IELTS Speaking Part 1: Paper letters
The questions
Asked in this order, in one sitting.
- Do you ever write paper letters?
- Did you receive any handwritten letters when you were a child?
- Do you prefer handwritten letters, instant messaging, or texting?
- Do you prefer writing letters or sending emails?
- Do you think paper letters will completely disappear in the future?
How to answer it
Three tenses are built into this set and using all three is most of the work: present habit, childhood past, and a prediction. The second question is the warm one — a letter from a grandparent, a postcard, a note in a lunchbox — and a specific one lifts the whole set. For the last question, "completely disappear" is the word to argue with: letters have already stopped being how people communicate and become something else, a keepsake, and that distinction is a band-8 move.
What moves the band
- Argue with the extreme word rather than the question. Completely is doing a lot of work there.
- Handwriting lexis: a card, a note, stationery, someone's handwriting, keep them in a box.
These are candidate recalls. These are questions reported by test-takers after their exams, not official or leaked IELTS material. Wording varies by test version, location and memory. Use them for timed practice — never as a prediction of what you will be asked.
Practise these next
Know the number. Now move it.
A conversion table tells you where you stand today. Langujet's AI marks your writing and speaking against the real rubric and tells you exactly which criterion is holding your score down.