IELTS Practice tasks 1

 Practice tasks 1: 

Architecture

In addition to the words and phrases which appear in the General Vocabulary section of this book, you may also find some useful words and phrases on pages 58 and 59. 

You will find some sample answers on the following two pages, but try to do the tasks first.

SPEAKING

PART 1

Answer these questions. Try to speak for about 4 or 5 minutes in total.

• What sort of building do you live in?

• What do you like or dislike about it?

• Are there any ways in which you would improve the building you live in?

• If you were to move, what sort of building would you like to move to?

PART 2

Look at this task and spend one minute thinking about what you are going to say

(you can make notes if you like). Then talk about the topic for between one and

two minutes.

Describe a building that you know well.

You should say:

where the building is

what it is used for

what the building looks like on the outside

and explain what you like or dislike about this building.

PART 3

Answer these questions. Try to speak for about 4 or 5 minutes in total.

• Are there any architectural styles which are particularly common in your home town or city?

• What changes in architectural style have taken place in your country in the last 20 or 30 years?

• Why do you think that some people prefer modern buildings to more traditional ones?

WRITING

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people say that older, more traditional buildings in cities should be preserved. Others believe that these buildings should be demolished and new ones built in their place.

Discuss both these views and give your opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Practice tasks 1: Sample answers

SPEAKING

PART 1

• What sort of building do you live in?

I live in an apartment in a tower block on a modern estate. It’s very small, with just two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. It’s quite simply furnished, but it’s very comfortable and I’ve made it look nice with pictures and other things that I’ve picked up in second-hand shops. The best thing about it is the view. We’re on the 15th floor, so we can see the whole city from our living room.

• What do you like or dislike about it?

Well, like I said, it is rather small, and I would really like more space. It can be a bit claustrophobic at times, especially when I have friends over. Another problem is that the walls are thin, so you often hear your neighbours, you know, when they have their television on or when they’re having an argument. And there’s no outdoor space, like a balcony or a garden. Perhaps the thing I dislike the most about it is that the building itself is an eyesore, all concrete. However, because we live in it, we don’t have to look at it!

• Are there any ways in which you would improve the building you live in?

I would certainly do something to the walls so that I don’t have to listen to my neighbours all the time. I know that you can get special material you put between the walls to reduce noise, but it’s very expensive to get this done. I would also like a balcony or perhaps a roof garden, somewhere to sit outside. The only place we can go at the moment is a park near the tower block, but it’s not very nice.

• If you were to move, what sort of building would you like to move to?

I wouldn’t want to live anywhere too grand. Perhaps a small townhouse in the suburbs, with a garden where I can relax or grow flowers or vegetables. It would need to be energy ef icient to cut down on heating bills, and it would have to be functional but also attractive. I love wood as a building material, so perhaps it could have some wooden features like wooden doors and window frames, and perhaps a wooden terrace in the garden. Something like that.

Describe a building that you know well.

You should say:

where the building is

what it is used for

what the building looks like on the outside

and explain what you like or dislike about this building.

PART 2

A building I’m very familiar with is one that I pass every day on my way here. It’s on the corner of Hemingway Rise and Coral Street, just outside the city centre. It’s a college building, part of the university, and it houses the university’s history department. However, it also has a large hall and a garden, which are used for public events like conferences and shows. Each summer, for example, the garden is used for outdoor productions of Shakespeare plays. Most of the university buildings in the city are very old and made of traditional yellow stone, but this one is more modern and is made of red brick with lots of large windows. I’ve never been inside, but I imagine it gets lots of light, which must make it a pleasant place to study. I like it because it’s quite grand and has a pleasing geometric façade, giving it a sense of balance. However, I know that some people really hate it because it’s out of keeping with the other college buildings. And because of its red brick façade, it’s known locally as ‘Tomato Ketchup House’, which is a bit unfair, I think.

Practice tasks 1: Sample answers

PART 3

• Are there any architectural styles which are particularly common in your home town or city?

I live in a very large city which has developed over hundreds of years, so I don’t think there’s just one particular style of architecture which is common. And I also think that it depends on which area of the city you’re in. The financial district is very modern, with lots of steel and glass skyscrapers housing big organisations. Then there’s the entertainment and shopping district, which is a mix of older buildings, mostly from the late nineteenth century, and this is where you’ll find the cinemas, theatres and big department stores for which my city is particularly famous. On the outskirts, however, in the residential districts, there is more uniformity. The buildings there are mostly 1950s brick-built semidetached houses, with large bay windows and small front and back gardens. So I suppose you could say that this is the most common architectural style, even though most houses aren’t built like this anymore.

• What changes in architectural style have taken place in your country in the last 20 or 30 years?

The old industrial cities in my country suf ered during the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s and many of the manufacturing industries were forced to close down. After a period of stagnation, the government decided to attract service industries to these cities, so they demolished the ugly factories and warehouses, and built business and science parks in their place. The buildings on these parks are low-rise and high-tech, with lots of steel, glass and brushed concrete. And they all look very green and environmentally friendly. For example, they are surrounded by gardens and lakes and have roof gardens. And this has caught on in other towns and cities. This has been the most noticeable change in the last couple of decades.

• Why do you think that some people prefer modern buildings to more traditional ones? 

I think that in some cases it’s a matter of personal taste, in the same way that some people prefer modern art to more traditional art. However, there are also practical considerations, especially if you’re living or working in those buildings. Modern houses and of ices, for example, are designed not only to look attractive but also to be more comfortable, more user friendly and more environmentally friendly than old buildings used to be. They’re light, they’re well-insulated and they make better use of the space available. Personally speaking, I’d rather live in a modern house with all its benefits than in an old building with all its inconveniences.

WRITING

There is an area in my home city known as Little Marlow. It used to have a lot of beautiful old buildings, some dating back to the 1600s, and as a result it became one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions. Then, in the late 1990s, the city council decided that the old buildings were becoming unstable and dangerous. They demolished them all and replaced them with modern houses, office blocks and a large shopping centre.

 These new buildings were safer, more practical and more comfortable for the people who lived and worked in them. However, they lacked character and could have been in any city in any part of the world. The city had lost one of its most interesting areas, and fewer tourists came as a result. 

This example illustrates why it is important to preserve old buildings. However, there is another side to this argument. At the time, a lot of people objected to the demolition of these old buildings. They argued that while they needed to be renovated, they should otherwise have been preserved as they were. Unfortunately, these buildings had been in such bad condition that some were in danger of collapsing. It would have been more expensive to renovate them than to knock them down and build something new in their place.

 So is it better to preserve old buildings or to replace them with something new? I believe that if a building is of historical or cultural importance, we should do both. We can look to Poland’s capital Warsaw to see how this hasbeen achieved. The beautiful medieval buildings in the city centre were largely destroyed during the Second World War. Architects then referred to old photographs to rebuild them exactly as they were. Today, many visitors to Warsaw admire these ‘medieval’ buildings, not realising that they were only built in the 1950s. Compromise, therefore, is the best solution.