IELTS Speaking Part 3: Cities
10 Part 3 discussion questions on cities, with developed sample answers of the kind Part 3 expects.
What is the difference between living in the countryside and the city?
The difference that strikes me most is pace and convenience. City life runs on rigid schedules — you plan the day around traffic, opening hours and the commute — and in return almost everything sits within easy reach, so a hospital appointment, a decent supermarket and a night out are all fifteen minutes away. The countryside inverts that completely: nothing feels urgent and the day follows the season rather than the clock, but you pay for that calm by driving half an hour for anything you actually need. The second difference is what your money buys you. In Baku a family might spend most of its income on a flat with no garden and a view of the next block, whereas the same sum in a village buys a house with land around it and air worth breathing. That is the real trade-off: the city sells you access and charges you in space, and the countryside does precisely the reverse.
Do you prefer to live in the city or in the countryside?
I'd plump for the city without much hesitation, mainly because my career and social life are both firmly rooted there. Everything I rely on, my job, decent healthcare, universities, entertainment, sits within a short drive, and I'd be reluctant to sacrifice that for the sake of peace and quiet. That said, I fully appreciate the pull of the countryside, and I wouldn't rule it out further down the line. Once work stops being the priority it is now, somewhere calmer with cleaner air holds genuine appeal, particularly for raising a family away from constant noise and congestion. For the time being, though, the opportunities a city lays on far outweigh the tranquillity a village would offer, so I'll stick with urban living a while longer. What would decide it is the stage of life rather than the place itself, since the things a city gives you are largely the things you need least once work stops being the centre of everything.
Do you think modern cities are suitable for young people or old people?
I'd argue they cater far more to young people, largely because cities reward precisely the qualities younger people have in abundance: energy, mobility and a readiness to adapt to constant upheaval. Job prospects, nightlife and public transport all favour those who can move briskly and don't mind crowds or noise. Older residents, by contrast, often find city living increasingly gruelling, since bustling streets, sky-high housing costs and a shortage of green space can feel overwhelming rather than exhilarating. That's not to suggest cities offer the elderly nothing, healthcare and social services tend to be far more concentrated there, which genuinely matters as people age. On balance, though, the frantic rhythm of a modern city seems geared towards younger residents, while older people often end up trading convenience for a steady undercurrent of stress. The deciding factor is really mobility, because everything a city offers is only an advantage to someone who can still get to it easily.
Is it good for elderly people to live in large cities?
It's genuinely mixed, but the strongest argument in favour is medical access. Cities concentrate hospitals, specialists and emergency services within a short journey, and that matters enormously as health needs grow more complex with age — someone in a village may be an hour from the nearest specialist, which is exactly the wrong distance when something goes wrong suddenly. The argument against is that the environment itself is punishing for an older body. Crowded pavements, packed metro carriages and constant noise are wearing rather than stimulating when your mobility is limited, and the housing nearest all those excellent hospitals is also the most expensive, which bites hard on a fixed pension. So the support systems are a real advantage while the daily experience of the place often isn't, and which of the two wins out depends largely on how healthy and how comfortably off someone is.
Is it possible that all of the population move to cities?
Realistically, no, I don't think that's remotely feasible, mainly because somebody has to remain behind to produce the food a city depends on. Agriculture, forestry and countless raw-material industries simply cannot be uprooted into an urban centre, so rural areas will always need a working population, even if that population keeps dwindling. There's also a hard ceiling on how many people a city can physically absorb before housing, transport and services start buckling under the strain. We're already witnessing that pressure in some fast-growing capitals, where infrastructure struggles to keep pace with population growth. So while the overarching trend clearly points towards urbanisation, a complete, wholesale shift remains more of a thought experiment than something that could genuinely unfold. Even the most heavily urbanised countries have levelled off well short of everybody, which suggests a natural limit rather than a stage they have yet to reach.
Will people live in the countryside in the future?
I do think people will, though probably not in anything like the same numbers as before. Remote work has already upended the equation for a great many people, since a sufficiently fast internet connection now lets someone hold down a city job without living anywhere near a city. That newfound flexibility is likely to draw at least some people back towards rural areas in pursuit of cheaper housing and more breathing room. At the same time, I doubt we'll witness a mass return to countryside living, because plenty of industries still demand a physical presence in urban centres, and younger generations in particular seem drawn to the opportunities and vibrant social life a city offers. So the countryside probably won't empty out entirely, but it's unlikely to see anything like the growth cities have enjoyed either. What is likelier is a change in which rural areas people choose rather than how many live there, with villages within reach of a city filling up while genuinely remote ones keep emptying.
Do you think people in the countryside are friendlier than in cities?
I'd say they generally come across that way, though I suspect it has far more to do with circumstance than character. In a small village, you run into the same faces time and again, so there's a natural incentive to forge relationships and greet people warmly. In a city, you might pass hundreds of strangers a day, and striking up a genuine connection with each one simply isn't practical, so people default to a more guarded, businesslike manner. It isn't that city dwellers are inherently less friendly, it's that anonymity and relentless crowding push people towards keeping themselves to themselves. Drop a city person into a small rural community for a few months, and I'd wager they'd become every bit as neighbourly as everyone else there. The same person behaves differently in the two places, which is really the proof that it is the setting doing the work rather than the personality.
What should the government do to improve citizens' safety?
Two things, and they work on quite different timescales. The immediate one is visible presence — proper street lighting, police who genuinely patrol rather than merely exist, and staffed, well-lit public transport late at night. Petty crime thrives on darkness and on the sense that nobody is watching, so making public space feel observed removes a great deal of opportunity at relatively modest cost. The second, and the one governments tend to neglect, is tackling whatever pushes people towards crime in the first place. Unemployment, a shortage of youth programmes and entrenched poverty generate far more offending than any patrol schedule can absorb, so a community with decent opportunities reliably sees less crime than one relying purely on enforcement. Policing manages the symptom; social investment reduces the number of people who ever become one in the first place. Governments tend to favour the first because it is visible within a single term of office, whereas the second only shows results long after whoever funded it has left.
What changes usually take place in cities and towns?
The most conspicuous changes are physical ones. Roads, metro lines and residential towers go up as a city scrambles to keep pace with a swelling population, and older districts are renovated or demolished outright to make room, so the skyline of a place can be almost unrecognisable within a decade. The less visible change, and arguably the more consequential, is in who actually lives there. People move in from rural areas looking for work, which drives housing costs upward and gradually pushes long-standing residents out of the very neighbourhoods that have just been done up for them. So a city usually ends up more modern and more efficient on paper, while the community that lived through the upheaval often isn't the one that enjoys the result. That tension — the buildings improving while the residents are displaced — is really the story of most growing cities.
Are there any changes in your city?
Yes, Baku has changed considerably even in the time I've lived here. The most obvious change is the modernisation of the centre: new metro stations have opened, and there are far more parks, pedestrian zones and renovated public spaces than there used to be, so simply moving around the city and spending time outdoors is noticeably more pleasant than it once was. The other change is the price that growth has carried with it. Residential complexes and business centres have gone up in districts that used to sit half-empty, and the road network was never built for the number of cars now using it, so traffic is appreciably worse than it was five years ago. On balance I'd still say the city feels more modern and more liveable, but the congestion is a real growing pain rather than something people have quietly got used to.
Reading a model answer is not the same as saying one. The sample above shows what a strong Part 3 answer sounds like. What it cannot tell you is how yours sounds — whether you hesitate, repeat the question back, or run out of things to say at forty seconds.
You can record an answer to this exact question and get it marked on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and pronunciation — the same four criteria the examiner uses.
Common questions
How is Part 3 different from Part 1?
Part 1 is about you; Part 3 is about people in general. The questions move to society, causes and consequences, and the answers are expected to be longer and more developed — an opinion plus a reason plus an example, rather than two sentences.
What if I have no opinion on the question?
You are not marked on the opinion, so pick one and support it. Saying you have never thought about it and stopping there leaves the examiner nothing to assess.
How long does Part 3 last?
Four to five minutes. The topics develop out of your Part 2 card, so the discussion is usually connected to what you just described.
Model answers written and reviewed by The English All-in-One IELTS team. They are teaching models showing what each band looks like, not real candidate scripts.