You should be getting comfortable dividing your spoken responses into three sections.
You should also be getting very comfortable taking great visual notes.
Question #6 is kind of long. Longish.
Well yeah it might feel long.
Welcome to Clear Strategies and Tactics.
If you've gone through the listening section you're not going to find the length here very daunting
at all. It's not a big deal.
About two or two and a half minutes. Topics featured include history maybe some sciences like the "ologies"
are very common very popular regardless of the topic.
The task requirements in Question #6 are pretty clear.
The lecture is always supported by two examples thus the prompt is pretty predictable and it always
goes something like this.
Using the example of goats from the lecture explains the two benefits of animal domestication for early
humans.
Let's pop into TPO #47.
Let's cheat and look at the transcript as we listen.
And as we listen I'll also mark up the transcript to draw your attention to what I think are some important
features in the lecture.
Listen to part of a lecture in a history class when early humans wanted to eat meat.
They hunted wild animals.
That's how humans got meat for thousands of years.
But then around 10000 years ago humans began to domesticate animals.
That is they began to control animals to feed them to raise them and the domestication of animals had
a number of benefits for early humans.
Let's talk about a couple of these benefits.
One benefit of animal domestication was that it provided early humans with a more consistent and reliable
source of meat when early humans hunted wild animals.
Sometimes they were able to find and catch the animals but other times they weren't.
So wild animals were not a reliable source of meat.
But with domesticated animals meat was always available.
For example goats were one of the first animals to be domesticated.
They were easily controlled and organized into herds led by a person a shepherd so they could accompany
groups of people as they moved from place to place.
And whenever the people needed meat they could eat the goats.
They were always available.
Another benefit of animal domestication was that domesticated animals could supply a variety of foods
other than meat.
When early humans hunted wild animals the only kind of food they got was meat but domesticated animals
were able to supply in addition to meet other kinds of food products.
For example let's take a look again at domesticated go live goats produce milk.
So early humans could collect the milk and drink it and they could also process the milk and turn it
into other kinds of food like yogurt and cheese which could be stored.
This paragraph looks a bit strange.
And there are a couple of mistakes in it.
But don't let it mislead you.
The structure is clear
see what I mean.
The lecture is divided into three parts.
The introduction of the topic.
The first example and the second example.
Your answer you should also be divided into three parts.
Let's look at my notes together and see how we can create an great response based on those notes.
As usual I'm using my full page here in landscape.
I use the left side of the page to jot info about the concept.
In this case animal domestication for early humans.
Those are the key words from the prompt that I want to repeat in my response so the Rater knows I'm on
topic.
"Early humans" and "meat" and verbs like "hunt," "domesticate," "control," "feed".
I like using a grid to break down the big two examples.
Here the first reason why domestication was so great: it provided a consistent and reliable diet unlike
the inconsistent diet based on hunting wild animals.
The supporting evidence for this first point is on the right.
Goats were easy to control I guess and people could travel with them and therefore kill them and eat
a goat whenever they needed to.
In my bottom left quadrant I used the second point in the lecture which is that domesticated goats are
allowed for a more varied diet.
Remember that? People could milk goats and drink that milk but the milk could also be turned into cheese
and yogurt and that could be stored, I guess for future use.
So because of these great notes I should be able to speak confidently about goat domestication and its
benefits towards early humans.
My key concern here is time.
Right?
I want to manage my time and hit those 20 second transition points so that the first part of my speech
is about animal domestication versus hunting and then the second part is going to be the first example
about the consistency and reliability of having domesticated animals.
And then the third part is going to be about the variety that domestication provides including providing
other products instead of boring meat.
OK so with my notes in front of me here let's see how we do in response to this prompt using the example
of goats from the lecture.
Explain the two benefits of animal domestication for early humans.
The professor uses the example of goats to explain why domesticated animals benefitted early humans
for millennia.
Humans hunted animals for meat which was unreliable.
Hunting was unreliable but about ten thousand years ago humans figured out how to domesticate goats
which had two major advantages over hunting.
First goats provided early humans with a reliable and consistent diet of meat goats could be moved and
controlled.
So because they were domesticated the goats were always available to feed the people who controlled
them.
On the other main advantage was that God provided early people with a variety of food instead of just
eating meat.
Early humans could enjoy other products from goats like milk and they could take that milk and process
it into cheese and yogurt and store that for future use.
As you continued to practice you'll find a rhythm you'll get more comfortable and gain more confidence
here.
This is an unnatural way of speaking.
Right.
Certainly you know in my everyday life I'm not talking about the domestication of goats
in 8000 B.C..
Right.
And my responses with my friends and colleagues are certainly not time bound.
They're not time restricted although maybe some of my friends wish they were.
My point is that in this very unnatural way of speaking you kind of gotta get used to a system.
Right.
And that's what I'm trying to show you here.
And that system is kind of applying a structure a time template and then really managing those transition
points inside that time template so that you can deliver the requirements of the prompt in a way to
get you a high score.
The key here is notes, right? In terms of, like, the process, you really need to have good listening skills
but you need to be able to convert those skills into actionable notes.
And if your notes are well organized, then your response will be well structured and well organized
and that is a great sign a great indicator to the Rater that you know your stuff.
And that's really what's going to get you a high score. Notes are the key.
So keep practicing
great note taking skills.
It's time to celebrate! The good news is that by the end of question 6 you're done with this speaking
section that's gone and arguably the most stressful part of the exam is now behind you and you can focus
on the last remaining section and that's Writing - coming up
by the way. (Visit www.studywithit.com for more). Keep practicing and I can't wait to see you in the next lecture.