Describe a time when you needed to search for information.
This test has appeared in 5 seasons · 3 reported by test takers
- Sep–Dec/2025
- May–Aug/2025
- May–Aug/2023
- Jan–Apr/2023
- Sep–Dec/2022
Reported by test takers Forecast only
Part 1
The examiner asks about you and two familiar topics. About 4–5 minutes.
Your home town
- Where is your home town? (Tell me more about that.)
- What do you like most about it? (Tell me more about that.)
- Has it changed much since you were a child? (Why is that?)
- Would you like to live there in the future? (Why is that?)
Doing something well
- Is there something you do really well? (Why is that?)
- How did you get good at it? (Tell me more about that.)
- What were you good at when you were a child? (Tell me more about that.)
- Would you like to be good at something new? (Why is that?)
Ambitions
- Do you consider yourself an ambitious person? (Why is that?)
- What would you like to achieve in the next few years? (Tell me more about that.)
- What did you want to be when you were a child? (Tell me more about that.)
- Do you think it is good for young people to have big ambitions? (Why is that?)
Part 2
One minute to prepare, then speak for one to two minutes.
You should say:
- what information you needed
- why you needed it
- how and where you searched for it
and explain whether you found what you were looking for.
Follow-up question after your talk: Do you usually search for information on your phone or on a computer? / Did the search take you a long time?
Part 3
A broader, more abstract discussion of the Part 2 topic. About 4–5 minutes.
where people look for information
- Can you explain why most people now start looking for information online?
- How would you contrast the information in a library with the information on a search engine?
- In general, how do people decide whether something they read online is true?
information and learning
- Can you describe the skills students need in order to do research well?
- What could be done about students who never check where their information comes from?
- Can you speculate on how people will look for information when computers answer every question?
Test titles follow test-taker reports and each season's forecasts — IELTS does not publish its papers. "Reported" means someone reported meeting this topic in a dated test. The questions are written by us in the format of the real test.