IELTS Speaking Part 3 · technology

How has the mobile phone changed the way people talk to each other?

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 the mobile phone changed the way people talk to each other?

no preparation, about 1 minute to speak

A band 7 to 8 answer

About 125 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

It has made contact constant and conversation shallower, which sounds like a complaint and is partly an observation. I speak to my sister more often than any previous generation could have managed, and almost none of it is sustained. There is also the effect on presence. A phone on the table changes a conversation even when nobody touches it, because both people know it might interrupt, and there is decent research suggesting the conversation stays on safer topics as a result. What has genuinely improved is access to people far away. My grandmother wrote letters to her sister and they took three weeks. I think the honest summary is that we have traded depth for frequency, and depth was always the harder thing to sustain.

The words that earn marks

Each one links to how it is pronounced.

  • constant

    the adjective contrasted with sustained

  • shallower

    comparative of an adjective used figuratively

  • sustained

    the key adjective, stressed on the second syllable

  • presence

    abstract noun naming what is affected

  • interrupt

    three syllables with the stress on the third

  • frequency

    three syllables with the stress on the first

  • traded

    the verb that frames the closing judgement

How a strong answer is built

  1. 1Give the two-part change in one sentence.
  2. 2Support with a personal example.
  3. 3Add the effect on presence, with evidence.
  4. 4Concede a real gain, then summarise the trade.

Sounds to watch

The ones this answer leans on most.

Straight answers

How long should my answer to “How has the mobile phone changed the way people talk to each other?” 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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