Please benchmark my speaking with Band 9

[saqibali]

Please
1.Benchmark
2.Give tips to improve weak areas.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1v6JXIh1Lay

[saqibali]

I have added one more sample.


http://vocaroo.com/i/s1zs1r0b58g0

[Ryan]

Please
1.Benchmark
2.Give tips to improve weak areas.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1v6JXIh1Lay

Hi saqibali,

I'm going to attach MP3 versions of your speaking samples to this message so that future visitors to the site can listen to them (Vocaroo recordings expire).

My comments below are regarding your first submission.

Overall, I felt the demonstration had several strengths. It is obvious that your grammar is developed in many ways. Its strength started to wane in the second half, but on the whole I think you have fair grammatical control over your speaking. I also felt you used several colloquial phrases accurately:

"...their child will be successful in turn."

"As a result, ..."

"...opportunities to explore."

Your pacing during the first half was good and natural sounding.

To give you a bit of constructive feedback, I'd suggest polishing the following areas:

1) Your pronunciation needs quite a bit of exercise. You have problems pronouncing the short /I/ sound, and unfortunately this causes mild incoherence at times. It's not "skeels", it's "skills". It's not "beezness", it's "business" (phonetically: biz-ness). Please track down a few pronunciation exercises online to help you improve here. Here's a good primer to get your started (please excuse its silly introduction):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKJ3o_Qf8H4

Other pronunciation areas in need of polishing are /w/ sounds (yours sound like /v/) and /th/ sounds (yours sound like /t/).

As I mentioned, mild incoherence occurs at times as a result of your pronunciation. For example, for the first few minutes, I thought you were saying "person" when you were actually saying "question". Further, "pursuing" was pronounced "pursing" in the demonstration.

2) Although your grammar was strong at times, there are numerous areas that need touching up. Push yourself to avoid making rudimentary mistakes. There is no such word as "childs", for example. Issues involving plurals also plague the sentence "the particular members of this family business doesn't have to learn the skills again". In the same vein, "small companies doesn't provide a very big exposure" is better worded to "small companies don't receive much exposure".

"It's capital city of Punjab" is a phrase that is missing an article ("the" before "capital city").

3) You used several colloquial phrases with accuracy, and I feel this reflects a certain strength as far as lexical resources are concerned. Nonetheless, several areas need to be tightened.

Don't say "please see it" when handing your ID card to your examiner. "Here you are" is fine.

"If I get a job that only have a better salary" is a very awkward use of the word "only". I think you mean something like "if only I could get a job with a better salary", but even then I would drop the words "only" and "could".

"I lead people for their technical problems" should be "I help solve technical problems for people".

"I have my cousins who are doing a copper business" is an awkward choice of words. Change "doing" to "running" or "managing".

I felt your over reliance on the word "ancestors" was awkward. Most of this area is grammatically correct, but varying the language here could do a lot to help keep your speaking fresh. "Descendants" or "forefathers" (which is a term not only related to the men of one's family) could have been substituted.

So, overall, I think this demonstration is a bit of a mixed bag. In many ways, your speaking is quite strong. In other ways, you retain rudimentary errors common among candidates scoring band 5 and lower. My guess would be that when all things are considered you would manage to get a 7, but cleaning up the above issues would no doubt push your band much higher.

Good luck,
Ryan

[saqibali]

Dear Ryan,
Thanks a lot for this so long and wonderful feedback.
Initially, I could not believe that I can have some small positive strengths and I read your comment many times.Thanks.You have given me a courage.
Again, thanks for pointing my weak areas.I have three days to make myself careful about those mistakes.
Again, thanks a lot.Although, I am much weaker in my preparation but I will do my best to forward that kindness to rest members of this forum.I will keep treating the members of this forum the same way, I am being treated.
Thanks again.

[saqibali]

By the way, I got 7 in 15th march exam.So, your prediction was exactly correct.
I am reappearing in 21st June exam.

Thanks

[saqibali]

I have my test on 2nd August.
Please check and help to improve as you did last time
Thanks a lot in advance.