IELTS Speaking Part 2: 'team project' topic

I decided to do some research for last week's Describe a team project question. I typed "it was a team project" into Google.

Here are 3 links to project descriptions that I found:

1) Project about software failures
2) Student robotics project
3) Barack Obama's speech

You won't be able to use everything you read in these descriptions, but you should find some good vocabulary ideas that you can copy:

• a team project with 3 members on each team
• It was quite a learning experience
• In the end, I think it was a successful project
• Our task was to...
• We had to collaborate
• The challenges were intense but fun
• a real sense of accomplishment
• It was more rewarding than I could have imagined
• They were proud of what we had done
• Success is a team project
• share the burden

Comments

[Nafiseh]

Hi dear Simon,
I have got a qusetion if you could help me please.
The following questions are three words or two words?

1-15th Feb 1978
2-42 Station Road

The question was no more than two words and I thought if I write

1-Feb 1978
2-Station Road

It does not make sense so I wrote all the words I heard.
Thanks

[Olimjon]

Hi dear Simon!
I heard about your this site from my friends. For years I have been learning english, not so hard. I didn't go to any tutor, I just prepare in english on my own. So, my friends advised me to prepare for IELTS with you. And I surfed the net immediately, when looked through your attempts, a lot of good advice and useful recommendations I thought your lessons were enough for being advanced in english and gettin higher score on IELTS. I have made a plan, from today I am going to participate by online in your daily lessons. I hope that I will be ready by 25 th of May, because on this day I have exam on IELTS. Your help is very useful for candidates who are taking exam, not just only for me.
Thanks a lot...

[Martin]

Dear All,
I'm back from a long break and here is my Part2 speech to share with you; NOTE: not every piece of information in my speech is true!
Cheers,
Martin

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I'd like to talk about a school project I worked on with a group of classmates back in college.

This team project was for our Microbiology class and it was actually my very first time to do teamwork with American students. To me, it was a real challenge as my English skills were still not good enough to communicate with them fluently.

Anyway, we were 4 members in the group and our main task was to find the sources of the E. Coli bacteria in a river nearby the school. We split the work and each one of us had to make short trips to different parts of the river to collect water samples. We then had to bring all the samples back to the school lab for further testings and finally write a report about our findings.

This project was NOT a huge scientific breakthrough, but I think we had a successful one and it allowed me to experience the job duties of an environmental researcher. This project was the first of the many projects I had to work on throughout my school life and I think it was important that I was able to have a good start.

--------------------------

[Nafisa]

Thank you very much Martin for sharing your experience.I know Simon must be busy with students,I want you please first of all answer my questions about listening.

15Feb 1985 or 42 Station Road is it two words or three words.

Secondly,I have problem in reading and the requirement is at least 7 each but in reading usually I get 6, I wonder if you can give me some advice and explain please how to manage my time because I always run out of time for the third reading passage.
Thanks

[Martin]

Hi Nafisa,

"15 Feb 1985" and "42 Station Road" should be counted as 3 words.

You can find lots of useful advice about improving reading skills on Simon's blog as well as many other websites around. My immediate suggestion is to do lots of reading on a regular basis (DAILY!) and try to understand the language as a whole, rather than just worrying about single words. Once you feel comfortable reading/understanding all kinds of topics/articles, I'm sure you will be able to find the answers faster during the test.

[James]

DESCRIBE A TEAM PROJECT

I'm going to talk about a recent project in film-making class where we had to make a short movie,a documentary of sorts, on any topic we wanted.

My team picked the topic of exploring TV advertising trends through the decades as we thought it would be quite amusing to compare the different styles and forms of commercials over the years. Although the project turned out very well and I was pleased with the final result, I felt disappointed in the lack of communication between team members.

Because of everything I had going on during the semester, I had opted not to be the group leader, which on looking back may have been an error on my part. Unfortunately, some of the group members failed to turn in their research on time, and our leader did not actively follow up with them about it. After we started to fall behind the schedule we had mapped out, I decided to jump in and map out a new timeline for our team so we could get the project completed by the deadline. It was clear that the film editing would be very time consuming so the tasks were broken into distinguishable parts and assigned to pairs to finish.

In the end, we managed to get everything done with time to spare but most of our work ended up being during the busiest week of the term for me and for some of the other members, so I wish the communications had been more organized and thorough earlier on. The lesson I learned from this experience is to ensure that I am an active participant even when I am not the leader, which can maximize my relationships within the group and improve my skills along with those of other team members.

[Abdul]

I have read the 3 topics and i found the video of Obama speech contain numerous useful sentences .

Thank you Simon

[Nafisa]

Hi dear Martin,

Thank you very much for the useful advice and kindness I will try to practice more readings as well as will go throught simon's reading materials.
Thank you very much again and have a nice day.

[KarinaM]

Hi all!
I'll have my IELTS in London on the 25th of May and i hope i'll pass it, and become a dental hygienist!
Thanks all for you advices! I need at least 5.5!