Speaking UNIT 2
GIVING SHORT ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS
After you have given your talk, the examiner may ask you one or two related
follow-up questions which you should answer briefly. The follow-up question
will probably only require a yes or no answer and a couple of other words.
We often give short answers in English by simply repeating the auxiliary verb or
the verb to be or to do which was used in the question. You must use the same
tense as the question. Here is an example of a follow-up question to the task
above with appropriate short answers.
Look at the questions below.
Underline the verbs which you are going to use in your short answers.
Now give the short answers using yes and no to these questions.
1 Were there any things you didn't like about this place where you lived?
2 Is it easy to get work in this field?
3 Are you interested in this kind of work?
4 Did you read about this course in the newspaper?
5 Had you studied English before you came here?
6 Will you go to university after this course?
7 Can you speak more than one foreign language?
8 Are you going to study in America?
If you don't want to sound too direct, you can often include the words / think
after the yes or / don't think after the no, but you must still include your short
answer verb. Alternatively you can use the short answers / think so or / don't
think so. Here is an example:
Now try answering the questions above using one of the short answer forms.
Speaking
UNIT 3
In Part 3 you will be presented with some more abstract
questions. These will be broadly linked to the topic
introduced in Part 2. You will have to take part in a
discussion with the examiner.

Is it the
responsibility
of the
government
to
provide
homes
for
poor
people?
2 Decide whether any of the key words raise new questions. E.g. How do we
define 'poor'?
what
kind
of
things
should government
be
responsible for?
3 Do you have any real views on this question? What are they?
4 Make sure you can give two good reasons to back your opinion.
E.g.
Everyone
has the
right
to a
place
to
live.
It is the

For further practice, do the Supplementary activity on page 126.
Supplementary Activities
LISTENING UNIT 1
Go back to the pictures on page 8 and the words you wrote in the balloons. Choose
one of the situations and write a short dialogue, expanding on what you wrote
before.
Read the dialogue out loud to your classmates and see if they can name the
speakers. Make sure you include words that will highlight who the speakers are,
where they are and why they are speaking.
Try writing another dialogue for a new situation not shown here.
Act out the new dialogue to the class. The rest of the class must guess the context
and roles of the speakers from the dialogue.
LISTENING UNIT 2
• Choose a situation from the list below.
Imagine that you need to make this telephone call, but when you get through, you
find that you have to leave a short message on an answering machine.
Work out what you will say in your message. Remember to keep the message short
and include only the important details.
Don't forget to include your name and contact telephone number if you don't
know the person.
Read your message to your partner. Can they say which situation it relates to?
LISTENING UNIT 3
Think of an everyday object. Work out how to describe it without using its name or
saying what it is used for.
Practise describing the object with your partner.
The class divides into two teams, making sure that the pairs remain together.
Each person describes their object in front of the class.
To gain a point, the other team must be able to identify your object.
Supplementary Activities
LISTENING UNIT 4