Practice task transcript

Examiner: Where do you come from?
Candidate: Well, I come from Worcestershire – it's a county in the middle of England, right in the centre. You can't really get much further away from the sea than where I come from.

Examiner: What's it like?
Candidate: It's ... it's nice, it's quite beautiful, there's a lot of countryside, a lot of small villages. I suppose it's a place that a lot of people commute from. A lot of people in the area where I live would typically work in Birmingham or in Worcester. So, where I come from originally, it's the sort of place that people live and sleep in, but don't really work in so much.

Examiner: Do you have a big family?
Candidate: I think I have ... I come from a very normal size family. I have three sisters, and they are both married and have kids, so I have five nieces and nephews. And I'm married, but I don't have any kids. And I think that's probably a fairly standard size family in this day and age.

Examiner: Thank you. Let's talk about what you do, whether you work or study What do you do?
Candidate: Well, I work in the education industry. I used to be a teacher, and then I moved into management and managing teachers and educational organisations. And now I work for an online language school, which is a very different and very exciting field to work in, so it's quite different from teaching in a more conventional school.

Examiner: Thank you. What do you like best about your job?
Candidate: I think what I like best is the variety and the change – it's a very fast-moving industry to be working in, and so nothing is ever the same and you never know exactly where— what direction you're going to be taken in next. And also the fact that it's— the educational world is a very satisfying and rewarding world to work in, and you feel as though you're actually contributing some good to the world.

Examiner: What did you study at university?
Candidate: At university I studied something called Comparative American Studies, which was a degree on— basically focusing on the history and the literature of the Americas in general, so both North and South and Central America.

Examiner: Did you enjoy it?
Candidate: Yeah, I loved it, it was fascinating, especially the part which focused on South America and Central America; I find that area of the world a very, very interesting place to study.

Examiner: What was the most interesting part of your studies?
Candidate: The most interesting part, I think, for me personally— I mean, it was all fascinating, but the most interesting part was focusing on pre-Columbian history, so looking at what we know about the different cultures, the different civilisations that were around before the Spanish arrived, before the Europeans, as such, arrived in South America. And, I mean, it really is incredible what the different societies, civilisations, religious beliefs, cultural values – everything that we've found out, and there's still so much more to discover.