IELTS Life Skills A1 practice test 1
Answer questions about yourself, ask your partner about their family, listen to two people talking about shopping, and talk about shops.
How to use this test. The real test is taken with an examiner and one other candidate, and it lasts up to 18 minutes. Practise with a friend if you can. If you are alone, speak your answers out loud and use the buttons to hear the examiner and your partner. The listening task is marked for you. The speaking tasks are not marked, so compare yourself with the example answers.
The examiner asks you questions
4 to 5 minutesThe examiner asks you and your partner some questions in turn. Press a button to hear a question, then answer it out loud.
- What's your name?
- Can you spell your family name for me?
- Where do you come from?
- Do you work or are you a student?
- Where do you live?
- What do you like to do in your free time?
See example answers
- What's your name?
- My name is Fatima Rahman.
- Can you spell your family name for me?
- Yes. R-A-H-M-A-N.
- Where do you come from?
- I come from Bangladesh.
- Do you work or are you a student?
- I work. I am a cleaner in a hotel.
- Where do you live?
- I live in a small flat near the park.
- What do you like to do in your free time?
- I like cooking, and I watch films with my husband.
Ask your partner questions
5 minutesThe examiner gives you a topic. You have a minute and a half to think of questions, and you can write them down. Then you ask your partner your questions for up to two minutes. After that, your partner asks you about a different topic.
The examiner says
Ask your partner about his or her family.
See example questions you could ask
- Do you have any brothers or sisters?
- Where does your family live?
- Who do you live with?
- How often do you see your parents?
- What do you do together at the weekend?
Now your partner asks you
Your partner asks you about your home. Press a button to hear a question, then answer it out loud.
- Do you live in a house or a flat?
- How many rooms are there?
- Which room do you like best?
- Is there a garden?
See example answers
- Do you live in a house or a flat?
- I live in a flat on the second floor.
- How many rooms are there?
- There are four rooms: two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room.
- Which room do you like best?
- I like the kitchen best, because it is warm and I like cooking.
- Is there a garden?
- No, there is no garden, but there is a small park near my home.
Listen to two recordings
4 minutesYou hear two short recordings. First you answer one question about each, choosing from three options. Then you hear both again and answer two questions about one of them. Here you answer the questions on both.
You hear two people talking about shopping.
Listen to both recordings. Where do they want to go? To a supermarket, to a clothes shop or to a market?
Talk with your partner
3 to 4 minutesYou and your partner talk together. Ask your partner questions and answer theirs. The examiner only helps if the conversation stops.
The examiner says
Talk to each other about the shops you go to and what you buy there.
If you stop talking, the examiner may ask
- Where do you buy your food?
- Do you like shopping for clothes? Why? Why not?
- Who do you go shopping with?
- Are the shops in your country different from the shops here?
See an example conversation
- YouWhere do you buy your food?
- PartnerI go to the supermarket near my house. It is cheap. And you?
- YouI like the market. The fruit is very good there.
- PartnerDo you go every day?
- YouNo, only on Saturday. I go with my daughter.
Check yourself
You get a pass or a fail, not a band. Ask yourself whether you did these things:
- I answered every question in a full sentence.
- I asked my partner questions, and did not only answer.
- I understood what each recording was about, and the details.
- I asked for the question again when I did not understand.