Luyện theo cấu trúc Cambridge IELTS 6 · Speaking Part 1–3: Noise and Quiet Places

1. It's fairly noisy, to be honest. I live in a flat near a main road in the city centre, so there's traffic noise from early morning until quite late at night. I've got used to it, but I notice the difference immediately whenever I visit somewhere rural.

2. Probably construction noise, especially drilling. Traffic is a kind of constant hum that you can tune out, but drilling is sudden and unpredictable, so it's really hard to concentrate when it starts.

3. It depends on what I'm doing. For reading or anything that needs deep concentration, I need almost complete silence. But for routine tasks like answering emails, I actually like a bit of quiet music in the background; it stops me from getting bored.

4. Yes, almost every day, mainly on my way to work. I usually listen to podcasts rather than music, though. I try to keep the volume fairly low, because I've read that using headphones too loudly can damage your hearing over time.

5. Definitely. A few years ago there were mostly small houses on my street, but several have been replaced by apartment blocks and cafés, so there are far more people and vehicles around now, and the cafés stay open until midnight.

The place I'd like to talk about is a small Buddhist temple garden on the edge of my city, about twenty minutes from my home by motorbike. It isn't a famous tourist attraction at all; most people drive past without even noticing it, which is probably why it's so peaceful.

I try to go there about once a fortnight, usually early on a Sunday morning before the city really wakes up. Occasionally, when I've had a particularly stressful week, I'll go after work as well, although it closes quite early in the evening.

What I do there is very simple. I normally find a stone bench under an old banyan tree near a small pond, and I just sit and read, or sometimes I don't do anything at all except listen. You can hear birds, the wind in the leaves and now and then the sound of a bell from the main hall. There's also an elderly monk who looks after the garden, and occasionally we have a short chat about the plants.

I like it mainly because it gives me a break from the constant noise of the city. My flat is near a busy road, and at work I'm surrounded by phones and conversations, so this is one of the very few places where I can genuinely switch off. I always leave feeling calmer and more focused, and I think it's helped me cope with pressure much better. In a way, it's become my own little escape.

1. The main reason is simply density. In cities you have huge numbers of people, vehicles and businesses packed into a small area, so the sounds overlap and never really stop. Construction is another factor, because cities are constantly being rebuilt, whereas the countryside changes much more slowly.

2. Quite seriously, I think. The most obvious effect is on sleep; if you're woken up repeatedly by traffic or neighbours, you'll be tired and irritable the next day. Over a long period, that kind of stress has been linked to problems like high blood pressure. It also makes it harder for children to concentrate at school if their classrooms are near busy roads.

3. There are quite a few options. They could limit construction work to certain hours, use quieter road surfaces, and plant trees along major roads, which absorb some of the sound. Planning is also important: authorities could avoid building schools and hospitals right next to highways or airports in the first place.

4. In some ways, yes. Many people now work from home, so they're more aware of noise during the day, and expectations about comfort have generally risen. On the other hand, people today are also exposed to far more noise than previous generations, so perhaps they simply have more to complain about.

5. I think it would be a good idea, as long as it's voluntary. Some people genuinely need a quiet environment, for example to read, rest or deal with anxiety, and silent carriages on trains already work well in many countries. That said, public spaces should also be lively and sociable, so I wouldn't want silence to become the rule everywhere.