Neighbourhood questions check whether you can describe the area around your home and give a balanced opinion of it. Concrete details, like a park, a busy road or the people next door, make answers sound real.
Answer each one aloud before you read the model — two to four sentences, then stop.
Written to be spoken, at about band 8. Useful phrases are in bold. Borrow the structure and the phrases — never the whole answer.
I live in a residential area on the edge of the city. It's mostly low-rise housing, with a small row of shops and a park that's always busy at weekends. It's not particularly exciting, but everything I need day to day is within walking distance.
Reasonably well, I'd say. We're not in and out of each other's houses, but we always stop for a chat if we bump into each other. The elderly couple next door even keep an eye on our place when we're away.
Probably the park. It's got a small lake, a jogging track and lots of shady trees, so it's where I go to clear my head after a long day. On summer evenings it's full of families having picnics, which gives the whole area a nice atmosphere.
The main downside is the traffic at rush hour. There's only one main road into the city centre, so it gets completely gridlocked. The buses aren't very frequent either, so if you miss one, you can be waiting a long time for the next.
Yes, quite noticeably. When we moved there about ten years ago, there were still a few empty fields around, but they've all been built on now. It's more crowded than it was, although we've also got a new supermarket and a health centre, which is handy.
I think so, yes. It's safe, there are two primary schools nearby and the park is perfect for kids. The one thing it lacks is anything for teenagers, so they tend to hang out in the city centre instead.
Not for the time being. It suits me well at this stage of my life. That said, if I ended up working on the other side of the city, I'd probably move closer to my job rather than put up with a long commute every day.
Now answer them with the clock running.
Timed Part 1 practice with an AI band for each criterion.