IELTS Speaking Part 3 · work

Has working from home changed what people expect from a job?

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

Has working from home changed what people expect from a job?

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

Permanently, I think, and the change is about autonomy rather than location. Once people have experienced being trusted to organise their own day, being told to sit in a specific chair for eight hours reads as a statement about trust, not about productivity. That is very difficult to reverse. The second change is that the commute has become visible as a cost. It was always two hours of unpaid time and nobody counted it, and now everybody does. What I think is genuinely unresolved is what happens to people early in their careers. A great deal of learning at twenty-three is accidental, overhearing how somebody handles a difficult call, and I have not seen anybody solve that remotely in a way that convinces me.

The words that earn marks

Each one links to how it is pronounced.

  • autonomy

    four syllables with the stress on the second

  • productivity

    five syllables with the stress on the third

  • reverse

    the precise verb for undoing a change

  • commute

    the noun, stressed on the second syllable

  • unresolved

    three syllables, precise about an open question

  • accidental

    four syllables with the stress on the third

  • overhearing

    four syllables, concrete about how learning happens

How a strong answer is built

  1. 1Answer decisively and name what really changed.
  2. 2Explain how it is experienced by employees.
  3. 3Add a second change about hidden costs.
  4. 4Raise the genuinely unresolved problem.

Sounds to watch

The ones this answer leans on most.

Straight answers

How long should my answer to “Has working from home changed what people expect from a job?” 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.
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