Describe an opinion you used to hold and later changed.
An abstract prompt with a narrative spine hidden inside it. The strongest answers do not argue a position — they tell the story of the moment the position moved, which gives you both past tenses and evaluative language in the same turn.
The task card
Describe an opinion you used to hold and later changed.
You should say:
- what you used to think
- what made you reconsider
- what you think now
and explain how the change affected you.
How 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
Pick a change you can date. 'I used to think learning grammar was pointless, until my second year at university' is far easier to speak about than a gradual softening of a political view. A dateable change gives you a before, a turning point, and an after, which maps neatly onto the four bullets.
Spend real time on the trigger. The second bullet — what made you reconsider — is where the marks are, because it forces you into a specific scene: a person who argued with you, a book, a job, a country you moved to. Candidates who summarise the trigger in one line and then repeat their new opinion three times finish at seventy seconds.
For the last bullet, resist saying only that you are now more open-minded, which is what almost everyone says. Name one behaviour that actually changed: you started asking a colleague for their view first, you stopped skipping a section of the news, you took a course you had dismissed. Concrete consequences are what separate this from a rehearsed speech.
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.
Changes you can date
- A view about learning, work, or money that a specific experience overturned
- An opinion about a place or a group of people that living somewhere corrected
- Something you were confident about while knowing nothing about it — a very honest choice
The trigger, described as a scene
- A person who argued with you and what exactly they said
- A ceiling you hit that your old view could not explain
- A number, a result, or a piece of evidence you could not dismiss
The consequence
- One behaviour that changed, not just an attitude
- Something you now hesitate to be certain about
- Whether you have gone all the way over, or still hold part of the old view
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.
- USED TO THINK — grammar study is pointless, immersion is enough
- TRIGGER — 6 months in Germany, hit a hard ceiling; colleague: 'confident child'
- NOW — immersion is fast then abandons you; rules are the shortcut
- EFFECT — started studying + much slower to dismiss things I haven't tried
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
I used to be genuinely dismissive about learning grammar. My view was that you pick a language up by using it, that rules are for textbooks, and that anyone sitting there memorising conditional forms was wasting time they could have spent talking to people. I was pretty set in my ways about it, and I said so quite loudly. What changed my mind was moving to Germany for work. I had this idea that six months of immersion would sort me out. And in a way it did — after half a year I could get by, order things, make small talk. But I hit a ceiling, and I hit it hard. I couldn't say anything complicated. Every time I wanted to express something conditional, something hypothetical, anything with a 'would have', I just stopped. A colleague finally said to me, quite kindly, that I sounded like a very confident child. That was a bit of a wake-up call. So now I think almost the opposite. I think immersion gets you to a functional level surprisingly fast and then abandons you, and the grammar is what gets you past that ceiling. I had it completely backwards — I thought rules were the slow route, and actually they were the shortcut. How did it affect me? The obvious answer is that I started studying properly. But the more useful change is that I got much slower to dismiss things I hadn't tried. I had been so certain, and I had been certain from a position of not knowing anything about it, which is an uncomfortable thing to notice about yourself.
Why this works: Notice the structure: a clearly stated old position, a dateable trigger with a specific scene and a line of near-reported speech, a new position stated as a contrast, and a final bullet answered with a behaviour rather than a platitude. The tense work is doing quiet heavy lifting — 'used to', past simple for the trigger, past perfect for what preceded it, present simple for the current view. The closing self-observation is what takes a good answer to a strong one.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- I was pretty set in my ways
Idiomatic way to describe holding a fixed view.
- it made me think twice
For the moment doubt first appeared.
- I came round to the idea
Phrasal verb for gradually accepting something you resisted.
- with the benefit of hindsight
Signals the reflective section cleanly.
- I had it completely backwards
Natural, spoken admission of being wrong.
- a bit of a wake-up call
For the specific event that forced the rethink.
- I still have reservations about
Hedging that shows the change was not total; sounds honest.
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.
- I was pretty set in my ways
- “I was pretty set in my ways about it, and I said so quite loudly to anyone who asked.”
- it made me think twice
- “That one comment made me think twice, and then it made me rethink the whole thing.”
- I came round to the idea
- “It took about a year, but I came round to the idea completely.”
- I had it backwards
- “I had it completely backwards — what I thought was the slow route was actually the shortcut.”
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.
Changing your mind
Example questions
- 1Why do many people find it difficult to admit they were wrong?
- 2What kinds of things can make someone change a strongly held view?
- 3Do you think young people change their opinions more easily than older people?
Disagreement in public life
Example questions
- 1Should politicians be criticised for changing their position?
- 2How well do schools teach young people to disagree with each other?
- 3Do you agree that online discussion makes people more fixed in their views?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Abstract and idea-led prompts.