What the examiner means by "pollution and recycling"
Everyday environment, not climate science: recycling at home, bins and collections, plastic, traffic and air in your town, litter, water, what your country does differently, what should change and who should change it. The examiner is not testing whether you know what carbon dioxide is. They want opinions, suggestions and advice, which is why this subject is the most natural home for should, ought to and could.
Questions that come up
- How do you deal with recycling where you live now?
- Is recycling different in your country?
- What is the biggest pollution problem in your home town?
- Do you think people here recycle because they care, or because they have to?
- What should the government do about plastic?
- Should people be fined for not recycling?
- Would you give up your car if public transport were better?
- What did people use to do with rubbish before plastic?
- What might the air in cities be like in twenty years?
- What advice would you give a family that wants to produce less waste?
Grade 7 language for this subject
- Advice and suggestions: "Councils should collect food waste separately." "Shops could charge for every kind of packaging, the way they charge for bags." "You'd better check what goes in which bin; every council is different."
- Passive: "Glass is collected every two weeks." "A lot of plastic is sent abroad instead of being recycled here."
- Second conditional: "If buses were cheaper and came on time, I'd sell the car tomorrow." "If people were fined, they'd recycle, but they'd also hate it."
- used to: "In Morocco we used to take a cloth bag to the market. Then plastic bags arrived and now they're everywhere."
- Possibility: "The air might get better because of electric cars, but I'm not sure the batteries are clean."
- because of / due to: "The river is polluted because of the factories upstream."
- Agreeing and disagreeing: "I agree that fines work, but only if the bins are actually collected."
A model exchange
Examiner Is recycling different in your country?
Candidate Very. In Pakistan recycling is done by people, not by the council. Men with carts used to come to the street and buy old newspapers and bottles, and the children would collect them to earn a few rupees. So things were recycled, but because they had value, not because of a rule. Here it's the opposite: four bins, a calendar, and if you put the wrong thing in, they don't take it. Is that the same everywhere in the UK, or only in Leeds?
Examiner It varies by council. Which system do you think works better?
Candidate Honestly, the one at home recycled more, but for the wrong reasons, and it was dangerous for the children. If I could combine them, I'd pay people a little for returning bottles, like they do in Germany. People should recycle because it's right, but they do it faster for money.
Mistakes to avoid
- Lecturing. A long speech about the planet with no personal example and no question back is marked as recitation.
- Only should. Vary it: could, might, you'd better, if I were the council I'd…
- Agreeing with everything the examiner says. Disagree once, politely, with a reason.