The Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes in three parts with a real examiner. Part 1 is four or five minutes of ordinary questions — where you live, what you do, food, weather, hobbies — and it exists to let you settle and to let the examiner start hearing your English.
A one-word answer wastes it. "Do you like cooking?" answered with "Yes" gives the examiner nothing to mark and makes the next four minutes harder for both of you.
The fix is a habit, not a script: answer, then add one thing. The addition can be a reason, an example, a contrast, or a change over time.
- "Do you like cooking?" — "I do, actually. I started during my final year at university
- because eating out got expensive, and now it's the part of the evening I look forward to."
- "Is your hometown a good place to live?" — "For families, definitely. It's quiet and
- everything's close. For someone my age it can feel a bit slow, which is partly why I'm
- looking at studying abroad."
Two sentences. Not a speech: Part 1 answers that run for a minute get interrupted, and being interrupted breaks your rhythm.
Do not rehearse whole answers word for word. Memorised responses are audible — the rhythm flattens and the vocabulary jumps a level above the rest of your speech — and examiners are trained to notice. Rehearse the HABIT instead, so that adding a reason becomes automatic whatever you are asked.
And answer the question you were asked. If it is about your hometown now, do not deliver the paragraph you prepared about your childhood.