Describe a piece of furniture you like.
A strong long turn names the subject in the first sentence, spends most of the two minutes on the last bullet — the why — and arrives at a prepared final line rather than trailing off.
The question, as the examiner gives it
Describe a piece of furniture you like.
You should say
- what it is
- where it came from
- what it looks like
- and explain why you like it
60 seconds to prepare, up to 2 minutes to speak
A band 7 to 8 answer
About 186 words at a natural pace — roughly what 120 seconds holds.
Answer it yourself first
Record your own answer first. A model you have read three times comes out with a flattened rhythm, and examiners are trained to hear exactly that. Read it afterwards for the vocabulary and the shape, not to memorise the sentences.The piece of furniture I would describe is a wooden desk in my bedroom that I bought second-hand about five years ago from a school that was closing down. They sold about forty of them in a single afternoon and I carried mine home on the roof of a friend's car. It is not elegant. It is a plain rectangle of dark wood on four square legs, with a shallow drawer, a great many scratches, and the initials of somebody called A. K. carved into the top left corner, which I have decided not to sand out. It is also slightly too low for me, which I discovered about a week after buying it. Why I like it is that it is the only thing I own that was built to survive teenagers. Everything else in the flat is a bit provisional, assembled from a flat box, whereas this thing has already lasted forty years of abuse and will outlast me without effort. I have since worked out that raising it by three centimetres would fix everything, and I have had the wood for eight months.
The words that earn marks
Each one links to how it is pronounced.
- second-hand
compound adjective naming how it was bought
- elegant
three syllables with the stress on the first
- rectangle
precise shape noun, better than square-ish
- shallow
the exact adjective for a thin drawer
- scratches
concrete noun with a hard final cluster
- carved
the right verb for cutting into wood
- provisional
four syllables, a high-register contrast word
How a strong answer is built
- 1Name the object and how you got it, with a scene.
- 2Describe it physically, flaws included.
- 3Add one more honest imperfection.
- 4Explain why you like it, with a comparison.
Sounds to watch
The ones this answer leans on most.
Straight answers
How long should my answer to “Describe a piece of furniture you like.” be?
You get 60 seconds to make notes and then speak for up to two minutes without interruption. Aim to still be talking at ninety seconds: finishing at forty is the commonest way to lose marks on this part.
Should I memorise the model answer?
No. Record your own version first, then read the model for the shape and the vocabulary. A memorised answer changes rhythm and pace noticeably, and examiners are trained to hear it — it usually costs more than the better wording gains.
Does sayit score this answer?
It scores what a microphone can observe: an estimate from fluency and pronunciation only — not an official band, and not a mark for vocabulary or grammar.
What the band on your result means
An estimate from fluency and pronunciation only — not an official band, and not a mark for vocabulary or grammar.One question a day until your test
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