IELTS Grammar – It Depends

Using ‘It Depends’ in IELTS Speaking

Some IELTS Speaking questions can be very vague and general. These are tricky to answer because you may have different answers in different situations. For example:

• How do you feel when you listen to music? – “It’s hard to say. My answer is different in different situations. Sad music makes me sad. Happy music makes me happy.”
• Do you stay up late or go to bed early? – “It’s hard to say. My answer is different on different days. On Friday and Saturday I go to bed late, but on Sunday night I go to bed early because I have to work.”

In this blog post I will show you 2 ways to answer this question, both of which will show your English grammar ability and therefore improve your IELTS Speaking score.

Both of them start with “It depends…” 

Share the circumstances that change your answers

One simple way to use “It depends” with a noun.

The noun is the specific circumstance that changes your behaviour and therefore your answer.

After that, you can share what happens differently in different situations.

We can apply this to the questions we saw earlier:

• How do you feel when you listen to music? – “It depends on + the genre. If it’s sad music, I will feel a little blue as well, but if it’s more upbeat, then I will obviously feel happier too.”
• Do you stay up late or go to bed early? – “It depends on + the day. If it’s Friday or Saturday, then I will stay up a bit later because I don’t have to work. But if it’s Sunday or a weekday night, I will probably be in bed around 10 or 11 o’clock.”

Here are a few more examples from my advanced IELTS Grammar course:

The more complex way

However, there is more advanced and more natural, but slightly more difficult way to explain your circumstances.

First, let’s compare the simple version (It depends +noun) with this more complex version:

Here are a few more examples: 

• What kinds of music do you like to listen to?
  “It really depends on [the situation] = It really depends on [what I am doing].
• Do you prefer staying at home or going outside?
  “It really depends on [the weather]. = It really depends on [how the weather is].

The more complex way uses “It depends + a [relative clause].”

This means we need 3 parts:

1. A relative pronoun (What – Who – When – Where – Why)
2. A subject (my day / the change / I / they / the weather)
3. A verb (is / was / am / are)

Let’s use this to improve the answers we made at the beginning of this post:

• How do you feel when you listen to music? – “It depends on + what I am listening to. If it’s sad music, I will feel a little blue as well, but if it’s more upbeat, then I will obviously feel happier too.”
• Do you stay up late or go to bed early? – “It depends on + what the day is. If it’s Friday or Saturday, then I will stay up a bit later because I don’t have to work. But if it’s Sunday or a weekday night, I will probably be in bed around 10 or 11 o’clock.”

This might only look like a small difference, but to a native English examiner, this structure is much more familiar and shows a great awareness of style. It also allows you to be more specific with your language, which should improve your score.

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But if you just want to practise using this new grammar, then try to use it in your answers to these questions that probably change depending on your circumstances.

• Do you feel tired often?
• Do you prefer to spend time alone or with friends?
• Which do you prefer, staying at home or going outside?