IELTS Energy 1626: Back to School Part 2: Let's Go Back to High School!

This is an IELTS Energy Podcast episode 1626, Back to School Part 2. Let's go back to high school. 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. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams.

Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz at allearsenglish.com slash myscore. How long ago did you finish high school? You may be asked about these formative years on IELTS, so be ready with today's vocabulary and sample answers.

Have you ever walked out of a meeting thinking, I could have said that better? You understood everything, but your response came out short or unclear or not quite like you.

Maybe your ideas are strong, but your English doesn't show it yet. You forget words you know. You can't explain things naturally and fast conversations leave you quietly catching up.

That gap can be frustrating, but it's also very specific and very fixable. Our two-minute fluency quiz helps you understand where that gap is and whether your level is B1, B2, or C1. When you know your level...

progress feels lighter and faster. Take the quiz now at allearsenglish.com fluency score and move closer to speaking English the way you think. One more time, go to allearsenglish.com f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e.

Hey there, Aubrey. How are you doing today? I'm great, Lindsay. How are you? I'm good. Aubrey, I have a would you rather question. I love these questions.

You ready? I do too. Yes. So here's my question. Would you rather have to go back and repeat high school or have to go back and repeat college? Definitely college.

High school years were awkward. So many uncomfortable memories, right? It's really tricky. You're really becoming who you are and embarrassed all the time.

So I would much rather repeat college. What about you? Me too. I feel the same way. There's a few things I would have done differently about college and knowing what I know now, what happened 20 years after college, I would have just looked at it a bit differently.

It's a very special time of your life. four years where you can be a college student and then your life is different. Right. But it's interesting. High school was so long ago.

My memories of it are not very clear. I couldn't name very many of my teachers. So guys, there is a good chance that you will be asked about the education you completed as a young adult. And if it's been a while, this can be tricky.

You can't just take time on IELTS speaking to think about your answers, to recall all these memories. You have to do that preparation now. And what a shame if we have all the language, we just don't have the memories, right? This is something that might be a little harder to make up just because you did live it.

So you might spend too much time thinking, what do I make up? I mean, we just should spend some time reflecting on what are those memories. So they're ready for us. They're bubbling up in our minds, right?

Exactly. So today we're sharing an episode with high scoring vocabulary and sample answers about high school, about these younger years of your education. So we're excited to bring this to you so that you'll be ready for these very common questions on IELTS.

I love it. Let's go ahead and listen to the episode. Aubrey, do you remember high school very well? I do. I didn't have the best high school experience.

I wasn't one of the popular girls who was just loving life, but it also wasn't terrible. Yeah. I did not peak in high school, as they say. Thank gosh that we did not peak in high school.

So to peak in high school means that those were the best days of your life. I mean, nobody wants that to be said about themselves or to say it themselves, right? And to be honest, I think everyone looking back is going to be like, oh, high school was rough. I think most people are just like –

That is a tough time. Even the quote-unquote cool crowd. They're still going through stuff. Like, yeah, still going through stuff. So, guys, here's the thing.

Aubrey and I are in our 40s. Don't tell anybody. And so – High school's a while ago. That doesn't matter to the examiner, guys. It doesn't matter how old you are.

There are still questions in speaking part one and sometimes speaking part two about your high school memories. Yes, right. Or even elementary school, you need to be thinking about, right? Like, it's been a long time since you've thought about this.

If you're asked about elementary school or high school, college, you're going to need to have something to say. It's not going to be enough to say, I don't really remember that far back. Oh, that doesn't work. Exactly.

And I'm sure that will be part of our answers today. But we notice that if we do like a filler phrase like that where you're like, oh, my gosh, that was so long ago.

I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm kind of old and I don't remember. Like, that's great. That is all great fluency and vocabulary, guys. But you always have to follow it with something.

Yeah. Exactly. You have to have something more to say. So whether you have to make that up or scour your memories, think about it now, right? Now you're hearing our podcast.

Try and recollect. What was it like? What's something you could talk about? It's a lovely verb. It's a lovely verb. That's a lovely vocabulary word. Guys, write that down for today's topic.

To recollect is a very formal verb to say instead of remember. And even though it's formal, you can definitely use it in speaking part one, guys. Okay, so Aubrey and I are going to give you some sample part one answers about high school today.

All right, Aubrey, I'm going to ask you first, okay? We'll take turns. We'll go back and forth today. Perfect. Perfect. All right. Who was your favorite teacher in high school?

That's kind of tough because I really had a bunch of teachers that I loved. Oddly enough, I don't remember any of their names, but I remember which classes they taught that I loved. And my debate teacher, I think, was my favorite. It was an elective.

It was really fun. And she was very motivating, too. She had a way of making us feel very intelligent, like we were doing something that not every kid could do or was willing to do. I guess she was playing to our egos a little bit that way.

But it made me really look forward to her class. I couldn't wait to get there every day. It seemed to go by in a blink. You'd think it was a part two question.

I'm just going to talk forever. No, that's awesome. Again, that shows fluency, right? And I did have – I did see a comment on one of our YouTube videos the other day.

That was like, this isn't a real part one answer. Like I couldn't do that or whatever. You can't compare yourselves to like native speakers who are also IELTS experts who can speak quickly, fit a lot of information into like a short time, right? But we also want you to realistically expect how much time will the examiner let me talk for?

Right. How much actually can I say in this amount of time? So long story short, guys, don't worry about it. If you have a lot to say, keep talking. The examiner will stop you to ask more questions.

And if you don't have a lot to say, that's okay. Talk more in the next answer. Right. Yeah. And when you're practicing with a speaking partner, it's actually good to do this, to like talk too long, let them cut you off so that you get used to that feeling.

You don't want it to let you throw you off. You don't want to worry like, oh, did I speak too? Nope. It's fine. It's not affecting your score. You need to get used to being cut off and then just hearing the next question.

Totally. Don't get thrown off by that, guys. It's so funny. I don't remember any of my high school teachers' names either. I couldn't tell you one. That's a great example, though, guys, because I can imagine some students being like, I can't remember a name.

I can't answer that question. That's not true. Yeah. You can remember people that you like. You don't have to remember their eye color and middle name or whatever.

Say what you have, right? Okay, now that's my turn. All right, I'm ready. Ask me one. Okay, ready? Hello, wonderful IELTS Energy listeners. Guys, if you want to know your IELTS band score right now, what would you get if you took the test today, guys?

You can find out with our free quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com slash myscore. Free IELTS quiz, free preparation materials, guys. I made them just for you.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash myscore. What was your favorite subject in high school? Oh, by far and away, anything related to English. I have two classes that come to mind immediately.

One was my rhetoric class. And I was actually in this class with classmates who were a year and even two years older than me. I was one of the younger people that chose to take this elective because it was an elective.

And it was all about the power of language and words and learning different word relationships, right? Like onomatopoeia, for example, right? When words are sounds. Some of my favorite words still to this day, I remember clearly learning in that rhetoric class.

So that was my number one favorite class. Second favorite class, AP English, which was my senior year. And we had a lot of student autonomy to decide our own fields of research and what we were going to do with that research.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say, thank you. Oh, man, I'm so jealous. I don't know about our listeners out there, but I did not have a lot of autonomy in high school.

It was like, these are the classes. There were a couple of different electives to choose between. But now my daughter has just lists and lists and pages of classes she could take. Rhetoric?

I would have loved to take a class about rhetoric. Oh, my gosh, right? It was so cool. Yeah, man. Yeah. There are definitely a wider variety of classes in my son's school now even, but especially moving forward, middle school and high school, than I think a lot of us had growing up.

I love that strategy you did there too, because there's only really so much you can say about a rhetoric class, but it was interesting that you gave some information about what kinds of kids took the class, that you were the youngest one, that, you know, what electives were you, you kind of look at the little tiny tangents Jessica took from her answer and You don't have to just describe the rhetoric class the whole time, right? Pay attention to all the different things she said that were related because you want three to five sentences. And as long as it's related and you're answering the question, this is all showing your fluency.

You know, if you haven't listened to a lot of our episodes before, you might not be aware of this speaking strategy, guys. We like to say follow the branches, especially in speaking part two, because students worry so much about having perfectly organized speaking answers, and that is not realistic, and it's not natural. It's not what natives do. So follow the branches, right?

This is fluency, talking spontaneously and narrating our thoughts. In your first language, you have personality. You joke, you interrupt, you push back, but in English, you might feel smaller, more careful, less expressive than you really are. If English feels like it's filtering your personality, it may be time to understand why.

Our free two-minute fluency quiz helps you see what's holding you back from speaking freely and naturally and connecting. Plus, you get your current English level. Is it B1, B2, or C1? Find out today.

Take the quiz now at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Okay, let's do one more. One more.

Okay, Aubrey, do you still remember what happened on your first day of high school? Absolutely not. I don't remember it at all. I have a vague recollection of trying to find my locker and wandering down some hallways, and the school wasn't even that big.

It was one building, but I had kind of a hard time finding my locker, and that is the only thing I remember. I don't remember people. I don't remember classes. I don't know what I ate.

I don't remember a lot of details. Oh, my God. That was so good. Okay. Some things I want to point out from that answer, guys. First of all, the vocabulary phrase, vague recollection.

So we talked about that in the beginning, right? To recollect is a verb for to remember. So a memory, the noun, recollection is the better way to say that. Vague recollection, that's so nice for being like, I don't remember.

Yeah. I have like some blurry images that might not be true. And I want you to listen to her intonation as well, guys, because it is funny. You can laugh on IELTS.

Okay. Like, I guarantee you if the examiner asks you something like this, like the examiner will also be able to chuckle because she or he won't remember their first day of high school either. So it's like, just laugh.

Be like, what? I don't remember that. This is kind of ridiculous. And then continue to say what you don't remember. I love that. I don't remember places.

I don't remember what I ate. I don't remember what I wore. Like that's a whole other level of strategy that I love. Share all the things you don't remember.

Exactly. I love it. Oh my gosh, this was so good. Guys, if you want to take our free IELTS quiz and then you can recollect... How good you are at English?

No, I tried to work that in as a segue. But guys, we have a free IELTS quiz for you. It'll give you your estimated IELTS band score. And again, for free.

You don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to take the test just to see what your score is. Start with our quiz, guys, and then get preparation materials based on that score. So go to allearsenglish.com slash myscore.

And if you are listening to this on – Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you listen. That is fantastic. Thank you so much. But you can also watch this podcast on YouTube.

Go to IELTS Energy TV. Yes. And we'll see you on YouTube or in the podcast. And we'll see you next time, Jessica. This is fun. I love sample answers. Me too.

I want to do these all the time. Okay. All right, Aubrey. See you next week. Bye-bye. Bye. I loved these sample answers about favorite teachers and favorite subjects.

Lindsay, what was your favorite subject in high school? My favorite subject, I really liked sociology. I thought that was interesting, you know, learning about society. And I also love this pro tip about whether you can say, I don't remember or not, right?

Yeah, you can absolutely say that, right? Yeah. That's possible that someone asks us a question, native speakers do this too, be like, wow, I don't even remember. But you then need to still answer the question, right?

If you share that your memory is fuzzy, that you're not remembering much, but whatever it is, if you're asked about a favorite teacher, you can definitely say you don't remember their name, but then describe them. What did you like about them? You still have to answer the question. Yeah.

Obviously, not remembering is not an opt-out, right? Of course. You can't just say, I don't remember, full stop, we're done. No. Right, right. We know exactly what the examiner is looking for, and we need to gear our answer in that direction.

So we want you to go ahead and practice answering today's questions with your own answer as we finish up this episode. Exactly. And as we've mentioned in this series, the topic of education comes up on both IELTS speaking and writing. So be sure to hit follow for part three of this series with tips on writing about the topic of education, especially on writing task two.

Perfect. All right. Good stuff today, Aubrey. You have a good day. You too. See you next time. 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.