Describe a part of your daily routine you would like to change.
A habit card with an honest, self-aware edge. The fourth bullet is the interesting one: it asks why you have not already made the change, which forces genuine reflection rather than a wish list.
The task card
Describe a part of your daily routine you would like to change.
You should say:
- what the routine is
- how long you have done it this way
- why you would like to change it
and explain what has stopped you changing it so far.
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
Choose a routine with a shape you can describe minute by minute — the morning, the commute, the hour before bed. Vague answers like 'my whole schedule' collapse instantly. Walk the examiner through the actual sequence and the answer half writes itself.
Be concrete about duration on the second bullet: since I started this job, for about three years, ever since we moved. This is where present perfect and present perfect continuous appear naturally, and raters notice when they are used accurately rather than decoratively.
The fourth bullet rewards honesty over virtue. 'I have not changed it because the alternative means getting up at half past five and I know myself' is a much stronger answer than 'I have simply not found the time'. Naming the real obstacle — cost, tiredness, another person's schedule, plain reluctance — is what makes the answer sound like a person rather than a plan.
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.
Routines with a describable shape
- The commute, the first hour after waking, the hour before bed
- A meal you always eat at your desk, or never eat at all
- A weekly obligation that has quietly stopped being worth it
Why you want it changed
- It does not do the thing you tell yourself it does
- The evidence: how you feel afterwards versus how you expected to feel
- What you used to do in that slot before it got replaced
The honest obstacle
- The alternative requires effort at exactly the moment you have none left
- Someone else's schedule is bound to yours
- You have never made the tiny change that would fix it, and that is the interesting part
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.
- WHAT — 9:30–10:30pm, phone on the sofa, TV on but not watching
- HOW LONG — since this job started, ~3 yrs; replaced reading
- WHY CHANGE — go to bed more wired than when I sat down; can't recall anything
- STOPPED ME — phone needs 0 effort, book needs 30 seconds of it
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 part of my routine I'd change is the hour between about half nine and half ten at night, which I currently spend lying on the sofa scrolling on my phone with the television on that I'm not really watching. I have been doing it in more or less exactly this form since I started my current job, so coming up on three years. Before that I read in the evenings — not virtuously, just because that was the habit — and somewhere in the first few months of the new job it quietly got replaced, and I couldn't tell you the week it happened. Why would I change it? Honestly, because it doesn't do what I think it's doing. I tell myself it's winding down, but I go to bed feeling more wired than when I sat down, and I couldn't name a single thing I looked at. It eats into the evening and gives nothing back. Reading for the same hour used to leave me tired in a good way, which is the whole point of the hour. And what has stopped me? This is the uncomfortable part. It isn't time, obviously — it's exactly the same hour either way. It's that reading requires about thirty seconds of effort to begin and the phone requires none, and at half nine at night I have no effort left. I keep meaning to leave the book on the sofa and put the phone charger in the other room, which is such a small intervention that the fact I haven't done it for three years tells you something. Easier said than done, apparently, even when the 'done' is moving a cable.
Why this works: The routine is described precisely enough to picture, the duration is given with present perfect continuous rather than a bare number, and the reason for change is argued rather than asserted. The fourth bullet is answered with real self-knowledge — including a wry final line — which is far more compelling than a list of external obstacles, and it demonstrates exactly the reflective range that Part 3 will go on to test.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- I am stuck in a bit of a rut
Idiom for a routine that has become dull and fixed.
- it is a hard habit to break
Standard collocation — habits are broken, not stopped.
- on autopilot
For something you do without any conscious thought.
- I keep meaning to
Perfect for the 'what has stopped you' bullet; sounds entirely natural.
- it eats into my evening
Vivid collocation for something consuming your time.
- to shake things up
Informal phrase for changing an established pattern.
- easier said than done
Idiomatic concession that fits the final bullet precisely.
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.
- on autopilot
- “I do it completely on autopilot — I could not tell you when it started.”
- it eats into my evening
- “It eats into the evening and gives absolutely nothing back.”
- I keep meaning to
- “I keep meaning to leave the book on the sofa, and I have not done it in three years.”
- a hard habit to break
- “It is a surprisingly hard habit to break, even though the fix is trivial.”
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.
Daily routines
Example questions
- 1What kinds of routines do most people follow in the morning?
- 2How much control do people in your country have over their daily schedule?
- 3Do you think a fixed routine is helpful or limiting?
Habits and change
Example questions
- 1Why is it so difficult for people to break long-standing habits?
- 2What is the best way to help someone change a habit?
- 3Should schools and workplaces start later in the day?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Activities and habits.