Works for people who do no sport at all — watching, school memories and opinions are all valid material.
It splits neatly into doing, watching and remembering, which gives the examiner three different tenses and registers from one topic.
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.
I used to play
the essential structure for school sport
keep fit
British collocation for staying in shape
a casual game
for informal, non-competitive sport
follow
the correct verb for supporting a team
the atmosphere
the key noun for live events
I'm not particularly sporty
natural self-description
You do not need to play sport to answer about sport. Watching, school, your country, children, one you'd like to try — five answers, no athletic ability required.
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.
I climb, indoors mostly, twice a week. I wouldn't have called it a sport a few years ago and I've been corrected on that enough times to stop arguing. I don't play anything with a team — I was comprehensively bad at football as a child and have carried that forward.
Why it worksThe aside about being corrected is funny and specific, and the last sentence gives a reason for an absence.
Badly and unwillingly. It was compulsory and I spent about six years being placed in defence and hoping the ball would go elsewhere. What I've realised since is that I don't dislike exercise at all, I disliked being watched while being bad at something, which is a different problem.
Why it worksNarrates the past and reinterprets it in the present, which is exactly the tense range this question invites.
Enormously, though it's concentrated — football takes up most of the available attention and everything else fights over what's left. Participation is a different question from watching. A lot of people are extremely knowledgeable about a sport they haven't played since school, and I'd include myself in that.
Why it worksDistinguishes watching from playing, which is the observation that turns a bland question into a real answer.
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.
A modern topic that tests whether you can describe an image and a habit in the same breath.
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.