Part 1 IELTS Speaking test questions are almost always about you. This includes your preferences, your hobbies, your childhood memories and more.
One common topic in Part 1 is “Your Habits.” In other words, how often you do things.
For example:
You can always answer these questions in a simple way. For example:
In both of the answers above, I said that I don’t do these things often.
It can be difficult to give a longer answer about something you don’t do very often. So how can we share more about ourselves and share more of our English ability?
Exceptions are occasions that are different from your normal routine. You might break your routine in an unusual or very specific situation.
In other words, if you don’t do it often, do you ever do it? When? This kind of moment is the exception that you can share.
Here are two phrases you can use to share exceptions in IELTS Speaking.
“Unless” and “Only if” show exceptions and have the same meaning. The examiner understands that these are things you do only in specific circumstances.
First, you should share your regular habit (that you don’t do often), then share an exception to that habit. For example:
Both phrases are following by a [New Clause] – a [Subject-Verb]. The [new clauses] are highlighted in the examples above.
Here are some more examples from my IELTS Speaking Grammar Course below:
So let’s use this to improve the answers from the beginning of this post:
Did you know?
This kind of grammar and IELTS exam advice is just one example from more than 100 others in my in-depth IELTS Speaking grammar course!
It’s called Mark Teacher’s IELTS Speaking System and it’s available here:
Plus you can get a discount with the special coupon code: MT10.
But if you just want to practise this new skill for now. Try to use it with one of the following IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions:
[Coming soon – Click here to see more high-band IELTS grammar tips and more information about Your Habits questions]
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