IELTS Speaking Part 3 · role models

Why do you think young people admire celebrities so much?

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

Why do you think young people admire celebrities so much?

no preparation, about 1 minute to speak

A band 7 to 8 answer

About 128 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

I think the main reason is visibility rather than anything about the people themselves. A teenager now sees a handful of the same faces several hundred times a week, and familiarity turns into a kind of affection almost automatically. There is also the fact that celebrities are presented as finished. You see the house and the success without the fifteen years of ordinary work underneath, so it looks achievable in a way that a career actually visible to you does not. I would add that this is not new. My parents had film stars on their walls. What has changed is the volume and the illusion of access, because a celebrity now appears to speak directly to you, and at sixteen that is very difficult to see through.

The words that earn marks

Each one links to how it is pronounced.

  • visibility

    abstract noun naming the mechanism in one word

  • familiarity

    five syllables with the stress on the third

  • affection

    three syllables with the stress on the second

  • achievable

    four syllables with the stress on the second

  • volume

    used of quantity rather than sound, precisely

  • illusion

    three syllables with the stress on the second

  • access

    the noun, stressed on the first syllable

How a strong answer is built

  1. 1Give the main cause in the first clause.
  2. 2Add a second mechanism and explain how it works.
  3. 3Qualify with a historical comparison.
  4. 4Say what has genuinely changed.

Sounds to watch

The ones this answer leans on most.

Straight answers

How long should my answer to “Why do you think young people admire celebrities so much?” 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.