📙 Part 2: Describe a time when you were caught in a traffic jam

This episode's vocabulary

Get-together (noun) - an informal meeting or social occasion, often arranged for a particular purpose.

Cab (noun) - a taxi.

To pack (verb) - to come or bring together in large numbers or to fill a space.

Rush hour (noun) - the busy part of the day when towns and cities are crowded, either in the morning when people are travelling to work, or in the evening when people are travelling home.

To curse (verb) - to use a word or an expression that is not polite and shows that you are very angry.

To redesign (verb) - to change the design of something.

To compound (verb) - to make a problem or difficult situation worse.

Furious (adj.) - extremely angry.

In/within spitting distance (idiom) - if something is in or within spitting distance, it is very close.

To stroll (verb) - to walk in a slow relaxed way, especially for pleasure.

In dire straits (idiom) - in a very bad situation that is difficult to fix.

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Questions and Answers

M: Hello, our dear premium listener, and welcome into IELTS speaking part two. Rory here is going to describe a time when he was caught in a traffic jam. He's going to say when it happened, where it happened, how he passed the time while waiting. And he's going to explain how he felt when he was stuck in that traffic jam. Rory, are you ready to talk about this exciting topic?

R: This extremely ordinary, everyday occurrence.

M: Tell us.

R: I can remember it like it was yesterday, actually. It was the late spring of 2021, and I was heading to my office to meet some colleagues before we went bowling that evening. The reason why we were going bowling is like every Friday we would have a get-together in the office and people were getting a bit bored of that. So we decided to actually go out once in the evening and I was travelling from the edge of Moscow into the centre and I can actually remember the train station or the metro station that I used to get the taxi from. Because that was just where I was every Friday. Anyway, I caught a cab to get to where I needed to be, which was in the centre and we got stuck in traffic. And this was particularly ironic because I'd taken the cab in order to avoid the metro which would be packed and I didn't want to be late. And I think we were stuck in the rush hour for well over an hour. And it's not like you can just step out of a taxi into five lanes of traffic in Moscow. Well, you can or you could, but only if you don't really value your life. I spent much of that time texting people and just cursing the terrible Moscow infrastructure and how I wished I could redesign the whole thing from the ground up. I really was not best pleased, to be honest with you. And this was all compounded by the fact that I actually hadn't eaten since breakfast, and that was about 6:00 in the morning. So anyone would start to get hungry at that point. And I was no exception. I was absolutely furious by the time we were within spitting distance of the office and the gridlock was still grinding away. It wasn't the taxi driver's fault. He had to find a safe place to park and there really wasn't one. But by then there were only three lanes of traffic and I felt like I was dying of hunger. So I just paid him and strolled out. It probably wasn't the safest choice, but it was definitely a necessary one. And I made it to where I needed to be. However, after that, I promised myself that I would never, ever get into such dire straits again. That was a horrible experience.

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