Aptis reading Test: General Tips and Strategies

Part 3: In this part of the test, you are going to look at two pictures and I will ask you two 
questions about it. You will have 45 seconds for each response. Begin speaking when you hear 
the beep.

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3.1. Compare the pictures. 
3.2. Is it better to travel to distant places or stay nearer home? 
3.3. Do you think travel ‘broadens the mind’? 
Part 4: In this part of the test, you will look at a picture and answer the questions below. 
You will have 60 seconds to prepare before you start speaking. Then, you will speak for 2 
minutes.
4.1 Do you know any older couples like the one in the photograph? 
4.2 People are staying younger for longer. Why do you think this is? 
4.3 What are the advantages of getting older? 
Yes, I know a couple who are older than ones in the picture, they’re in their eights, and they are 
still full of life. They are both quite active and they enjoy going on holidays, they have a place in 
Spain, and they go and stay in it three times a year particularly in the winter when the weather is 
better there. They like going out for meals and socialising with their family and friends. As well as 
this, he plays golf at least three times a week and this helps. I think the reason people stay younger 
for longer now is undoubted because of improved medicine. Even if you have a long-term medical 
condition, it can usually be managed with medicine. For instance, until the last fifty years, if your 
knee joint went, you would have difficulty walking and eventually may not be able to walk at all. 

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You’d probably be unable to leave your house and wouldn’t be able to exercise. That would soon 
make someone old. I also think that people now have a completely different attitude toward ageing 
and expect to be able to do things in later life that they have always done. Most sports clubs now 
have an ‘over-fifties’ team and so you can play football or rugby for as long as you are fit enough. 
In the past, most men and women stopped playing their favourite sport or doing their favourite 
activity when they got married. These are some of the advantages of getting older, plus by the time 
you are in your fifties, you should have less stress at work because you are not forced to be so 
competitive and your children will probably have left home so things are quieter there too.
APTIS For Teaches: Model Answer to Sample Speaking Question #6