「忙碌時期」題的最大陷阱——整段都在抱怨有多累、多沒睡、多想逃。這會讓考官感覺你情緒管理不佳，而且聽起來都是形容詞沒有畫面。高分版本有三個動作：具體事件列表、具體身體反應、一個意外的收穫。
題卡
Describe a time when you were very busy.
You should say:
- when this was
- why you were so busy
- what you had to do
and explain how you felt during and after this period.
You will have to talk about the topic for 1 to 2 minutes.
POWER 準備筆記
- P — 跟誰的關係？Me alone, though my brother Wei-Ming kept checking in
- O — 什麼時候？The last two weeks before my university final-year thesis deadline
- W — 在做什麼？Thesis writing + a part-time job + a family event I couldn't skip
- E — 感覺？Wired, sleep-deprived, oddly focused
- R — 收穫？I learnt that my limit was higher than I'd assumed — and where it actually was
收尾技巧：不要寫 I was so tired, I never want to do it again。要寫 I learnt [一個具體的東西] about myself。把負能量 flip 成 insight，整題分數立刻拉高。
完整範文（305 字）
¹ The busiest period of my life so far was probably the last two weeks before my final-year university thesis was due, about eighteen months ago. ² I was writing about urban housing policy — which turned out to be a lot more reading than I'd planned for — and on top of that I was still working a part-time job at a café and had a cousin's wedding that weekend that I genuinely couldn't skip.
³ A typical day during that fortnight looked roughly like this: up at 7am, café shift from 8 till 1, back to my apartment, thesis from 2 till about 10pm with maybe a twenty-minute break for instant noodles, then reading more sources in bed until I fell asleep with the laptop still open. ⁴ I was averaging four or five hours of sleep, which is not sustainable for long.
⁵ The weirdest part was my mood. ⁶ I'd expected to feel awful, but after about day three something shifted and I entered a kind of tunnel-vision state where the world outside the thesis just stopped registering. ⁷ My brother Wei-Ming kept texting to check if I was alive; I'd reply with a thumbs-up and then forget to eat lunch.
⁸ I submitted the thesis at 11:47pm on the deadline, with thirteen minutes to spare. ⁹ The next day I slept for fourteen hours straight, woke up, ate an enormous breakfast, and then slept again.
¹⁰ Looking back now, it was brutal but genuinely useful. ¹¹ I learnt that I could hold a lot more work together than I'd assumed — but also exactly where my limit was, which is a very specific kind of self-knowledge you don't get from a balanced week. ¹² I wouldn't volunteer to repeat it, but I don't regret it either; it taught me more about myself than any comfortable semester ever did.
句句中文解析
- 句 1-2 (定位 + 三重壓力)：thesis + café + wedding — 三件事同時出現 = 具體忙碌，比 I had a lot to do 強十倍。
- 句 3 (時序列表)：up at 7am... café shift 8-1... thesis 2-10pm... instant noodles... laptop still open — 整天時間軸。這一句單獨就可以撐 25 秒。
- 句 4 (身體細節)：four or five hours of sleep — 量化。
- 句 5-7 (心理轉折)：tunnel-vision state, world outside the thesis just stopped registering, thumbs-up and then forget to eat lunch — 意外的心理狀態 + 小細節（忘記吃午餐）= Band 7+ 畫面。
- 句 8-9 (具體數字收尾)：11:47pm, thirteen minutes to spare, slept for fourteen hours straight — 具體時間數字製造張力。
- 句 10-12 (R 升級)：brutal but genuinely useful, exactly where my limit was, a very specific kind of self-knowledge you don't get from a balanced week, wouldn't volunteer... don't regret — 矛盾收尾顯示成熟反思。
四項 Band 7+ 證據
- Fluency & Coherence：時間結構明確（情境 → 典型一天 → 意外心理 → 交件瞬間 → 反省）；Looking back, The weirdest part was 是自然 signposting。
- Lexical Resource：fortnight, sustainable, tunnel-vision, registering, brutal, self-knowledge — 兼具口語感與精準度。
- Grammatical Range：過去完成（more reading than I'd planned for）、比較級（a lot more reading, more work than I'd assumed）、對比（wouldn't volunteer... don't regret）。
- Pronunciation：11:47pm, thirteen minutes to spare, fourteen hours straight 這種數字串可以逐字清楚唸出來，節奏感本身就是分數。
替代 hook
- I'll go with a period I still vividly remember — the two weeks leading up to my thesis deadline, which pretty much tested every habit I had...
- The busiest I've ever been was actually quite recent — about a year and a half ago, when three deadlines landed in the same fortnight...
- I'm going to pick a period that probably sounds like a cliché — thesis-deadline crunch — but the specifics of it still stick with me...