IELTS Speaking Part 1: Weather and seasons
A pure comparison topic — it exists to hear whether you can contrast seasons without saying 'hot' four times.
Weather is the classic small-talk subject in English and the examiner uses it to test comparative structures and adjective range in a context where nobody needs specialist knowledge.
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.
- What is the weather like where you live?
- What is your favourite season?
- Does the weather affect your mood?
- Do you prefer hot weather or cold weather?
- Has the weather changed in your country in recent years?
- What do you do when it rains?
- Do you check the weather forecast?
- Is there a season you dislike?
- Does the weather affect what people do at weekends?
- Would you like to live somewhere with a different climate?
How to answer this topic
- Answer by season, not in general. Four short seasonal sentences is a complete answer to the first question.
- Reach past hot and cold. Humid, mild, crisp, close, bitter, muggy — this topic is scored on exactly that range.
- Comparatives are the point: milder than, far wetter than it used to be, nothing like as cold as. Use them deliberately.
- 'Has it changed' invites present perfect and a light opinion about climate. Both score.
Vocabulary this topic invites
mild
for pleasantly moderate — the adjective candidates most often lack
humid
and 'muggy' as its informal partner
it pours
for heavy rain, far better than 'it rains a lot'
a heatwave
the precise noun for a hot spell
chilly
for mildly cold, between cool and freezing
unpredictable
the natural adjective for changeable weather
What costs people marks here
Using only hot, cold, good and bad for the entire topic.
This topic has almost no content — it is entirely a vocabulary test. If you use four weather adjectives nobody else uses, you have answered it well.
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.
What is the weather like in your country?
Fairly temperate and extremely changeable. We get four distinct seasons but none of them are severe — the summers rarely go above thirty and the winters rarely go below zero. What we do get is rain at any point in any season, which is why nobody here leaves the house without checking.
Why it worksGives ranges rather than adjectives, and ends on a behavioural consequence.
What is your favourite kind of weather?
Cold and bright, which is a specific combination and doesn't come often. Grey and cold I find genuinely depressing, and hot weather makes me useless — I can't sleep and I don't want to eat. But a clear day in November when you can see your breath is my favourite thing about living here.
Why it worksDistinguishes between combinations rather than picking a season, which is a more precise answer than the question expects.
Does the weather affect your mood?
More than I'd like to admit. I can tell within about twenty minutes of waking up what kind of day it's going to be, and it correlates alarmingly well with whether it's raining. I've tried to be less susceptible to it and I don't think you can be — you can only plan around it.
Why it works'More than I'd like to admit' opens with self-awareness, and the answer develops rather than repeating itself.
Other Part 1 topics
Travel
Past, present and future in one topic, which is precisely why examiners like it early.
Transport
A practical topic with its own precise vocabulary, and one where a real complaint makes a better answer than a neutral description.
Music
Everyone has an answer and almost everyone gives the same one — the genre name and nothing else.
Reading
A topic where the honest answer is often 'not much', and where that answer can still score well if you handle it properly.
Sport
Works for people who do no sport at all — watching, school memories and opinions are all valid material.
Shopping
The online-versus-in-person comparison is the whole topic, and it is the one question everybody answers the same way.
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.