Part 1 Introduction & Interview (4-5 minutes)

The examiner will introduce himself or herself and confirm your identity. He or she will then ask you a number of general questions about yourself to try and make you feel relaxed. You may be asked about your home or studies. Then you will be asked one or two more sets of questions on familiar topics such as your interests, your country, your family or types of things you like in various categories such as food, clothes, holidays etc. The questions come from an examiner ‘frame’ (pre-determined questions) so the examiner will not necessarily follow-up with questions based on what you say. The more questions that are asked on a specific topic the more difficult they tend to be. However, you do not have to express a point of view or justify it in this part.

Some typical questions/prompts might be:

• Where do you come from?
• What is your home like?
• Tell me about your family.
• Tell me about your job/studies.
• Is there anything you dislike about your job/studies?
• What type of transport do you use most?
• Do you like reading?
• What kind of television programmes do you watch?
• Tell me about a film you have seen recently.
• Do you have a pet?
• What kind of food do you like?
• How often do you go shopping?
• What’s your favourite festival? Why?
• How do people celebrate this festival?

How to do Part 1

- Listen to the questions carefully.

- Give full answers to the questions if possible but don’t anticipate related questions. For example, if you are asked where you live a suitable answer would be ‘I live in the new territories – in a village just outside Sai Kung, called Pak Tam. ' NOT' I live in Sai Kung. It’s a really nice town with quite a large population and lots of seafood restaurants. It’s a lovely place to live as it’s in the countryside. I have lived there for ten years.’ as this sounds like a prepared answer and the examiner’s next question might be ‘What’s Sai Kung like?’.

- Don’t give one or two word answers as the examiner can only rat you on what he or she hears.

- Make sure you relate what you say to what the examiner asks. For example:

Examiner: Do you like reading?
You: Yes, I do but I don’t get much time to read these days.

How to prepare for Part 1

• Make a list of possible topics you could be interviewed on e.g.

- your home
- your country
- your job
- your interests
- your school
- your family
- food
- festivals
- clothes
- books
- films
- transport etc.

• Write questions for each of your topics and get a family member or friend to ask you the questions or put them on an audio cassette and test yourself responding to them.

• Record yourself answering the questions and listen to see how you can improve your responses.

• Make sure you know all the vocabulary necessary to talk about these topics. Practice the pronunciation of any new vocabulary.

• Think about the language that will be useful e.g.
- ways of expressing likes & dislikes
- linkers like ‘even though’ and ‘unless’
- tenses to talk about the past and present and your experiences e.g. ‘I’ve never been to Europe.’ or ‘I went to London for a holiday in 1998.’