Sample Speaking Test Transcript Hello, my name is Robbie, can you tell me your full name, please? My name is Shriber. And can you tell me where you re from? I m from Radeburg, close to Dresden. That s in Germany, isn t it? Yes. And can I see your identification? Here you are. OK, thank you very much. Now in this first part I d like to ask some questions about yourself. So to begin with, can you describe the city/the town/the village where you live? You said Radeburg, yes? Yes, I live with my parents in Radeburg which is just outside of Dresden, a 20-minutes drive, and it is a small town, around 18,000 inhabitants. My friends are there, I grew up there, I went to school there, and this is where I started to live and I am still living there. OK, is this a good place to live? Of course it is, because I grew up there, my friends are there, my family is there, and it s just outside of Dresden so easy to reach by public or private transport. OK, would you prefer to live in a city or in a countryside? That s a good question! I think when when I was younger I wanted always to live in a big, big city, like a metropole but nowadays, as you know, you start life to, you start to work in (unclear) environment with many kids I prefer now to live in a countryside. Now I d like to ask some questions about smoking. Do you smoke? Yes, I do. Yea? OK, why do you smoke?
That s always a good question people ask. It s just became a little habit when you have a glass of wine and it s Um-hm It s it doesn t taste good, it s just a habit. At what age do you think smoking should be legal? By the age of 18. Um-hm (pause), that s enough, OK. Do you think smoking should be banned from all indoor places, as has already happened in some countries? Definitely, 100%. Even though I do smoke and I like, you know, to have a wine and a cigarette, I prefer to sit in a restaurant or to go to a club where smoking is banned. Does that happen in Germany? Yes, it does. How can government stop people from smoking? I think there if you push up or you increase the advertisement against smoking then of course you can give more detailed insight what smoking can do to your health and harm you. OK, I d like to now ask some questions about social media. Why do you think social media is so popular nowadays? I think as this much for an area started and people also started traveling abroad and made connections to friends and relatives or acquaintances all over the world it s the easiest way to connect and to connect wherever you are. So it just came or went away from the paper because for the paper you have to pay and then young people don t have the money but they always have the phone to their side so this is how they why this became so popular. OK, how do you think social media will change over the next 10 years? I think it will still increase compared to other media such as TV or newspaper but I think it would just be more implemented with more sites in Facebook or such as Instagram, Twitter, I think there will be more coming up.
OK, what are some of the dangers that social media represents? I think you get lost in the world and you don t pay attention to your real friends, even though you have them in the social media, but I think you get too dependent on the social media, to be online, to be in it, to see what s going on, and not to see your real life which is, you know, have a coffee with your friend instead of going to your smart phone and checking what s going on on Facebook. How can we reduce the fascination that young people have with social media, or shouldn t we be worried? We should be worried, because you have to get the young people away from or to get a good range of social media and active sport or lifestyle outside of the, lets say, internet-based technology. Now, I am going to give you a topic and I d like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you talk you ll have one minute to think about what you re going to say, and you can make some notes if you wish. Do you understand? Yes, I do. OK, so here is your topic, and take some time to prepare. OK. (pause) I m ready. Ok, now you ve only got one to two minutes so don t worry if I stop you in the middle. Please start talking. OK. I did a journey in 2011 to South America with my friend and we booked a group tour so we didn t know who to expect on the tour but we knew that it was a small group of ten people including us plus the last person was the tour guide. And when we arrived there we knew we were going to travel to different countries so we saw Argentina, went to Uruguay, had a fantastic time on a farm where we helped also with the sheep, the cows, and did horseback riding, and then went over to back into Argentina to the Iguazu Falls and all the way from there we did Brazil, we went on a big island and the final destination was Rio. What did we do? We did horseback riding, we traveled, visited the Iguazu Falls, we did a nice hike over an island from one beach to another and we did also a helicopter flight in Rio which was the first time I did that and it was also amazing to fly over that amazing city and to fly up to the Christ the Redeemer statue and to see, you know, as a bird the city from above. Why did I enjoy that? I think because we were such an individual group of different nationalities, of different characters, I think this what it made so special. Because everyone had its own character, brought some positive
things, had good memories to share with us, and I think it s always interesting when you meet people and you don t know them and you spent nearly three weeks all together, day and night. OK, would you do a similar trip again? Yes, I did that did other trips as well. OK, right, now I d like to ask some questions related to this topic. OK. So to begin with I d like to talk about travel. Why do you think people enjoy travel? I think since we have now the possibility and also the budget to travel all over the world people like to see other countries with their cultural background, their food background and to see something they might not have in their own country such as beach or OK, what can people learn from travel? I think they can really appreciate what they ve got at home. Because if you travel to third world countries you do really need to appreciate what you have back home, because those people don t have that. How has travel changed over the last 50 years? I think you have now the low budget airlines you can go quickly from one place to another, with you know, have a smaller budget. And I think we have now the right, because 50 years ago in East Germany we weren t allowed to travel that far and not even far out of Europe. What are some of the negative impacts of so much travel nowadays? I think it s, you know, emission, it s going on with the aircrafts, all always in the air, and of course as we saw with 9-11, the you know, the air travel has been used also for terrorism. OK, I d like to talk more specifically about air travel. What are some of the dangers of air travel? I can only think of the two (unclear, laughing) experience.
What are some of the reasons budget air travel has increased so much in popularity recently? As I said earlier, with the budget air you know, even people with less income have now the possibility to get that insight different countries, different culture, and yea, so everyone gets to know more things if they wish to. How do you feel air travel will change over the next 30 years? Good question! I think the comfort might change that you get, also different aircrafts for different styles, and maybe also the destinations will change where, you know, they are thinking to go to the Moon, or to see, you know, to see outside of the Earth, how it looks like. OK, well, thank you very much, that s the end of the test. OK.