EXAMINER:Hello，my name is Jonathan McGovern，what’s your full name please？

CANDIDATE:My name is Ryan Lockhart.

E:Can I check your ID and passport please？

C:Sure.Here you go.

E:Very good，in the first part ，I’d like to ask you some general question about yourself.Let’s talk about where you live.What do you like about the place you live in？

C:The thing I like about the place I live in at the moment is that we’re on the top floor which means we get lots of natural lighting.Often especially when you’re living，I’m living in Taipei,so when you’re living in Taipei，there are many different high-rise buildings and so you don’t get a lot of natural lighting but with my place，good，lots of natural light.

E:How can you make the place you live in better？

C:There are many ways that I could make it better，I suppose，I’m a big fan of “bigger is better”，so at the moment it’s not that big，there are 3 bedrooms；however，I would like to have a balcony.If we could have a balcony，that would be really good.

E:Would you consider moving to a new place？

C：Sure，I often move to new places，I’m very used to moving around the place，moving to different cities，moving to different countries，so if there is a bigger and better place with my balcony，then I would move.

E:Now I’d like to talk about shopping.Do you often go shopping？

C:I do go shopping，it’s probably not often.Generally when I go shopping，I don’t go shopping for myself，I usually buy presents or gifts for other people.

E:Do you prefer to go to shopping alone or with friends？

C:I definitely，100%，prefer to go shopping alone.I like to be in and out because actually I don’t like shopping，alright，and if I am with somebody else and they’re looking at different things and saying：“Is this ok？Do you like this one？Do you want this one？”I get really frustrated.I got this，this all started back when I was a child and I had to go shopping with my mother and my older sister，it was always a nightmare.

E:What do you like to buy when you go shopping？

C:If I go shopping for myself，I probably prefer to buy，I like to buy clothes，though I haven’t done that for a long time.I also like to buy electronic goods so you know things like iPod and，or a PSP,or you know all those computer games，that kind of stuff，maybe phones，I love phones.

E:Good.Let’s discuss age.Is it polite to ask someone’s age in your culture?

C:Generally speaking it isn’t,I mean,especially if you’re talking to a female,you should never ask a female how old she is,she might get very upset.Males sometimes,I mean you can get away with it,but generally speaking you shouldn’t ask someone’s age unless you’re good friends of course.

E:What can you do to keep looking young?.

C:Well,obviously if you wanna keep looking young,I think for guys probably you should do lots of sports and exercise,make sure that you’re fit and healthy and that generally makes you look younger.For women,they can take lots of shortcuts,they can use things like make-up hide wrinkles and they put lots of cream on ,exfoliates and things like that ,I think they are called,so they’ve got lots of other things at their disposal to make them look young.

E:When is the best age to get marred?

C:It really depends on the person,I don’t think there’s actually an ideal age for when you should get married.Someone believe you should get married young because then,for example if you have kids,they grow up more quickly and then whey you’re maybe only 40 or 50 years old ,they’ve already grown up,they’ve getting a job and you still have a lot of freedom to go and travel the world .Whereas others prefer to get married when they are a little bit older,that way they can save more money and then when they do have kids ,they are able to offer them you know a better education and a better standard of living in general.

E:In part 2,I will give you a topic and I’d like you to talk about it for one or two minutes.Before you talk,you will have one minute to think about what you are going to say.You may make some notes if you wish.Do you understand?

C:Sure.

E:Right.Here’s your pen and paper,here’s your topic card.Could you describe a gift that you have given to someone?

C:I often give gifts,actually,I like giving gifts,I like giving gifts more than receiving gifts.The person that I probably buy the most gifts for is my mother,so it doesn’t matter if it’s Mother’s Day or if it’s Christmas or it’s her birthday,I always make a big deal out of buying a gift that I think that she’ll enjoy.So for example for last Mother’s Day ,I was thinking about what I can buy for her and I remembered when I was much younger,when I was still probably maybe in primary school or high school, I always told my mum “when I get older mum and I gets lots of money and I am rich,I’m gonna buy you a Porsche,alright”.However now that I’m older,I’m still not rich,I can’t buy her a Porsche,but I thought I could do the next best thing,so I rented a Porsche for her for the day.So what happened was the Porsche got delivered to her doorstep and I told a big lie and said “that was for you,mum,I just bought this Porsche.”And at the end of the day,I had to tell her the truth and said “you have to give it back now.”But she got to drive around the Porsche for a day and it also included a picnic basket in the back.So,she went with my stepfather,her husband and they drove off somewhere, I don’t know where they drove off to,because I didn’t get to go unfortunately,and then they had the picnic lunch and then they came back and she had a great day.So generally speaking,I like to buy gifts that are an experience so it’s not just like an object that you give to someone and they say “oh！That’s great”I like to make it an experience,something they can enjoy for maybe one hour,tow hours or one full day.

E:Do you often give presents?

C:Actually probably not that often,I mean if it’s some special like my wife or my girlfriend,then I will give a present,but I don’t give presents just to anybody.

E:Right,You’ve been talking about giving gifts ,I’d like to ask you one or two more questions related to this.Let’s first talk about gifts and culture.Identify the times when you give gifts in your culture.

C:OK,in Australia,we give gifts definitely for Christmas especially if there’s,if you have young children or if you know some young children.Obviously this is probably the happiest time for kids because they get presents from lots and lots of different people.Apart from Christmas we also give it for birthdays ,again,it’s very important again for kids but we still do it for adults also and then there’s other times like Valentin’s Day. Actually I think the whole gift giving thing has become quite commercial,so shopping centers have glued onto the fact that “hey it’s festival ,people have to give gifts.”And they try to push us and you know make us want to give more and more gifts on all these different occasions like Valentin’s Day,Christmas,etc.even Easter.

E:Assess the importance of gift giving in your culture.

C:I think it is a quite important,obviously if it’s your,like your mother’s or your girlfriend’s or your boyfriend’s birthday and you don’t give them a gift,then I’m sure they are going to be quite upset.Alright?At least you have to make some kind of acknowledgement that “today it’s your birthday,you know have a happiest birthday”,but it’s expected I think by most people that “hey it’s your birthday,you should receive a gift from your loved ones.”

E:Compare the types of gifts people gave in the past to those given nowadays in your culture.

C:In the past,obviously there weren’t as many different types of gifts ,so they were usually some kind of material object that you would give them.Your probably ,I think in the past probably people made home-made gifts more also ,whereas these days there are so many products available in shops and on the market that you can buy absolutely anything,I mean there are even silly things you can buy these days.And then nowadays you have so many more technological products that you can buy which you didn’t have in the past ,so you didn’t have things like iPods or iPhones in the past which you do have now.So these are also quite a popular present to give .

E:Let’s now talk about homemade gifts.Consider why some people like to make gifts as opposed to buying gifts.

C:I think people like to make gifts because they feel it’s much more meaningful,it’s much more personal,it’s something that comes from the heart because obviously it’s much easier just to go into any old shop and say “OK, that looks like a decent present for my friend or my parents ,I’ll just buy that right?”which is quite easy to do.Whereas as soon as somebody receives a homemade gift they say”huh,that’s wonderful!” you know you’ve spent so much time on this,you know it shows how much you value their friendship or how much you value this relationship,and I think that’s the main reason why people like to make homemade gifts.

E:Do you agree or disagree that homemade gifts are more meaningful than buying presents?

C:Not necessarily,obviously it’s easy to buy a present but whey you’re buying a present you can also put a lot of thought into the type of present that you buy,so you don’t just go out and buy the first thing that you see.You think about now why am I buying this ,you know does it have any meaning like has anything happened in the past where they will say “Oh I’m so happy you bought me this! How did you know?”So buying presents can also be meaningful as long as you think about why you’re getting this present for that person.

E:Discuss the difficulties of making gifts on your own.

C:Well obviously if you’re not very creative ,that’s going to be one obstacle because when you’re making your own gift ,you need to be imaginative,creative.Another problem might be if you’re making things you might have to have some kind of artistic talent or some kind of ,you know you have to be good with handicrafts so you can make these things,not everybody has this type of skill,not everybody has this type of talent,so for example maybe you wanted to make a card.Alright? And then the card obviously you want to make the card pretty,you don’t just wanted to be a plain piece of white paper.So you need to have some ideas on how,you need to be good at maybe drawing or you need to be good at for example putting some kind of tinsel or some kind of other objects on it,you can tell that I’m not that artistic and good at making homemade gifts.I’m the type of person that probably prefers to buy a gift.

E:Thank you.That’s the end of the speaking test.