IELTS Speaking Part 3: Messages
4 Part 3 discussion questions on messages, with developed sample answers of the kind Part 3 expects.
Why do people write letters?
The main reason letters endure is that they create a record carrying real weight. Job applications, complaints to a company, official requests and anything with legal implications are still written and signed, because a letter can be filed, dated and produced again later, and both sides understand that. Nobody hands in a resignation by text message, even though it would obviously arrive faster. The second reason is emotional, and it's the one I find more compelling. A handwritten letter costs time, and that cost is precisely what carries the meaning, so a note of condolence or a thank-you letter to a teacher lands very differently from the same words in a message. My grandmother kept letters in a box for decades, which is not something anyone will ever do with an email. Speed is what email offers, whereas a letter deliberately offers the opposite, and occasionally that's exactly the point.
Nowadays, do people prefer to write letters or emails?
For everyday purposes email has won so decisively that the comparison feels almost unfair. It arrives instantly, costs nothing, can be searched years later and lets you attach documents and copy in five colleagues at once, so anybody opting for a letter for ordinary business would simply be making life harder for themselves. Even the institutions that held out longest, like banks, universities and government offices, now send most correspondence electronically. Letters have retreated into a small ceremonial niche, and I don't think that niche is going anywhere. Wedding invitations, condolences, formal thank-you notes and the occasional personal letter are still written on paper precisely because they're rare, and the effort itself signals that the recipient matters. So the honest answer is that people favour email for communication and letters for meaning. That split looks fairly stable to me, because each format now does something the other simply cannot.
On what particular occasion do you prefer to write letters?
The occasion where I'd always choose a letter is thanking somebody properly. When a teacher or a colleague has genuinely gone out of their way for me, a message feels disposable, whereas a letter takes half an hour, forces me to be specific about what they actually did, and gives them something they can keep, which is why I still have a card a student sent me after her results came out. The permanence is really the whole point. The other situation is when a conversation is difficult and I know I'd fumble it badly out loud. Writing lets me choose my words carefully, cut the sentence I'd later regret, and give the other person time to react privately rather than in front of me. An apology written down is usually more honest than one delivered face to face. In both cases what I'm really choosing is the extra time a letter forces me to invest.
Do you think traditional letters are a good way to send messages?
As a general communication tool, no, and I don't think anybody would defend them on those grounds now. They take days rather than seconds, depend on a postal service prone to losing things, can't be searched, and give you no way of knowing whether the message even arrived, which is unacceptable for anything urgent or practical. For arranging a meeting or answering a question, a letter is simply the wrong instrument for the job. Where they're still excellent is when the message itself is secondary to the gesture. A letter proves that somebody spent time and attention on you, which is the scarcest commodity there is now, so for sympathy, gratitude or a serious personal apology it communicates something no email can. Judged as a delivery system, letters are obsolete, but judged as an object they still work perfectly. So I wouldn't recommend them for sending messages, but I'd never want them to disappear altogether.
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.