to produce out loud.
Photography
A modern topic that tests whether you can describe an image and a habit in the same breath.
Work
Almost guaranteed if you are not a student, and the topic where candidates most often describe a job title instead of a job.
Answer these at speaking speed
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 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 University Press & Assessment.