IELTS Preparation Series 3, Episode 22: Talking About Holidays and Leisure Time
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Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.
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To prepare for IELTS it is useful to consider the topic of holidays and what people do in
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their leisure time.
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To start us off, let's listen to someone talking about his holidays:
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It's always been a dream of mine to travel around the world and see as many countries
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as possible. I suppose everyone dreams of this, although some people are content to
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stay close to home. I get about 4 weeks annual leave and I try and take it in summer when
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I can link it to the public holidays that fall around then - Christmas, Boxing Day New
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Year's Eve, and turn it into a 3 or 4 week vacation. I try to get out of the country
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and go on a trip somewhere. Somewhere like Bali, somewhere close. We get about 7 public
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holidays in Australia - Christmas, Easter, and Australia Day just to name a few.
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He talked about holidays and vacations. What's the difference?
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A holiday can be one day or several days, whereas a vacation is usually understood to
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be a long time - a week or more. Vacation is a word used more in the United States and
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is not very common in Australia. In Australia we say "summer holidays" instead of "summer
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vacation".
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Listen to our speaker again:
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I get about 4 weeks annual leave and I try and take it in summer when I can link it to
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the public holidays that fall around then - Christmas, Boxing Day New Year's Eve, and
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turn it into a 3 or 4 week vacation.
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He said annual leave. We call the time when we don't go to work "leave".
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"Sick leave" is when we don't go to work because of illness.
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"Annual leave" means the amount of holiday time workers have in a year.
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He also mentioned "public holidays". These are days when most people in the country get a day off work but are still paid. They
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are days considered important to everyone.
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For the Speaking Test, you should be prepared to have something to say about these holidays
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in your country - what they are for, when they are held and what people do, like this:
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We get about 7 public holidays in Australia - Christmas, Easter, and Australia Day just
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to name a few. Australia Day is on the 26th of January, and it celebrates the day the
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first Europeans arrived in Australia. People celebrate by having barbeques and playing cricket in the park and on the beaches and
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in Sydney there is always a massive fireworks display.
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It's a good idea to brainstorm the topic of holidays and try to guess what you might be
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asked. It could be something like:
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Why are holidays important?
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Or
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How much should we work and how much should we rest?
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Or
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Why do we need holidays?
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Spend some time to think of questions like these and how you might answer them. Practise
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saying your answers - this will help you in the Speaking Test.
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In Part 1 of the Speaking Test, the questions can be quite simple, like: What do you do
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on the weekends?
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How does our speaker reply to that?
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On the weekend, I catch up on sleep; I do the housework, the shopping, the washing - all
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those household chores.
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