Speaking Part 1Target band 7
Task
Let's move on to talk about food.
- Do you enjoy cooking?
- Has your diet changed since you were a child?
- Do people in your country eat out often?
- Would you like to learn to cook a foreign cuisine?
Task
Food is one of the most predictable Part 1 topics. Note that two of these four questions push you out of the present tense — the examiner is sampling your grammar, not your interest in food.
Model answer(191 words)
Do you enjoy cooking?
I do, though not on weeknights. At the weekend I quite like spending an hour on something slow, but on a Tuesday evening I want food to happen in fifteen minutes and I'm not fussy about how.
Has your diet changed since you were a child?
Enormously. We ate a lot of meat when I was growing up — it was almost the definition of a proper meal — whereas now I probably cook meat twice a week at most. That's partly cost and partly that I feel better without it.
Do people in your country eat out often?
Far more than they used to. When my parents were young, eating out was for birthdays, and now people do it casually, several times a month. Delivery apps have accelerated that enormously, especially among people under thirty.
Would you like to learn to cook a foreign cuisine?
I would, actually — Vietnamese, if I could choose. I've eaten it a fair amount and I have no idea how any of it is made, which is unusual for me. The balance of herbs seems to be the hard part.
Why this answer scores well
Look at the tense range the questions force out, because this is why food appears so often. Question two requires past and present contrasted; question three requires the same across generations; question four requires a conditional. A candidate who answers all four in present simple has told the examiner something.
The contrast structures do real work: "We ate a lot of meat when I was growing up... whereas now I probably cook meat twice a week", "eating out was for birthdays, and now people do it casually". *Whereas* and *used to* are the natural tools here and they signal control.
Specificity again: "fifteen minutes", "twice a week at most", "several times a month", "people under thirty". None of these need to be accurate. They make the answer sound like a person describing their life rather than a candidate producing English.
Note the honest admission in the last answer — "I have no idea how any of it is made". Candidates often feel they must sound competent about everything; saying you do not know something, and saying it fluently, scores better than a vague pretence.
Lexical Resource: "not fussy", "a proper meal", "casually", "accelerated", "a fair amount". Everyday register, used precisely.
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