Part 2 — Long turnQ3/2026Difficulty 3/5

Describe a movie that made you think

IELTS Speaking questions reported by recent test-takers, compiled each quarter. Cambridge does not publish the active list, so this is a compilation of reports, not official material.

Questions

Question 160s to prepare · 120s to speak

Describe a movie that made you think. You should say: • what it was • when you watched it • what it was about • and explain what it made you think about

Model answer

Written by 8020 teachers. Do not memorise it — take the structure and the way ideas are developed, then speak about your own life.

The film I'll talk about is Perfect Days, a Japanese film I watched maybe a year ago. I watched it at home, on a weekday evening, which I mention because it isn't a film you'd choose for a night out. Almost nothing happens in it. What it's about is a man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo. That's the plot. He gets up, waters his plants, does his job carefully, reads a book, sleeps, repeats. There's a small amount of story with his niece, but mostly the film just watches his routine for two hours. What it made me think about was the assumption I hadn't noticed I was carrying — that a life only counts if it's going somewhere. His isn't going anywhere, by any normal measure. No promotion, no dramatic change, no big goal. And the film doesn't present that as sad, which was genuinely disorienting. I kept waiting for the twist where we find out he's secretly unhappy, and it never comes. I've thought about it a lot since, particularly the way he does the cleaning. He uses a small mirror to check under the rim, which nobody will ever see or thank him for. Doing careful work that no one notices — I found that harder to dismiss than any motivational film I've watched. I've recommended it to about five people. Two of them were bored. I understand that.

Vocabulary you can use today

a night out
một buổi tối đi chơi
almost nothing happens in it
gần như không có gì xảy ra
the assumption I hadn't noticed I was carrying
cái định kiến tôi mang mà không hay
by any normal measure
theo mọi thước đo thông thường
genuinely disorienting
thật sự làm mình chệch nhịp
harder to dismiss than...
khó gạt đi hơn là...

Common traps for Vietnamese speakers

Chọn phim làm bạn NGHĨ, không phải phim bạn thích nhất. Đề hỏi "made you think" nên ý thứ tư phải là một suy nghĩ cụ thể, không phải cảm xúc. Kể cốt truyện trong đúng ba câu. Đa số học viên dùng hết một phút kể cốt truyện rồi không còn thời gian cho phần được điểm. Thừa nhận có người không thích ("hai người thấy chán, tôi hiểu"). Nó cho thấy bạn nói ý kiến riêng chứ không nhắc lại đánh giá chung — và đó là chỗ giám khảo phân biệt 7.0 với 7.5.

âm cuối /d/ trong watched→/t/, recommended, thanked→/t//θ/ trong think, thought, thingsâm cuối /z/ trong plants/s/, days/z/, films/z//dʒ/ trong Japanese, job

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