雅思口语Environment

Environment

 

 

Part 1

 

 

Hello my name is Damien Lyons. What's your full name please?

My name is William Huang.

 

 

Can I check your ID and passport please?

Sure.

 

 

Thank you. That's fine. In the first part, I'd like to ask you some general questions about yourself. Let's talk about your job or studies. What do you do?

Well, I'm a songwriter actually at the moment. I compose scores for short films and also jingles for radio and TV but I found that even though the job is creative and rewarding, I found the income to be not incredibly dependable.So at the moment I'm doing a master's degree in financial engineering and I hope to be running a hedge fund in the near future.

 

 

What don't you enjoy about your studies?

I find that there's lots of repetition and in lots of the management subjects there's, it feels like, there's common sense which has been given very big scientific names and I feel the regurgitation of that information bores me a lot.

 

 

What are your study plans?

My study plans are to finish my master's degree and after the master's,hopefully never again. Maybe the odd course, maybe when I'm 70, I may take up fine art, start painting.

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to study?

Yes, just the fine arts when I'm 70, when I grow old. I think it will be a, it's a romantic picture moving to an island somewhere after my hedge fund did really well.

 

 

Good. Now I’d like to talk to you about festivals and holidays. Which festival from your country is your favourite?

We have a festival, a marvellous festival every year which centres around the making of sausage and from my country there's a vast array of sausages but of course sausage being the centre point of it. There’s lots of music and theatre that comes around at the same time. That festival just because I guess it has strange roots but it's also become a very big cultural affair.That's definitely my favourite.

 

 

How do you usually spend your holidays?

My holidays are usually as close to the ocean as possible. I used to be a lifesaver when I was a teenager and I enjoyed long-distance swims as well as bodysurfing so I'd spend as much time at the beach as I can.

 

 

Would you like to have longer holidays?

Of course! Who wouldn't want to have longer holidays? My plan for the hedge fund is so I can retire by the time I am 35.

 

 

Let's move on to food. Can you cook?

I can cook. I do, yes. I don't have the patience to read from a cook book and I usually don't use the same set of ingredients twice but I have fun.

 

 

Would you rather stay at home or go out to eat?

I very often like to stay at home. My girlfriend is quite a picky eater and she loves going out, so unfortunately I have to spend almost all my money on her going out as often as I can. I think my food's pretty good.

 

 

Can you describe some traditional food from your country?

Well talking about the sausage, I have to come back to the sausage as far as that's, well I'll leave the sausage. I've spoken about the sausage enough.But my country is well known for cooking very thick pieces of steak-not very interesting but wonderful.

 

 

Part 2

 

 

In Part 2, I will give you a topic and I'd like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you talk, you will have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You may make some notes if you wish. Do you understand?

Yes.

 

Here's your pen and paper and here's your topic card. I'd like you to describe a place of natural beauty in your country.

 

Describe a place of natural beauty in your country.

You should say:

where it is

what you can do there

when the best time to go is

and explain what makes it so attractive.

 

 

The place that springs to mind is Cape Town which is in my city. It's a wonderfully impressive mountain because it rises so steeply, very close to the shore. It's almost one and a half kilometres high, less than 3 kilometres from the shore. It's got the city wrapped all around it. There was some legislation that was passed quite a few years ago that one is not allowed to build any structure above a certain line on the mountain so it's a well-preserved area in the middle of the city; so wherever you are in the city if you walk for 20 minutes you'll be in the mountain. It's great. What you can do there is, well I guess sightseeing is first. There's a cable car that goes up the mountain which draws a wealth of Asian and European tourists and this cable car actually rotates so that you're given a 360 degree view without effectively changing your spot on the floor. And once you get to the top there are some hiking trails and of course the top it's, there are so many ways to get lost. I've spent many hours in valleys and in fog trying to find my way back. It's exhilarating, kind of scary but exhilarating. I think the best time to go to Table Mountain would definitely be in the summer because the winter months are rainy and very, very cold whereas the summer is dry with blue skies. It's gorgeous. It's a very Mediterranean type of climate and the kind of flora which one encounters there is also seen in the Mediterranean. But even though the flora looks Mediterranean, it's a whole genus of its own called Fynbos（凡波斯：地理位置在非洲、生长环境灌木林、主要生产地在地中海气候带）. And I guess if you're in any way interested in botany, it would be a wonderful place to go. There's almost a quarter of million plant species there which are not found anywhere else in the world.

 

 

Part 3

 

 

Let's move on to Part 3. You've been talking about a place of natural beauty in your country and I’d like to ask you one or two more general questions related to this. Let's consider first of all the environment. Could you compare the importance of increasing the standard of living to protecting the environment?

 

 

Well, I don't think those two concepts are mutually exclusive. I think the enhancement of our environment will definitely raise our standard of living also. At the moment if people think that a high standard of living is having all the mod cons, having all your creature comforts while breathing dirty air,then people are deluding themselves. I think finding a good, clean way to live is very important for human kind.

 

 

I would also like to know, in your opinion, who is more responsible for protecting the environment, is it individuals or governments?

I think the onus lies with individuals but I think it lies with them in supporting what governments have decided as to being a game plan for the country. I think that people should express their feelings and I think these feelings should be codified and they should be summarised and that should be the basis for legislation for the country and it's up to people to support that legislation if it does come to pass.

 

 

Could you suggest some alternative energy sources that can be developed more?

I think wind energy in the areas where there is lots of wind is an untapped resource. I think that tide energy is also a very interesting field as that generally is, it's an absolute plenitude of power which is completely unharnessed at present.

 

 

Let's move on to talk about beauty. Could you tell me how important a beautiful appearance is in order to be successful in life?

I don't think it's really important to have stunning good looks to do well. I think it's important to be presentable and I think it's important to not be off-putting. I don't think your looks need to be a severe help to you but they also should not, your appearance should not be a hindrance either.

 

 

Do you think that there is a need for cosmetic surgery?

I think if it's reconstructive, I think yes. I do know that there are cases where people get addicted to cosmetic surgery and lose sight of themselves through all that. I think that's destructive but there are definitely some cases in the world where people do need help to have as enjoyable life as possible.

 

 

One last question. Could you compare how males and females have different ideas on beauty?

That's a tough question. It's different if you think about how ladies might see themselves or how they might see men and how men might see themselves and how they might see ladies. I think if you're looking for a possible mate, then maybe.. I know lots of guys who don't take care of themselves but they do expect whoever they're courting to be extremely beautiful. I'm not sure. Well actually as far as spending money on cosmetics is concerned, I'm a little bit of a metrosexual and I do like all the lotions and exfoliants and such.

 

 

Thank you. That is the end of the speaking test.