Should healthy food be cheaper than unhealthy food?
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
Should healthy food be cheaper than unhealthy food?
no preparation, about 1 minute to speak
A band 7 to 8 answer
About 126 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.It should, and I would get there by subsidy rather than by taxing the alternative, though I recognise taxes are easier to pass. The reason is distributional. A tax on cheap food falls hardest on people with the least money, and telling somebody choosing between heating and eating that they are making poor decisions is not an argument, it is an insult. What is often missed is that price is only part of it. Fresh food requires time, equipment and somewhere to store it, and a person working two jobs in a room without a proper kitchen is not going to cook lentils however cheap they are. So I would support price intervention and I would not expect it, on its own, to change very much.
The words that earn marks
Each one links to how it is pronounced.
- subsidy
three syllables with the stress on the first
- distributional
five syllables, a precise economic adjective
- insult
the noun, stressed on the first syllable
- equipment
three syllables with the stress on the second
- intervention
four syllables with the stress on the third
- lentils
concrete food noun that grounds the argument
- recognise
British spelling, three syllables
How a strong answer is built
- 1Agree and specify the mechanism you prefer.
- 2Give the distributional reason.
- 3Add what the price argument leaves out.
- 4State your position with its limits.
Sounds to watch
The ones this answer leans on most.
Straight answers
How long should my answer to “Should healthy food be cheaper than unhealthy food?” 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
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