Describe a natural place you like to spend time in.
River bank, hilltop, beach in winter, one particular tree-lined path — the smaller and more yours the place is, the better the answer.
The task card
Describe a natural place you like to spend time in.
You should say:
- where it is and how you get there
- what it looks like
- what you do there
and explain why you keep going back.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Claim a specific spot, not a category: 'the bend in the river behind the flour mill', not 'parks'. Ownership of detail is what the examiner scores.
Describe it through two senses beyond sight — the sound that tells you the water is high, the smell after rain. One sentence per sense is enough.
The last point wants a mechanism: it is the one place your phone stays in your pocket, it is where you take every decision that matters. Say what the place does to you.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
The journey there is a cue point
- How long it takes, by what means, and the moment the built-up part stops
- The last bit of the route — a gate, a stile, a bend where the view opens
- Whether getting there is part of the pleasure or an obstacle you tolerate
Describing without saying 'beautiful'
- Name the vegetation and the ground: gorse, birch, shale, peat, sand, reeds
- Sound and weather: wind in a particular tree, the pitch of water, insects in August
- One imperfection — pylons, litter, a road you can hear — which makes it credible
What you do and why you return
- The specific route or spot, and whether you always do the same one
- Whether you go alone or with someone, and how that changes it
- How it differs in two seasons, which doubles your material instantly
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHERE — estuary marshes, 25 min on the bike, past the industrial estate
- LOOKS — flat, reeds, grey water, birds; pylons on one side (not pretty)
- DO — walk the same 5km loop, sometimes sit; always alone
- RETURN — the scale of the sky; changes completely w/ tide
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The place I'd describe is a stretch of estuary marshland about twenty-five minutes from my flat on a bike. Getting there isn't scenic at all — you go along a main road, past an industrial estate and a scrapyard, and then there's a metal gate and a track, and about two hundred metres later the noise simply stops. That transition is honestly half the appeal. It isn't conventionally beautiful, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. It's completely flat, grey-brown for most of the year, reeds and mud and channels of water that fill and empty with the tide. There are pylons along the whole eastern side, which any photograph would have to work quite hard to avoid. But the sky is enormous — because there's nothing vertical for miles, you can see weather arriving from a long way off, which I find genuinely absorbing. And there are birds constantly: waders in the shallows, and in the autumn geese in numbers that make a noise like a crowd. What do I do there? Almost nothing. I walk the same five-kilometre loop, and I've walked it perhaps two hundred times. Sometimes I sit on a concrete block near the water for twenty minutes. I always go alone — I've taken people twice and both times it didn't work, because it's a place that needs boredom to open up. Why do I keep going back? Partly the scale, which puts most of my week into proportion fairly efficiently. But mostly because it's never the same place twice. The tide changes it completely — at low water it's a wide brown plain you could walk across, and six hours later it's a lake. I've been going for four years and I still can't predict what I'm going to find, which is more than I can say for anywhere else I go regularly.
Why this works: The route in is described honestly, including the scrapyard, and the answer explicitly refuses the word beautiful — which paradoxically makes the description far more convincing. Vocabulary is precise and specific: waders, reeds, tide, pylons. The 'what you do' bullet is answered with a small telling admission about taking other people, and the closing reason — that the tide makes it a different place every visit — is a genuine, concrete cause rather than an emotional adjective.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- I have a particular spot
Instantly signals authenticity.
- the noise of the city falls away
A natural transition into atmosphere.
- it clears my head
Simple, idiomatic, sufficient.
- I time my visits for
Shows real habit — early morning, after storms, autumn.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- it is a bit of a trek
- “It is a bit of a trek to get to, which is exactly why it is never busy.”
- as far as the eye can see
- “It is flat as far as the eye can see, which is unusual for this part of the country.”
- to stretch my legs
- “Mostly I go just to stretch my legs and think about nothing in particular.”
- it is a world away from
- “It is a world away from the city, and it is only twenty-five minutes on a bike.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Being outdoors
Example questions
- 1How much time do people in your country spend outdoors?
- 2What are the benefits of spending time in nature?
- 3Do children today spend enough time outside?
Protecting natural places
Example questions
- 1Who should be responsible for looking after natural areas?
- 2Should access to green space be treated as a right?
- 3Can tourism and conservation work together?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Places. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.