let's get started this is the speaking test of the international English language testing system taking place on Saturday the 11th of March at Beacon Center Center number BN 367 the candidate is Sabrine valanchery and the candidate number is zero zero zero three four zero zero The Examiner is Carol Kennedy and the examiner number is 433-816 good afternoon uh what is your full name please um my full name is Bryn bellingery and what should I call you oh you can call me Saba may I see your identification please Sarah yes here it is okay thank you
now in this first part I'd like to ask you some questions about yourself let's talk about where you live where do you live in your country I live in Hyderabad which is the capital of Andhra Pradesh in the southeast of India it is a very big city about seven million people live there and is it an interesting place to live oh yes sir very interesting place to live Hyderabad has a very long history so there are lots of ancient forts mosques and other monuments uh there is a very beautiful Lake and uh there are also
lots of wonderful markets and where you live in Hyderabad in the future ah yes I think once I finish my studies here I'll go back to Hyderabad my husband is from Hyderabad too so I think we'll stay there now let's talk about hobbies and interests what hobbies and interests are popular in your country people have many different pastimes in my country I think the most popular these days are things like gardening and do it yourself which is when people well usually men make things for their home I think women tend not to have too many
hobbies you can't really call shopping a hobby um I think in the past women used to fill up the leisure time that they had with uh with craft activities but sewing anything on so common these days I think reading is still very popular especially now these days with the new e-readers and which hobbies and interests do you enjoy um well like a lot of people my work takes up a lot of my time and at the weekend I like to meet up with my friends or go out with my husband so I don't really have
much time for hobbies but I do read a lot especially history and biography also I love collecting art so I go to a lot of art fairs I really like colorful abstract art which really brighten up our homes and what hobbies and interests did you have as a child gosh uh that was a long time ago let me think I used to collect gearings I think I had about 20 or 25 they were silly things really but fun for a small child I used to like painting and drawing my parents were very supportive and they
bought me a lot of oil paints but I'm not really very talented I also played the clarinet I was in a junior Orchestra I remember once we uh we played a concert and my read broke during the first piece and so I couldn't make any sound and do you think parents should encourage their children to have a hobby or interest oh yes very much so I think it is very important for children to have something other than School television and computers sometimes a hobby can turn into a very successful career but even if it doesn't
it can help the child develop as a person as they learn about new things and meet new people who share the same hobby now let's move on to talk about the weather do you prefer hot weather or cold ah I think I prefer cold weather I know most people prefer hot weather but uh it is always so hot in my country that it is such a nice change to feel the gold of course in the gold it's very easy to put on a hat and gloves to keep ourselves warm tell me about the weather in
your country at different times of year India is so big that there are many different climates so I'll just talk about the weather in Hyderabad generally we have a tropical wet and dry climate that means the summers are March to June are hot over 30 degrees and very humid sometimes it can reach over 40 which is just unbearable at the end of the summer the monsoon comes and it rains for about three months after the rainy season it's winter which is quite short uh just a couple of months which time of year did you enjoy
most as a child uh well I think like most children I would say the summer when we had the long School holiday but uh I always preferred spring there's something so lovely about when everything starts to grow again after the winter you can almost smell it in the air and has the weather changed much in your country in recent years um I don't think so really I know that in some countries the climate has been changing because of global warming but where I live it seems to be the same just heat and rain I have
noticed something uh in recent Summers when it's very hot there have been many water shortages I don't remember that happening when I was younger thank you now I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to talk about it for one to two minutes you 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 but it's your paper and pencil and here's your topic I'd like you to describe a gift or present that somebody gave you recently okay now you
have one to two minutes for this so don't worry if I stop you I'll let you know when the time is up could you start speaking now please I'm going to talk about a present my husband gave me last year for my birthday uh we had gone to Istanbul for a few days my husband had always wanted to go there anyway we had a few days Holiday from work and we decided to fulfill my husband's dream as I said earlier I'm really interested in art and so even though I had no real desire to go
to Istanbul I was totally captivated by all the beautiful buildings and the wonderful arts and crafts that were available there the Blue Mosque was my favorite building from the outside it looks just like a typical ottoman mosque but inside it is quite startling the large windows with the light reflecting on the Exquisite blue tiles made it just breathtaking I asked one of the guides about the tiles and she told me that they were from isnic and that they are still made today when we left the Blue Mosque we walked down a pedestrian Lane full of
shops including some tile shops in one of the shops the owner told us that the tiles were made in his neck anyway one of the tiles really caught my eye actually it sang to me it was a fish four big fish and lots of little ones all in different shades of green I really really wanted it but when we asked the price it was very high something like 300 American dollars obviously I knew we could negotiate but it seemed such a high price that we just left the next night we went out for my birthday
meal just as we were finishing the dessert the waiter came over and handed me the most beautifully wrapped gift I knew it once because it was very heavy that it was the fishtail that's why and does this person often buy you presents well he's good at remembering my birthday and our anniversary so he does usually buy me something nice then but he doesn't just buy a present out of the blue thank you could I have the booklet the pencil and the paperback please cute now you've been telling me about a present you received and I'd
like to ask you some more general questions related to this so let's talk about attitudes to gifts can you tell me something about how people feel when they receive a homemade gift and when they receive a shop-bought gift well I think as with everything it depends on the person and the gift when a grandchild makes something for their grandparents uh like a bookmark or a clay pot that they've made at school then obviously their grandparents will treasure it for adults I think it's a bit different people are going to give homemade gifts then they need
to be of really good quality why do you say that well when children make things it's the thought that counts but when it's adults making things it has to look like the present is a proper present rather than something they've made just because it's cheaper of course the thought still counts and in many ways our time now is more important or precious than than money so if somebody has spent a lot of time making a gift it will mean a lot but if someone has made some chutneys or pickles or some other type of food
then it has to be edible and tastes nice as well so what about shop bought gifts most gifts these days are shop board and there isn't really anything wrong with that what is important I think with the shopwood gift is that the person buying the gift should spend some time thinking about what the other person would really appreciate it's no good a husband going into a perfume shop and buying the first perfume he likes he needs to see what perfume his wife is wearing that shows his wife that he's paying her attention and do you
think that children get more pleasure receiving gifts than adults do yes and no obviously children love receiving gifts but children do generally get a lot of gifts children these days are spoiled and they get too many gifts so the more gifts they get the less they value them adults on the other hand generally have the resources to buy things for themselves so if they really want something they can buy it of course this then makes present buying for adults much more difficult but of course there are things that we like that we can't really afford
or we can afford them but can't justify their expense what sort of things are you thinking of for women it might be perfume or a day at the spa or a new pair of party heels for men usually something to do with their Hobbies or books or CDs do you think that more people get more pleasure giving or receiving gifts oh um this is a tricky one why well I think most people get pleasure out of both of course it depends we may not get a lot of pleasure out of giving gifts to children who
we know may not appreciate them but if we have found the perfect gift for someone we love and we know it's going to make them happy well then this will really fill our hearts with joy similarly if someone receives a gift of something that they don't really want or they can sense that it has been bought out of haste then this isn't really going to make them feel that good but if it's something wonderful then well of course they're going to feel fantastic about it let's move on to talk about the commercial aspects of giving
how much do advertisements influence people when they buy gifts in my opinion probably not too much I mean most adverts are for things like cars and household products which aren't really gifts although a lot of young people like to be given new phones and other gadgets so if a parent isn't sure which model to get then they could be influenced by advertising and do you think that some festivals have become commercialized as a result of the emphasis on buying gifts oh yes definitely yes in fact I think it's much worse than that it's not just
the old festivals becoming commercialized but so-called new ones being created just for the sake of present giving can you tell me more about that yes uh things like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day these aren't Indian traditions but suddenly we find we have to buy a present for our spouse on Valentine's Day and while it is nice to recognize how important our mothers are surely it should be something we do every day not just once a year when we buy her some chocolates thank you very much Saba that is the end of the speaking test okay
yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music]
