Hi Students! Here are the Speaking part 2 questions that we covered in the past. Remember to practice your speaking by clicking, “Student Partner Speaking” in your My Student Account at https://www.gieltshelp.com/buy/ (Use code A8TW9 to get a 10% discount when you join the Premium Package) Good studies.

PART 2

Talk about a famous historical figure that lived over 500 years ago.

Who is this person?

Why is this person famous?

How did this person change the world?

What is your opinion of this person?

You will have one to two minutes to talk about this topic.
You will have one minute to prepare what you are going to say.

If you are unclear about the meaning of the topic sentence, do NOT panic, use the other questions to help you.

Step 2 – Identify the category – Person: appearance, personality + backed by action/activity.

Tense: past, past progressive, past perfect, present perfect, present tense

TOPIC = a famous person that lived 500 years ago or more

CONTROLLING IDEAS = (all of the other questions)

STEP 3 – Come up with three to four ideas – *What should you consider when coming up with your ideas? Unique (not most candidates are choosing this) and easy to talk about, it’s identifiable by the examiner.

Lord Buddha – Too common 8/10 are choosing this and you just walked in right after a band 9 theologian.
Galileo, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Columbus, Leonardo da Vinci (famous painter and scientist, inventor, and futurist), Cleopatra

***NOTE, one of the biggest challenges for many candidates is they run out of ideas to say, and they repeat themselves or go off-topic – so when you choose your answer it is good to choose one that has a lot of content.
Leo
STEP 4 useful notes

Appearance – Italian, big beard, long hair, pointed nose, old age

Personality + action

Intelligent + the perpetual machine, math, geometry, and biology

Creative, Artistic + Mona Lisa,

Curious + empirical methods studied the anatomy of corpses

Broad-minded + future innovations, helicopter, flight

Change – inspired artists and scientists of the future, passionate about work, engineering, the importance of the scientific method
Your thoughts – renaissance man, influence, a visionary

***Identifying a great answer for Part 2, is the most important single thought for a great score on your Speaking Section – even if this takes you 30 seconds of your one-minute preparation time!

The first sentence (get this ready before the end of the 1-minute prep time) –

One of the most famous and influential figures that come to mind, who lived over half a millennia ago, is Leonardo da Vinci. He was an Italian scientist, painter, biologist, engineer, an architect who had long hair, a long beard, a pointed nose and lived to a ripe old age by most historical accounts. He is recognized as one of the most talented and creative renaissance painters of the 15th and 16th centuries with his world-famous works like the Monalisa and the Last Supper. Beyond his paintings, he was an extremely curious person in constant pursuit of understanding human anatomy and inventing machines such as the perpetual machine, the parachute, and the helicopter. Clearly, to accomplish as much as Leonardo had, he had to have been not only exceptionally intelligent but also a very hard worker. I believe that da Vinci has left his mark on modern global society in many fields. Of course, he has inspired generations of artists to express their perspectives and discover new art forms while improving on old ones. Perhaps his greatest influence has been in exemplifying the importance of science and the empirical method. Many of his futurist ideas have been created by later generations, such as the helicopter. For all of these reasons, I admire da Vinci as a scholar and a person who was truly passionate about his work and his ideas, and often thought outside of the box and ahead of his time.