Shadowing Practice: IELTS Speaking Part 2 | Describe a Problem You Had and How You Solved It | Band 7+ Sample Answer - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey everyone!
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Welcome back to Marin English Lab.
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Here is something most IELTS candidates never realize about this topic.
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When the examiner says, describe a problem you had and how you solved it, they are not asking about the problem.
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They are asking about who you are under pressure.
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Because anyone can fix a problem.
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But only a band 7 candidate can tell the examiner what that problem revealed about them.
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Today I'll show you exactly how.
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Full model answer.
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Top vocabulary.
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Let's go.
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Here is the strategy most people miss entirely.
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They spend 90% of their answer describing the problem and the solution.
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But the examiner already knows you solved it.
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That is why they asked.
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What they want to hear is the moment your thinking shifted.
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The point where you stopped reacting and started reasoning.
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That cognitive turning point.
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When you move from panic to clarity.
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Is where band 7 language lives.
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Ready?
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The problem I want to describe happened during my final year of university, and in retrospect, it was one of the most instructive crises I have ever navigated.
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Three days before the submission deadline for my thesis, the external hard drive containing 18 months of research data simply stopped working.
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No warning.
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No error message.
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Just silence where there had once been everything.
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My initial response was entirely predictable, paralysis followed by panic.
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For approximately two hours, I sat in front of a black screen and did nothing useful whatsoever.
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I think part of me was hoping the situation would somehow resolve itself.
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But then something shifted.
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I made a deliberate decision to decompose the problem rather than react to it as a single overwhelming catastrophe.
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I asked myself, what do I actually still have?
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Printed drafts.
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Handwritten notes.
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Three months of emails with my supervisor containing key arguments and feedback.
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Fragments, but not nothing.
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I took the drive to a data recovery specialist that same afternoon.
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While they worked overnight, I systematically reconstructed what I could from memory and from those scattered sources.
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I did not sleep.
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But by morning, I had rebuilt approximately 60% of the lost content, and the recovery specialist retrieved the rest.
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I submitted the thesis on time.
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The grade, remarkably, was the highest I received that year.
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What that experience taught me was not about data backup, though I now back up obsessively.
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It taught me something far more transferable, that a crisis is most dangerous in the first two hours, when emotion overrides cognition.
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The moment you impose structure on chaos, even an imperfect structure, you recover your capacity to think.
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And thinking, it turns out, is always the solution.
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Why this answer works?
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For things made that answer exceptional.
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First, an unexpected opening, instructive crisis.
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Not a big problem.
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A crisis that taught something.
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The examiner's attention locks in immediately.
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Second, honest self-awareness.
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Admitting two hours of paralysis.
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That vulnerability makes the recovery feel earned, not formulaic.
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Third, academic register.
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Decompose the problem.
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Systematically reconstructed.
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Impose structure on chaos.
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These are not just vocabulary.
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They signal a mind that thinks precisely.
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And fourth, a closing idea that transcends the story.
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A crisis is most dangerous in the first two hours, when emotion overrides cognition.
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The examiner walks out still thinking about that.
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That is band seven.
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Three phrases that signal academic thinking to your examiner.
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1. Decompose the problem.
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When most people face a crisis, they see one enormous wall.
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They try to climb a hole and fail.
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To decompose a problem means to break it into its smallest components, to stop seeing the wall, and start seeing the individual bricks.
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It is the language of engineers, scientists, and strategic thinkers.
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And when you use it in an IELTS answer, the examiner hears someone who does not just solve problems, someone who thinks about how to think about problems.
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Say it like this.
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Rather than reacting to it as one catastrophe, I made a deliberate decision to decompose the problem into its manageable parts.
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2. Impose structure on chaos.
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This phrase does something most IELTS vocabulary cannot.
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It describes a mental action, not a physical one.
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Chaos is the state where everything feels beyond control.
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Imposing structure means deliberately creating order, not waiting for calm to arrive, but building it yourself.
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It also shows emotional intelligence, the recognition that structure is a tool for regulating anxiety, not just for organizing tasks.
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Use it to close a paragraph.
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The moment I imposed structure on the chaos, I recovered my capacity to think clearly.
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The examiner has never heard that sentence in an IELTS exam.
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They will remember it.
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3. Emotion overrides cognition.
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This is your band-aid closing phrase.
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It sounds academic because it is, but it describes something every human being has experienced.
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Cognition means rational thinking.
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When emotion overrides cognition, your feelings shut down your ability to reason.
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Every person in that exam room has felt this, but almost no one has the vocabulary to describe it so precisely.
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Close your answer with, A crisis is most dangerous in the first two hours, when emotion overrides cognition.
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The solution, always, is to start thinking.
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Two sentences.
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The examiner stops writing.
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Looks up.
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That is the moment you secure band 7.
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Five minutes.
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And now you have a problem-solving answer that sounds like a person who thinks, not just a person who coped.
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Here is your challenge.
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Comment below.
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What is one problem you solved this year?
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And what did it teach you about yourself?
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One sentence in English.
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I read every single comment, and I reply.
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Like this video if it changed how you approach IELTS speaking.
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Subscribe for a new video every single week.
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See you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “IELTS Speaking Part 2”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: examiner, structure, answer, cognition, crisis. This video has 107 sentences and 948 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:17. The speaker talks at a natural 151 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| examiner noun | /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/ | A person who investigates someone or something. |
| cognition noun | /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/ | The process of knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses. |
| decompose verb | /ˌdiːkəmˈpəʊz/ | To separate or break down (something) into its components. |
| override verb | /oʊ.vɚˈɹaɪd/ | To ride across or beyond something. |
| bind verb | /ˈbaɪ̯nd/ | To tie; to confine by any ligature. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
| instructive adjective | /ɪnˈstɹʌktɪv/ | Conveying knowledge, information or instruction. |
| paralysis noun | /pəˈɹæləsəs/ | The complete loss of voluntary control of part of a living body, such as one or more limbs. |
| reconstruct verb | /ˌɹiːkənˈstɹʌkt/ | To construct again; to restore. |
| systematically adverb | /ˌsɪs.təˈmæt.ɪ.kli/ | In a systematic manner; organizedly or methodically. |
| catastrophe noun | /kəˈtæstɹəfi/ | Any large and disastrous event of great significance. |
| deliberate adjective | /dɪˈlɪb.(ə.)ɹət/ | Done on purpose; intentional. |
| thesis noun | /ˈθisɪs/ | A proposition or statement supported by arguments. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. | |
| look up verb | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | To have better prospects. |
| shut down verb | To close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily. | |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. | |
| walk out verb | To stage a walkout or strike. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Today I'll show you exactly how.
- I asked myself, what do I actually still have?
- What is one problem you solved this year?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have ever navigated · has never heard · has experienced |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who does · person who thinks |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “th” sounds: thesis /ˈθisɪs/, thinker /ˈθɪŋ.kɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: cognition /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/, rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, submission /səbˈmɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, paralysis /pəˈɹæləsəs/, systematically /ˌsɪs.təˈmæt.ɪ.kli/, catastrophe /kəˈtæstɹəfi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like examiner, cognition, decompose.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.