Physical Appearance
Part 1-style questions
Examiner: Do you look like any other people in your family?
Carlo: No … not at all … take my brother for example … he has short cropped hair and has quite a pointed face … he’s also quite fair-skinned compared to me …
- cropped hair: very short hair
- to be fair-skinned: light skinned
- pointed face: the opposite of a round face
Examiner: Tell me about your family.
Andrea: My father’s getting on a bit … he’s in his 60s … but he looks very young for his age … he still does lots of exercise and is quite well-built …
- to be getting on a bit: to be getting old
- in his/her 30s/40s: to be 20/30 something
- to be well-built: to be muscular
- to look young for your age: to look younger than you are
Examiner: What does your best friend look like?
Mandy: She’s the same age as me … she has shoulder-length hair … fair hair … she has a slim figure and is medium height …
- fair hair: light-coloured hair
- medium height: average height
- slim figure: attractively thin
- shoulder-length hair: hair that comes down to the shoulders and no further
Part 2-style task
Describe a person whose appearance you like. You should say
- who this person is
- what their relationship is to you
- what they look like
and say what it is about their appearance you like.
Monique: OK … I’d like to talk about my aunt … her name’s Marta and she’s quite a character … she’s middle-aged but has a very youthful appearance … she’s a little overweight I suppose but not too much … she has a friendly round face framed by thick blonde hair … she has a lovely complexion and she’s always well-turned out … she actually always looks like she’s going out for the evening to somewhere special … there’s never a hair out of place … I’ve always thought she bears a striking resemblance to someone on TV … I can’t remember the name now … she wears glasses and always seems to have a different pair on every time I see her … I like the way she looks because she wears clothes that are right for her age and manages to look glamorous without it looking like she’s too done up … yes … I’ll be happy if I look like her when I’m her age …
- youthful appearance: to look young
- middle-aged: approximately between 45-65
- thick hair: a lot of hair
- to be overweight: to weigh more than is regarded as healthy
- to be well-turned out: to look smart
- complexion: natural skin colour and texture
- to bear a striking resemblance: to look very similar to
- to wear glasses: to use spectacles
- to never have a hair out of place: perfectly styled hair
Part 3-style questions
Examiner: Is it important to dress well whenever we go out?
Mark: It depends where you’re going … I know some people get done up just to go to the shops … but I don’t see the point … you shouldn’t go out looking scruffy with disheveled hair but I really don’t see the point in getting dressed up to the nines unless you’re going somewhere special …
- disheveled hair: untidy hair
- to dress up to the nines: to dress very smartly or glamorously
- scruffy: dressed untidily
- to get done up: to dress smartly
Examiner: Do people worry too much about their appearance as they get older?
Mira: I’m sure they do … yes … but it happens to all of us doesn’t it … we all go grey eventually and get hard of hearing … we start to lose our figure … that’s why plastic surgery is so popular … personally I think we just need to grow old gracefully and not worry too much about how we look …
- to go grey: to have hair that is turning grey
- to grow old gracefully: to act in a way that embraces the fact you are getting older
- to be hard of hearing: to find it difficult to hear
- to lose one’s figure: to have a figure that has lost its toned shape
Examiner: Is attractiveness a quality worthwhile aiming for?
Phoebe: I’d like to say no … it shouldn’t matter what we look like in terms of our physical appearance … but unfortunately it seems women especially are taken more seriously if they are good looking with a slender figure with perfect make up and so on …
- slender figure: a figue that is tall and slim
- to be good looking: to be attractive
- make up: cosmetics