IELTS Speaking Part 3 · media

How has streaming changed what people watch?

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

How has streaming changed what people watch?

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

The obvious change is choice, and I think the more interesting change is the loss of the schedule. When everybody watched the same programme on a Thursday, television was a shared event you could refer to at work the next morning, and that has almost entirely gone. What replaced it is deeper but narrower. People watch far more of what they already like and much less of what they would never have selected, because the algorithm has no reason to offer you something outside your pattern. The production side has changed too. A series now has to survive the first ten minutes rather than build over six weeks, which favours a particular kind of opening and, I would argue, a particular kind of programme.

The words that earn marks

Each one links to how it is pronounced.

  • schedule

    the topic noun, and a pronunciation choice worth making

  • algorithm

    four syllables with the stress on the first

  • selected

    three syllables with the stress on the second

  • production

    three syllables with the stress on the second

  • survive

    the precise verb for holding an audience

  • favours

    British spelling, the exact verb for a bias

  • narrower

    comparative that sharpens the contrast

How a strong answer is built

  1. 1Name the obvious change, then the one that matters.
  2. 2Explain what was lost with the schedule.
  3. 3Describe the narrowing effect and its cause.
  4. 4Add a consequence for how things are made.

Sounds to watch

The ones this answer leans on most.

Straight answers

How long should my answer to “How has streaming changed what people watch?” 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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