IE 1597: Don’t Laze Around With Your IELTS Study

This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, episode 1597. Don't laze around with your IELTS study. Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English. Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.

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Do you like to rot in bed? Today, we share four expressions to describe how people spend time on IELTS speaking along with band nine sample answers. Practice using these to boost vocabulary scores on test day.

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Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Doing great, Aubrey. What is going on with you? How's it going? Oh, I'm great. I actually played volleyball this morning. It was so fun.

What about you, Lindsay? What do you do in your free time? Oh, I like to get outside. If I can take a walk in the park, if I just have like half an hour free time, I'll just go up to the park.

It's like five blocks from my house. I love it there. You know, just easy walk in the park. Get some vitamin D, soak in some sunshine. Yeah, for sure.

So free time, is this a topic that comes up on IELTS a lot, Aubrey, would you say? Yes, absolutely. What you would do on your day off or what you do in your free time is very common on the IELTS speaking exam. So we are going to dive in today with high scoring vocabulary and sample answers.

We'll first share some questions that might come up, right? Just what do you usually do on your day off? When was your last day off? What do you do in your free time on speaking part one?

But this could also come up on speaking part two or three. Yeah. And if you're new to IELTS, maybe you're listening to us for the first time, getting ready for an upcoming IELTS, you're going to learn on this show that you need to approach part one, part two, and part three a little differently. We're asking you for different things, different level of sophistication in your answer, level of formality, length of the answer.

But today it's all about part one. But what about part two, Aubrey? Yeah. You might be asked in part two to describe a person you know who is lazy or describe a person who has changed or describe a new hobby.

There could be so many questions where you end up talking about hobbies and free time and what you do on your day off. And then in part three, we look at society a bit more, right? We're looking at kind of the macro structures. Do you think people are getting lazier?

That's a hot take, hot topic, right? Yeah. Or do children spend too much time using technology? A lot of these questions that are about society as a whole, today's vocabulary would also be great for.

Of course. Yes. So the vocabulary could apply, but just the way we're going to answer this and the length of our answer is going to be different. Exactly.

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Yes, absolutely. Awesome. Okay, let's dive in here. Our first phrase is to while away the hours. And that's spelled W-H-I-L-E. While away the hours is a fun idiom.

That means just spending time, usually not doing something really productive. You would not say you while away the hours at work if you're working hard and very productive. Yeah, it has a wistful feeling to it, a bit of a... Blowing in the wind kind of feeling, right?

Almost like you're wasting time doing something you enjoy. Like on weekends, sometimes I while away the hours reading a novel or listening to music, right? Yes. Or these days, children seem to while away the hours on screen rather than spending time outdoors.

Mm-hmm. This is band nine. I don't know that I've ever heard a student say this in a speaking exam. So practice using it. It's actually very flexible.

Anytime you're talking, even questions about, imagine on part two, if you're writing about a time when you had to be hospitalized or an injury, something like that. If you had a lot of hours where you're just kind of waiting for time to go by, this is a perfect phrase for that. Yeah.

I don't use this very often. I feel like this is high level even for native speakers, you know? It's true. And so it will impress the examiner, guaranteed.

Take it easy, a little bit more accessible as a phrase. Do you think so? Definitely. But maybe not as natural. I mean, maybe it's not used naturally by candidates very often.

Right. It's also high scoring because it is a little more rare. You may have heard it more, but so for example, you might say after a busy week at work, I like to take it easy and not do anything stressful. Most students would be more likely to say relax there.

And so this is a little more, you know, uncommon. So yeah, I could say this. I like to take it easy, which means the same thing as relax and do nothing. Right.

Just use a different word than what most people are using. Exactly. Next one, on my day off, I prefer to take it easy rather than rushing from one activity to another. I kind of feel that way because I feel like working, I'm kind of rushing to get things done all day.

So on the weekend, it's a lot when it feels like, okay, we got to be here, got to be here, got to be here. I'd rather just not plan as much and have- Especially Friday, right? My partner always wants to go out on Friday nights. I'm like,

Can't we just sit around and do nothing? I totally agree. Friday is movie night. It's go to the movies, but not under pressure. I agree. Yes. We're on the same page there.

Totally. Oh, God. Don't ask me to get on an agenda on a Friday night. No way. Oh, right. Which this brings us really well to number three here, which is Lays Around.

Yeah. I always want to laze around on a Friday night in my pajamas. I like to do that on Sunday mornings too. Well, weekend mornings, I also don't like to be up and like have plans too early.

I like to be able to have my coffee, sit around, read my phone or read a book or something, you know. I know. That's exactly what one of our examples is here. It was on Sunday mornings, I often just laze around at home, have breakfast in bed and watch TV.

Yes. Whatever your routine is, embrace it in your answer because the examiner will hear that in your pronunciation. The variety will punch certain words. So embrace whatever you do.

Okay. Exactly. But what about on part three? You could also use this phrase in a part three question. Give us an example, Lindsay. This is going to be a little more involved.

So without a doubt, the general population is becoming more lazy. Decades ago, the average person worked laborious jobs for long hours. Now, everywhere I look, people are just lazing around. Yeah.

Nice. Honestly, you might be exaggerating here, but that's probably good for your score. You don't have to tell the truth, right? That's a really good point.

Often, say the first thing you come up with. It doesn't matter to the examiner if that's really your opinion. It doesn't matter if they disagree with you. They are so focused on listening for high scoring, vocabulary, listening for your grammar.

That's all they care about. It doesn't matter if they agree with you or if they think you're telling the truth or not. So take the first thought is what you said, Aubrey, and then take it to an extreme. right?

With good vocab, being articulate and punching the right words. That intonation, because that's a really good point that when you exaggerate, it's easier to vary your intonation because you have words to emphasize here. Like that word laborious is band nine, but you can also vary your intonation because that's an easy word to punch, right? Work to

Laborious jobs for long hours. Love it. And then the next phrase, maybe our listeners don't know it yet, is put my feet up, right? So this literally could mean put your feet up or it could just be an expression of relax.

Right. We use it literally and metaphorically, right? So we use it just to mean relax. And we also would literally put our feet up maybe on a chair or a coffee table when we're relaxing.

Yes. After a long day at the office, I like to put my feet up and relax with a cup of tea. Okay. Or watching a good movie is my favorite way to put my feet up on the weekend.

Exactly. So that could mean literally you're on a couch and you put your feet up on a thing, but really what you're saying is it's my favorite way to relax. Exactly. Perfect.

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Take it today at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. All right, Aubrey, we have some great vocabulary here now. And so let's do some sample answers.

All right. Perfect. Let's do part one answers here. Though this vocabulary can be used on every part of the IELTS speaking exam, we'll give examples here for part one.

Lindsay, I'll ask you a question first. Yes. What do you usually do on your day off? Oh, on my day off, honestly, I don't like to put a lot of pressure on myself to be up and be on a schedule.

So what I do is I like to take it easy. I'll kind of laze around for a few hours and read the New York Times on my phone. phone, hang out with my dog, and then maybe eventually go for a little bit of a walk. But in general, the idea is just trying to put my feet up and sort of while away the hours.

And then maybe the next day off, I'll get motivated to go to the mountains or do something a little more structured. But I think there's nothing wrong with just taking it easy on the weekend and relaxing when you have the free time. Yes. Amazing example.

I really love what you did there at the end, this chunk that we use a lot as native speakers to say, but I think there's nothing wrong with. That's a great way to summarize after you've given an answer and you're sort of defending yourself, right? Maybe not everyone does this, but I think there's nothing wrong with. Yeah.

And then you kind of restate what you had said that you like to do is such a native natural chunk. And then you used all of our vocabulary almost from today. It's so easy to fit these into these types of answers. Oh, for sure.

Just go with it, guys. Make sure you're fitting them in. Aubrey, I'm going to ask you a question now. So here we go. Do you prefer relaxing at home or going out?

There is a real ebb and flow to whether I want to just laze around at home and rot in bed, or if I feel like going out with friends, going to a bar, dancing at a club. I am a person of many parts, right? So I do often enjoy just staying home, putting my feet up and taking it easy, whiling away the hours while I binge Netflix or read a book. But sometimes on a Saturday night, I want to get dressed up and go out.

Nice. I love it. I love it. And that's good, too. And that actually when you offer both sides of the answer, it does allow for good intonation because you have to change your tone of voice a little bit.

Right. I like how you said rot in bed. Yeah. Yes, that's kind of a new slang phrase. It means sort of the same as lays around or, you know, it just means to like hang out in bed in the morning before you get up or all day long.

Sometimes my teenagers rot in bed all day. They don't have work or class. That's what they do. I don't know. And then you also said binge Netflix, which I feel like everyone can kind of relate to that, right?

But having the verb to binge is the key that might be different from what other candidates are saying. Right. That's true. Instead of just to watch TV, you can say binge Netflix or binge HBO Max.

That's also good vocab when you can name like a streamer or something specific like that in English. Yeah. And then it was interesting. I felt myself, I wanted to say this idiom, a man of many parts, but I didn't want to say man because I'm not a man.

So sometimes we do this, we'll change one like that. So I said a person of many parts. Okay. That I think would be really high scoring too. I think because we do that as natives, we'll like change an idiom to fit our gender.

Right. Because the examiner will know that you're going for that idiom. They'll know that you know it, but then you're taking a little bit of liberty and adapting it, which it should be fine on the test. Love that.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because we do that. Anything that's native and natural like that is really high scoring. It's very spontaneous to do that too. You'll show that spontaneity.

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Yeah. Yes. Spoiler alert, you are not too shy for IELTS, but you need strategies to overcome that. We gave great tips there to score well on IELTS speaking, even if you're shy.

Yeah. Aubrey, any final takeaway for today? Where should we leave our listeners? Yeah, this is vocabulary that is really worth learning. This is that 80-20 principle where you are very likely to be able to use this on IELTS because not only are you, there's a good chance that you'll be asked about free time or your day off, but these expressions and idioms are high scoring and could be used in a variety of answers.

Perfect. Love it. Great sample answers for today. And Aubrey, we'll see you back here very soon. You have a good rest of your day. All right. Awesome.

You too. See you next time. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.