hello and welcome to this practice exam conducted by British American Resource Center my name is maroof and I'm your practice Examiner these exam questions are designed to simulate the r speaking test so let's begin what is your full name my full name is salsa Bill Hawk at the beginning of the IELTS test you need to provide a passport or an ID but as this is just a practice exam you don't need to provide any passport or ID now in the first part of the test I'm going to ask you some questions about yourself do you work or study actually I'm doing both I'm working part-time as an instructor in an educational center and I'm pursuing my bachelor's degree what is your study major although I'm from a science background but I felt like I'm better suited for business so I'm pursuing my bachelor's degree in Business my major being Finance okay okay do you prefer studying in a group or alone I prefer studying alone because I feel like it affects my concentration whenever I'm studying in a group and it's always easier for me to get the job done on my own other than explaining the methods to every team member every second what do you think are the advantages of studying in a group even though I prefer studying alone but I definitely believe there are numerous advantages of studying in a group for instance peer learning this has proven to Be an Effective method of learning communicating with your peers gaining Knowledge from them and learning from them okay thank you now let's move on to part two now in this part I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to talk about for one or two minutes okay before you talk you will have one minute to think about it you can take notes if you wish a cue card and here's the paper and the pencil okay you have to describe our time when you have to solve a problem okay from now your time starts remember you have one or two minutes for this so don't worry if I stop you I'll tell you when the time is up would you please start now okay so today I would like to talk about a problem that I face and had to solve under pressure uh it was a year ago when I first started my University we were given a group project in our marketing course we were tasked to design a comprehensive marketing strategy for a local startup suddenly we faced in significant problem when one of the team members abruptly decided to leave the course leaving us short-handed every individual was assigned a specific part of the task so it was very difficult for us to cope up with that since we were already behind schedule so we immediately decided to arrange a meeting and brainstorm ideas on how to mitigate the impact of losing a team member we redistributed the workload amongst the remaining members and decided to ask for an extension of deadline from our faculty we redistributed the workload according to the special skills and strength of every individual on the team after asking our faculty he was kind enough to analyze our situation and give us an extension of one week to submit our assignment after that we work relentlessly and diligently and we open communication channels worked if it effectively helped each other throughout the entire process communicated with each other in every part of the step and finally our hard work paid off we were able to complete the assignment on time and after that we were also asked to present our ideas in front of the University faculties due to our report being extraordinary so what I learned from this experience was the importance of adaptability good communication skills and teamwork and I also learned the fact that having an obstacle doesn't necessarily always mean an issue it could also be a way for people to show how resourceful they can be okay thank you may I have the pencil on the paper please okay now I'm going to ask you some follow-up questions do you think the problem could have been prevented not really I don't think the problem could have been prevented because the faculty decided the team member for each group and it was not possible for us to understand the intention of an individual just by getting to know them okay and how would you handle a similar problem if it happens again in the future well first of all I would start by analyzing the group members and making sure every individual is equally involved in the project as me and after that if the problem still arises then I would solve it the way I did a year ago now move on to part three and I'm going to ask you several questions what are some common problems that people face in their daily lives be Financial issues someone in every part of the world World there are relationship issues conflicts amongst partners and disagreements between parents and children health issues and time management issues it can be overwhelming for some people to balance between work and social life and how do people usually go about solving these problems well the relationship issues could be solved by communicating properly with each other and being more vocal about their problems the health issues can be prevented by being more conscious about one's health and about the time management issues people can always create a schedule that they can tightly follow is it important to involve others in problem solving I believe it is required to involve others in problem solving in certain situations for instance if you're too involved emotionally with a certain project and you need a practical overview that's when you can involve someone else and you can also involve others in problem solving when you have too much workload and too much stress and you need to reduce some of it can technology help people solve problems more effectively and how definitely technology can help people solve problems more effectively technology facilitates communication the communication gaps are reduced in our generation due to the help of Technologies and they always provide us information whenever and wherever we need it and they also do proper data analysis which help individuals to carry out their projects forward what are some potential downsides of relying too heavily on technology to solve problems well no one should be dependent on anything or anyone entirely at all so the same goes for technology as well Technologies are not able to do some things on their own such as they cannot solve situations that are in related to emotions so a person can face a problem that they are emotionally involved with and Technology won't be able to give a proper answer for that okay so in your opinion what skills are necessary for Effective problem solving I believe it depends on the type of problem that we are solving however in general there are certain skills that an individual should have for every problem solving for instance critical and creative thinking the ability to analyze a situation before solving it and thinking outside the box after that good communication skills are very important nowadays so it is very important to happen adaptability and flexibility to be able to adapt to any situation and be flexible about solving them and lastly time management skills it is very important to manage the time when it comes to solving a problem this is the end of the speaking test thank you very much for joining us thank you