Speaking Part 3 考官問你：
Do you think social mobility has improved in the last 50 years?
你腦袋一片空白。此時沉默 5 秒——Fluency 直接掉到 5.5。
解方：緩衝句。用一句話爭取 5 秒思考時間——不扣分，還可能加分。
緩衝句 ≠ um / uh / what
Um / uh / let me see = 口吃訊號。緩衝句是完整句子——說完有用、聽起來自然、還秀出 B2+ 句型。
五個高級緩衝句
記其中 2-3 個，背到不用想。考試時自動跳出來：
- That's a really interesting question, and it's one I haven't given much thought to before.
- Hmm, I suppose my honest answer would have to depend on how we define X.
- That's a tricky one, because there are actually two sides to this that I can see.
- Let me think about that for a moment — I want to give you a proper answer rather than just the first thing that comes to mind.
- To be honest, I'd need to think about this more carefully, but my initial reaction would be...
每句說完約 5-7 秒——夠你想出答案。
為什麼這些句子不扣分
1. 語法結構複雜
That's a question I haven't given much thought to before = relative clause + present perfect + inversion。一句話秀出三個 B2+ 結構。
2. 自然——母語人士也這樣做
英文母語者被問難題，第一反應就是 That's a good question, let me think。IELTS 評分是模仿自然溝通，不是機器問答。
3. 展現批判思考
How we define X / there are two sides 顯示你願意 engage，不是逃避。這反而加 Task Response 的感覺。
濫用警告
緩衝句一次 Speaking 最多用 2 次。每題都用 = 反效果（考官覺得你在 stall）。
只在真的空白時用。其他時候直接答。
搭配手法：重述問題
緩衝句後繼續 stall 用重述問題：
So you're asking whether social mobility has changed over the past fifty years — well, I think it's actually gone both ways.
重述問題再加 10-15 秒思考時間，而且考官聽起來你很認真對待問題。
試試看
挑 2 個緩衝句背起來。下次 Speaking 模擬，強迫自己至少用一次——就算不空白也用。練 5 次，變反射動作。