The internet and information: IELTS Speaking Part 3 questions & answers

Opening question

Warm-up: close to home

1. Cause and effect

   Why do you think so much of daily life now happens online?

   2
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   Sample answerBand 8Main causeAnother causeEffect

   1. Main cause→
   2. Another cause→
   3. Effect

   Convenience is the driving force. Doing your banking, shopping or paperwork online saves you queuing, travelling and dealing with office opening hours. Businesses and governments have also pushed people online because it's far cheaper to run a website than to staff a counter, so many services simply aren't available in person any more. As a consequence, being offline now means being shut out of ordinary life to a surprising degree, and those without reliable access or digital skills are quietly being left at a disadvantage.

   the driving force

   the main thing causing something

   shut out of

   excluded from

   to a surprising degree

   more than you would expect

   85 words · about 37 seconds spoken

Development: society

1. Compare

   How is the way we get information different from twenty years ago?

   3
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   Sample answerBand 8ThenNowWhy it changed

   1. Then→
   2. Now→
   3. Why it changed

   Twenty years ago, information came mainly from a handful of trusted sources, the evening news, a daily paper or a set of encyclopaedias, and it arrived at a fairly gentle pace. Today it reaches us constantly and from every direction, through social media, podcasts, video clips and countless websites, and we often get it before any professional has checked it. Essentially, the internet removed the gatekeepers. Anyone can now publish anything to a global audience, which has democratised information but also made it much harder to tell what's reliable.

   a handful of

   a small number of

   from every direction

   from all possible sources

   removed the gatekeepers

   took away the people who controlled access

   89 words · about 39 seconds spoken

2. Opinion

   Do you think everything on the internet can be trusted?

   4
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   Sample answerBand 8My viewWhyExampleBut

   1. My view→
   2. Why→
   3. Example→
   4. But

   Certainly not, and I'd be wary of anyone who claims otherwise. Since there's no editor standing between a writer and the public, false claims can spread just as fast as accurate ones, sometimes faster because they're more sensational. Health advice is a classic case. You'll find miracle cures promoted with complete confidence by people with no medical training whatsoever. Having said that, a great deal of online material is perfectly sound, especially from established institutions, so the answer isn't blanket distrust but checking where something comes from.

   wary of

   careful and slightly suspicious about

   a classic case

   a typical example

   blanket distrust

   distrust of everything without exception

   87 words · about 38 seconds spoken

3. Pros and cons

   What are the advantages and disadvantages of having so much information available?

   5
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   Sample answerBand 8UpsideDownsideOn balance

   1. Upside→
   2. Downside→
   3. On balance

   The advantages are enormous. Anyone with a connection can teach themselves a language, research a medical diagnosis or compare prices, which used to be possible only for those with money or the right contacts. The flip side is information overload. Faced with thousands of conflicting results, many people either feel paralysed or simply grab the first answer that suits them, which isn't necessarily the correct one. So the abundance itself is a good thing, but it places a much greater burden on individuals to filter and evaluate what they find.

   The flip side

   the opposite and less positive aspect

   information overload

   too much information to deal with

   places a much greater burden on

   makes far more demands on

   90 words · about 39 seconds spoken

4. Opinion

   Should children be taught how to judge whether information is reliable?

   6
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   Sample answerBand 8My viewWhyExampleBut

   1. My view→
   2. Why→
   3. Example→
   4. But

   I'd go as far as to say it's one of the most essential things schools can teach now. Children are online from a young age and they're bombarded with claims, adverts and opinions dressed up as facts, often without any adult around to help them make sense of it. Simple habits make a real difference, like checking who wrote something, looking for the same claim in another source, or asking why someone might want them to believe it. It shouldn't turn into teaching them to dismiss everything, though, because cynicism about all information is just as unhelpful as swallowing it whole.

   go as far as to say

   state something strongly, perhaps surprisingly

   dressed up as facts

   falsely presented as true information

   make sense of

   understand something confusing

   101 words · about 44 seconds spoken

Depth: the abstract and the future

1. The future

   How might the way people access information change in the future?

   7
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   Sample answerBand 8PredictionBecauseBut

   1. Prediction→
   2. Because→
   3. But

   My hunch is that searching will largely give way to simply asking. Rather than scrolling through pages of links, people will put a question to an AI assistant and get a single spoken or written answer. It's quicker and requires no skill at all, and the technology is already improving at a remarkable rate. The danger is that we'll see only one answer and stop comparing sources, which could make people more vulnerable to errors or bias built into whichever system they happen to use.

   My hunch is that

   I suspect that, without proof

   give way to

   be replaced by

   at a remarkable rate

   surprisingly fast

   85 words · about 37 seconds spoken

2. What if

   If the internet disappeared for a week, what would be the biggest problems?

   8
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   Sample answerBand 8If soResultWider effect

   1. If so→
   2. Result→
   3. Wider effect

   If it vanished for a week, I imagine the most immediate chaos would be financial, since card payments, bank transfers and online orders would all grind to a halt. Hospitals and transport networks would also struggle, because so much of their scheduling and record keeping runs through online systems, and people would have no easy way to get urgent updates. Beyond the practical disruption, it would expose just how fragile our dependence has become. I'd expect a lot of people to come out of it realising they'd put all their eggs in one basket.

   grind to a halt

   slowly stop working completely

   no easy way to

   no simple method of

   put all their eggs in one basket

   relied completely on one single thing

   94 words · about 41 seconds spoken

3. Pros and cons

   Has easy access to information made people more knowledgeable, in your view?

   9
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   Sample answerBand 8UpsideDownsideOn balance

   1. Upside→
   2. Downside→
   3. On balance

   In a narrow sense it has. People can settle an argument about a historical date in seconds, and curious individuals have access to lectures and articles that would once have required a university library. But having information at your fingertips isn't the same as knowing it. Because we can look everything up, we often don't bother to remember anything, and our understanding stays shallow and scattered. Overall, I'd say it has made the curious far more knowledgeable and left everyone else roughly where they were, just with more trivia at their disposal.

   settle an argument

   end a disagreement by finding the answer

   at your fingertips

   immediately and easily available

   at their disposal

   available for them to use

   92 words · about 40 seconds spoken