The interview: section four

Task description
Using your CV as a starting point, the interviewer will ask you about your future plans. The interviewer will aim to involve you in a discussion exploring possible problems, your concerns, your expectations, your hopes and possible steps to achieving your goals.

Sample questions

It is not possible to predict what questions will come up at this point in the test except that you know that the topic will be your future. The questions will be drawn from your CV, or from what the examiner has learned about you in the earlier sections of the interview, and most will arise naturally from the discussion and the information you are giving as this section progresses.

What is being tested is your ability to:

• give in-depth answers to questions about your future
• use the language of speculation
• explain and defend your actions, plans, assumptions, predictions, reasons etc

Strategies for approaching the task
Carefully consider your future plans before the test. If you haven’t definitely decided what career path you will follow, then choose one plan to talk about in the interview. For example, if you haven’t decided whether you want to be an astronaut or a business man, choose one – whichever you think is the easier to talk about – and don’t bother to mention the other at the interview.

Prepare all the vocabulary you will need to discuss that career path, especially the steps you will need to take to reach your desired position and how you would overcome any possible problems.

Be prepared to use conditional sentences to discuss, for example, what you will do if you achieve your goal or you cannot achieve your goal; for example:

If I can’t go to an Australian university to study, I will have to work in my parents’ business

Be prepared to use perfect tenses to explain how you got to the situation you are in now. For example:

Interviewer: How did you decide to become an engineer?

Candidate: Well, I’d (or I’ve) always been very good at maths, so after finishing high school I …

Be prepared to speculate about the future:

I hope to …
I’m hoping to …
I’d like to …
If possible I’d like to …
I plan to …
I’ve always dreamed of …
I assume that …
I’m assuming that …
I expect that …