IELTS Speaking Part 1 – Keys (Answers and vocabulary)

R: I would argue that is because we are talking about individual people, and therefore we should be putting a lot of effort into our description of individual parts of things. Anyway, dear listener, when you talk about small businesses, you can talk about convenience stores. So some small shops. Also hairdressers, restaurants, photographers. I’m reading from Wikipedia, obviously. Web design, computer programming.

R: Are you cheating?

M: Lawyers, accounters, dentists, medical doctors. So yeah, so kind of this, you know, small businesses. And also you can talk about our podcast, hey! And Maria business. I’m a small business. You know, I have two people in my company. I’m like, entrepreneur. Right. So pretty much business people or people who run their own business or people who are in business are entrepreneurs or businessmen. Men, many men. Rory, you mentioned a distillery. A distillery? For… For, for water.

R: Distillery for distilling whiskey. Now, do I know the process for distilling whiskey?

M: Oh, no, no, no. It’s not a writing episode. So we’re not going to discuss a process of whiskey.

R: It’s a very specific word, though, for a specific process because people might say factory, but it’s not a factory. It’s a distillery. You know, whiskey isn’t made in a factory. It’s made in a distillery. But how… It involves a very complicated process, which only Scottish people are allowed to know. State secrets. Sorry, can’t tell you.

M: You can say I don’t have a preference. So small businesses, big businesses, I don’t have a preference, I can kind of choose either. Small shops work for me, or it works fine for me, like big companies work fine for me. And if the examiner asks you to choose big companies or small businesses, you go with the second conditional. If I had to make a choice, I’d go for small businesses. Or if I had to choose, I’d pick, I’d choose big companies. Rory, tell us about this bulk.

R: Well, bulk buying is when you buy lots of things in one go because it’s cheaper than going and buying like individual things. So for example, canned food. It’s cheaper to buy in bulk than it is to go to the store and just buy one can each time, because you have to pay for the transport costs. And it can stay in your house for a longer period of time. So it’s cheaper for you to do this, rather than to go back and forth.

M: Small businesses help the local economy. That’s why people choose them. Right? And also, you did say something about predatory business practices. Predatory like… Like tigers are predators.

R: Well, yes, predatory business practices are when… It’s like when companies deliberately price their goods lower, so that more people will come to them and fewer people will go to other stores in the area, and eventually, they’ll wipe out their competition. And they can do that because they have the resources to do that. They might also do things like undercuts supplier, so like they’re, they’re more willing to like pay suppliers, more money, and so the suppliers go to them, and they don’t supply other businesses in the area. So those are all predatory practices. Also, lying to your customers is a predatory practice. Saying oh, if you show up here or if you buy our thing, then it’ll be much better for you then these places. And of course, it’s not true. So all of these things are predatory. I don’t think they’re illegal, but they’re certainly not moral. What I mean to say is, it’s not true until it comes to us, in which case all of our stuff is great. And you should definitely only purchase success with IELTS products, if you want to succeed. Definitely. No lying going on here. Not at all.