The examiner asks you some questions about yourself and about familiar, everyday topics. Answer each question aloud and record yourself if you can; the model answers unlock after you submit.
Topic 1 — Work or studies
"I work as a junior accountant at a garment-exporting company in Kawran Bazar. I've been there for about a year and a half now, ever since I finished my degree, and I mainly deal with supplier payments."
"Partly because I've always liked working with numbers, and partly for practical reasons, since accounting jobs are fairly secure, which mattered to my family. The company also offered to support me through my professional exams, which was a big attraction."
"Yes, mostly. Our team is quite small, just six of us, so we've become fairly close. We usually have lunch together, and during the busy end-of-year period everyone helps each other out, which makes the long hours more bearable."
"I take the metro for most of the journey and then walk the last ten minutes. Before the metro opened, the same trip took well over an hour by bus, so it's honestly changed my daily life."
Topic 2 — Flowers
"I do, although I'm not very knowledgeable about them. I prefer the ones with a strong scent, like jasmine and tuberose, to the showy ones you see in bouquets."
"Yes, quite a few times, usually for birthdays or when someone has graduated. Last month I bought a bunch of roses for my mother after she recovered from an operation, and she kept them on the dining table until they'd completely dried out."
"Very much so. Weddings are almost covered in them, with marigold garlands, rose petals and flowers in the bride's hair. And on the first day of spring, a lot of young women wear flower crowns, so the streets are full of colour."
Topic 3 — Staying up late
"Later than I should, definitely, usually around one in the morning. It's not because I'm busy. I just tend to get absorbed in something on my phone and lose track of time."
"Hardly ever. My parents were very strict about bedtime on school nights, so it was lights out at ten. The only exception was during big cricket tournaments, when the whole family would stay up together to watch the matches."
"I try not to look at my phone, though I don't always succeed. What tends to work better is listening to a podcast with the screen off, because after twenty minutes or so I usually start to drift off."
"Absolutely. If I've had less than six hours, I'm slow and irritable all morning, and I need at least two cups of tea before I can concentrate on a spreadsheet. Weekends are the only time I can really get away with it."
Read the card, then use the 1-minute preparation timer to make quick notes. When it ends, start the 2-minute timer and speak until it stops, covering all four points.
"The hobby I'd like to talk about is chess, which might sound a bit old-fashioned, but it's become a really important part of my week.
I'd actually learnt the rules as a child from my uncle, who used to set up a board on the veranda whenever he visited, but I'd given it up once school got serious. I only picked it up again about two years ago, during my final year at university. A friend in my hostel challenged me to a game one evening, and he absolutely thrashed me in about fifteen minutes. I was so annoyed that I started watching lessons online and practising against a chess app every night, and within a few weeks I was hooked.
These days I play a few quick games on my phone most evenings, usually on the metro on the way home, and then on Saturday afternoons I go to a small chess club that meets above a bookshop in Dhanmondi. There are about fifteen regulars, from schoolchildren to a retired engineer in his seventies, who still beats me more often than not.
As for why I enjoy it so much, I think it's mainly that it demands total concentration. All week I'm dealing with invoices and supplier payments, whereas at a chessboard there's simply no room in my head for anything else, so I can switch off completely. I also like the fact that it's completely fair. There's no luck involved, so if I lose, it's because I made a mistake, and I can go back and work out exactly where it went wrong. Strangely enough, I think it's made me a bit more patient at work as well, since I've learnt to think a few moves ahead before I react. And of course, there's nothing quite like the thrill of winning a game you thought you'd lost."
The examiner asks you some more general questions connected with the topic in Part 2. Answer each question aloud; the model answers unlock after you submit.
Theme 1 — Hobbies and leisure
"Online gaming is huge, especially among teenage boys, and so is anything connected with social media, like making short videos. Cricket and football are still very popular, of course, wherever there's space to play. I've also noticed a growing interest in quieter things like baking and journaling, partly because people see them online and want to try them for themselves. Among adults, playing badminton in the evenings has become a real craze in some neighbourhoods, especially in winter."
"The biggest difference is probably that so many hobbies now involve a screen. My parents' generation read novels, played carrom or played outdoor games with neighbours, and those activities were mostly offline and local. Hobbies today can connect you with people all over the world, which is a real advantage, but they can also be more solitary in a physical sense, even when they feel social. There's also more pressure to share a hobby online, or even to earn money from it."
"It can be, but I think people often underestimate the risks. When a hobby becomes your income, you suddenly have deadlines, clients and financial pressure, and the thing you did to relax can start to feel like work. On the other hand, if someone is genuinely talented and can cope with that pressure, earning a living from something they love is probably the most satisfying career there is. So it depends a great deal on the person and on the hobby."
Theme 2 — Games and the mind
"I think it's because the rules are simple enough to learn in an afternoon, but the game itself is almost endlessly deep, so you can keep improving for your whole life. It also needs nothing more than a board and two people, which is probably why it has spread across so many different cultures and social classes. And there's something very satisfying about a contest where the result depends entirely on your own decisions. Even with so many other kinds of entertainment around, that still appeals to people."
"In some ways it's more useful. A computer is always available, it can be set to exactly the right level, and it never gets bored of repeating the same position again and again, so it's an excellent training partner. But I don't think it's as rewarding. Against a person, you're also reading their mood and their confidence, and there's a social side, a chat and a laugh afterwards, that a machine simply can't offer. So I'd say a computer is great for practice, while people are better for the actual enjoyment of the game."
"To a limited extent, yes. Games like chess train you to think a few steps ahead and to consider what the other side is likely to do, which is useful in negotiations or when you're planning a project. They also teach you to lose without falling apart, and then to analyse calmly what went wrong. But I'd be careful not to exaggerate it. Being brilliant at a board game doesn't automatically make someone a good manager, because real workplaces involve people and emotions, not fixed rules. So it's a helpful habit of mind rather than a professional skill."
"I doubt it, and in fact the opposite seems to have happened. Computers have been stronger than the best humans for well over twenty years, and yet more people seem to be playing chess now than ever, largely thanks to apps and online streams. After all, we don't stop watching runners just because a car is faster. What interests us is human beings competing under pressure and making mistakes. So I imagine machines will stay as tools for training and analysis, while the games themselves remain a very human activity."