What is your hobby?
Close to "free time", but a hobby is something you do on purpose and come back to: you might collect, make, train or practise something. The examiner is listening for how well you explain an activity and why you keep doing it.
If you don't really have a hobby, it's fine to say so and talk about what you'd like to take up. Honest answers are easier to make fluent than invented ones.
Sample answers at 3 bands
Same question, three answers. Read them out loud and notice what changes: not longer words, but more detail, better linking and a bit of you in it.
My hobby is playing football. I play football every weekend with my friends. It is good for health and I like it very much.
Why it scores Band 5.5: The word "football" three times and "good for health" (a phrase examiners hear constantly). It's correct, but very little range.
I'm really into photography. I started with just my phone, but last year I saved up for a second-hand camera, and now I go out most weekends looking for interesting light, usually early in the morning. It's made me notice things in my own city I'd walked past for years.
Why it scores Band 7: It shows how the hobby developed, uses phrasal verbs naturally ("into", "saved up", "walked past") and ends with a thoughtful point.
I wouldn't call it a hobby so much as a mild obsession, but I bake bread. It started during a very long winter, and now I've got a sourdough starter in my fridge that I feed more reliably than I feed myself. There's something deeply satisfying about making something from just flour, water and patience.
Why it scores Band 8: A self-aware opening, a funny, specific detail, and a precise final line. Natural, flexible language throughout. That flexibility is the Band 8 difference.
Bands are our estimate against the public IELTS Speaking band descriptors. In the real test your band comes from all three parts, not one answer.
The follow-up questions
Part 1 stays on one topic for three or four questions. These are the ones that usually come next.
- How did you get interested in it?
- My uncle gave me his old camera when he upgraded, and I just started taking it everywhere. It took me about a month to realise most of my photos were terrible, which was the point I actually got interested.
- Is it an expensive hobby?
- It can be, if you get obsessed with equipment. But you really don't need much: a decent second-hand camera and a bit of patience. The expensive part is resisting buying new lenses.
- Do you think hobbies are important?
- Yes, I think everyone needs something that has nothing to do with work or study. It's the one area of life where you're doing something just because you want to, not because you have to.
- What hobbies are popular in your country?
- Football, for men especially, and a lot of people play chess or backgammon in parks. Among younger people gaming is huge, though older people don't really see it as a hobby.
Words that lift this answer
- be into / be keen on
- Like an activity a lot.
- take up
- Start a new hobby: "I took up running last year."
- pick up
- Learn something casually: "I picked up the guitar from YouTube."
- deeply satisfying / therapeutic
- How a hobby makes you feel, more precise than "relaxing".
- a beginner / an enthusiast
- How serious you are about it.
- get the hang of
- Start to understand how to do something.
Mistakes that cost marks here
- "It is good for health". Say how: "it keeps me fit", "it gets me outside".
- Repeating the hobby's name in every sentence. Use "it" and different verbs.
- Inventing a hobby you know nothing about. Follow-up questions will catch you out.
Reading answers won't move your band. Saying them will.
Take a full Cambridge Speaking test: the examiner's questions are played out loud, you answer, and you get a band for fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. 10 free corrections a day.