Tenses

Hi Zaneta
That would be logical, wouldn't it? However, the IELTS exam gives you an opportunity to use different tenses in all 3 sections. For example, the latest Academic test in Turkey had these speaking questions:

Part 1
Why do you study English?
e.g. I am studying English because I want to be a doctor. I think it will be necessary for my career.
What are your future aims?
e.g. If I qualify as a doctor I would like to work with children. My little brother died of leukemia when he was eight and I couldn't help him, but maybe I can help other children.
Did you have a favourite teacher at school?
e.g. Yes, my favourite teacher was Miss Atkinson who taught me in junior school. She had long black hair and red fingernails and always praised us if we did well.
Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher? Why?
e.g. No I haven't. I think in every role you get to teach a little bit, but I would rather work in a hospital than a school.

Part 2
Describe a street in your hometown that you know well. Please say what and where it is, how often you go there and why, and say what the street looks like.
This requires present simple, present perfect to describe recent changes, past tense to talk about the history of the street, present tense for a description, and future tenses if you speculate about what it will be like in future.

Part 3
How often do you go shopping?
Do you think road safety is important?
Is air pollution an issue in big cities and why or why not?
These questions would also use a variety of tenses - present simple, present perfect, conditionals, past tenses to give examples and future tenses to speculate about the future.

Using a variety of tenses correctly will help with the grammatical range element of marking, but they must be used correctly. Practise writing your answers down to see if they are structurally correct, then concentrate on pronunciation and fluency.

Kind regards
Teacher Jill