- What is your favourite fruit? -

If you get this question in the exam, you'll probably have an one word answer, e.g., "Bananas", "Apples", or "My favoruite fruit is Bananas", which are fine, but these very short answers will make it difficult for you to be creative with your language skills. As such, it will also be difficult for your examiner to give you a higher score.

Today I'm going to show you a simple way to make your answers 1000 times more interesting.

The secret? Use 'Openers'.

Use them to start your answer to a question. They will make it necessary for you to explain WHY, and therefore you have a better chance to become more creative with your answer. Think about it as putting yourself in a difficult situation, and then having to save yourself by trying your best.

1. Hmm... I don't know... Hmm, I don't know... probably strawberries, I eat them very often because my mum always buy them or me, but if I see them in a fruit store, I wouldn't buy them myself. On the other hand, I do buy mangoes whenever i see them, so that could mean my favourite is actually mangoes.

2. Well... that's a difficult question Well... that's a difficult (tough) question because I actually don't eat fruits. I have been allergic to them since I was 10 years old, but I do remember eating a lot of oranges when I was young. I suppose my favourite fruit would be oranges.

3. Hmm... it depends... if you're talking about X then..., but if you're talking about Y then... Hmm... it depends..., if you're talking about real fruits that you buy in a fruit store and has skin on it, then no, I hate those kinds of fruits. I think they're dirty and probably not safe to eat because of potential pesticides and other chemicals. There's so many negative news about these contaminated foods in Taiwan, it's a bit scary.

But on the other hand, if you're talking about fruit flavoured things like candies, cake, ice-cream, etc.. my favourite is peaches. I really

love their smell.

4. Well... I'm not so sure about what you're asking, but if you mean X then... I hope that sort of answers your question. Well... I'm not so sure about what you're asking, but if you mean just one fruit, then I suppose it would be apples. People always say that 'an apple a day keeps the doctors away', I don't like doctors, so I my favourite way to keep them away is by eating apples. It's probably going to be hard to believe, but he truth is that I have many favourites, and I probably eat more fruits every day than I eat rice or noodles; my diet means I'm very similar to zoo animals. Haha...

5. Well... under normal circumstances I would say X, but... Well... under normal circumstances I would say bananas, and its true, but Taiwan has so much more strange and interesting tropical fruits. One of them is the Custard Apple which is also called the Buddha's Head in Chinese because it looks like the head of a Buddha from statues or paintings. It is an really sweet fruit, probably one of the sweetest too.

6. I was going to say X, but... I was going to say apples and oranges, but that wouldn't be a very interesting answer... so I would actually say the dragon fruit. It's a really interesting tropical fruit which tastes good and looks great. It kind of looks like dragon egg from the tv series 'a game of thrones'.

Try it! Ask yourself some easy questions, but start with these openers.

• Where did you grow up? • Do you have any pets? • Do you have any siblings? • Do you know what your your name means? • What type of phone do you have? • What did you do this past weekend? • What are your plans for this weekend? • What do you like to do in your spare time? • What is the first thing you do when you wake up? • What is the last thing you do before you go to sleep? • What is your middle name? • What was the last thing you purchased? • What is your favorite holiday? • What is your favorite day of the week?

• If you could meet anyone in history, who would it be? • What do you like to do to relax? • Are you a saver or a spender? • Do you play any instruments?