Wono IELTS
Back to blog
SpeakingTipsCommon Mistakes

7 IELTS Speaking Mistakes That Quietly Lower Your Band

The most common IELTS Speaking mistakes that keep candidates stuck at band 6: from memorised answers to misunderstanding accent. With a fix for each one.

The band 6 that will not move

Plenty of candidates with good vocabulary and tidy grammar stay stuck at band 6 in Speaking. Usually it is not their language ability but small habits they repeat in the test room. These seven mistakes are the ones we find most often in Wono IELTS users' recordings.

1. Memorising answers

Examiners hear hundreds of candidates and spot a memorised answer instantly: flat intonation, content that does not match the question, and a candidate who stumbles when asked something slightly different.

Fix: memorise frames and phrases, not whole answers. The content must come from your own experience.

2. Answers that are too short in Part 1

"Do you like cooking?" answered with "Yes, I like it." gives the examiner nothing to assess for Fluency or Lexical Resource.

Fix: always add a reason and one detail. Yes, I do, mainly because it helps me relax after work. Last weekend I tried making rendang for the first time.

3. Stopping before two minutes in Part 2

Part 2 gives you two minutes. Stopping at 50 seconds signals that you cannot sustain a long turn.

Fix: use the four bullet points on the cue card as a map. When one is exhausted, move to the next. If all are covered, add how you felt or compare with the past.

4. Constant self-correction

"I go, I mean I went, no, I have been..." Every correction breaks the flow and counts as a Fluency disruption.

Fix: if the slip is small, keep going. One mistake left alone costs less than three corrections.

5. Forcing idioms

It's raining cats and dogs forced into a weather answer sounds unnatural and actually lowers Lexical Resource when the context is off.

Fix: use an idiom only when you genuinely know when native speakers use it. Accurate collocations (heavy traffic, a tight schedule) are safer and worth more.

6. Thinking accent is the problem

Many candidates lower their voice or imitate a particular accent because they fear their natural accent will be marked down. Pronunciation does not assess accent; it assesses clarity, word stress and intonation.

Fix: speak at a normal volume and focus on correct word stress. A clear accent beats a blurry imitation.

7. Part 3 answers that are too personal

Part 3 asks about general issues: "Why do people move to cities?" An answer that only tells your own story does not show you can argue in the abstract.

Fix: use the pattern opinion, reason, general example, impact. Many people move to cities for better job opportunities. Rural areas often lack industries, so young graduates in particular tend to relocate. This is why many capital cities keep growing despite the congestion.

How to find your own mistakes

Not every mistake is audible to your own ear. Record your answers and ask for an assessment per criterion. The Wono IELTS AI examiner flags the parts of your answer that lower the band in each criterion, so you know whether your problem is pauses, vocabulary, sentence structure or pronunciation.

Keep reading

Related articles