IELTS Speaking Part 3 · technology

Does technology bring families together or push them apart?

A strong Part 3 answer takes a position in the first clause, supports it with one reason and one concrete case, and then names where it stops being true. Around a minute.

The question, as the examiner gives it

IELTS Speaking Part 3

Does technology bring families together or push them apart?

no preparation, about 1 minute to speak

A band 7 to 8 answer

About 124 words at a natural pace — roughly what 60 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.
A band 7 to 8 answer

Both, and which one dominates seems to depend on distance. For families spread across countries it is unambiguously good. My aunt has watched her grandchildren grow up on a screen and thirty years ago she would have seen photographs twice a year. For families in the same house the effect goes the other way, because everybody can now be somewhere else while in the same room, and the shared evening that used to happen by default has to be arranged deliberately. What I notice is that the technology is not really the variable. Families who had the habit of eating together kept it, and those who did not found something that filled the gap. The device accelerated whichever direction the household was already going.

The words that earn marks

Each one links to how it is pronounced.

  • dominates

    three syllables with the stress on the first

  • unambiguously

    a six-syllable adverb used accurately

  • default

    the technical sense, used of social habit

  • deliberately

    five syllables with the stress on the second

  • variable

    the noun, meaning the deciding factor

  • household

    compound noun, the unit of the argument

  • accelerated

    five syllables with the stress on the second

How a strong answer is built

  1. 1Answer both and name what decides it.
  2. 2Take the distant case with an example.
  3. 3Take the same-house case and explain the mechanism.
  4. 4Close by identifying the real variable.

Sounds to watch

The ones this answer leans on most.

Straight answers

How long should my answer to “Does technology bring families together or push them apart?” be?

About 60 seconds. Long enough for the answer plus a reason or an example, short enough that the examiner can get through the rest of the set.

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.
Practise this question

One question a day until your test

A free account remembers every take, so you watch a trend instead of a single answer, and it picks tomorrow's question for you.