Band 6+: How has the shift toward remote working affected the way people build professional relationships?

Your pronunciation is quite good. Working on consistency and tackling difficult sounds may enhance clarity.

The response addresses the question and identifies a relevant change regarding the formality of professional interactions. However, the answer tends to drift into a historical explanation of why remote work became necessary (mentioning the pandemic and factory infrastructure) rather than focusing deeply on the core of the question: the building of professional relationships. To improve, avoid focusing on the causes of remote work and instead expand on the consequences for human connection, such as the loss of spontaneous social interaction, the difficulty of building trust through a screen, or the impact of digital communication on networking. Additionally, ensure the response remains at a general, societal level rather than focusing on specific industry shifts like the IT sector.

The candidate provides a relevant response and uses basic cohesive devices like 'First of all' and 'The main thing'. However, the progression of ideas is slightly disjointed. The transition from discussing factory infrastructure to the 'formality of meetings' is a bit abrupt. To improve, try to use more sophisticated linking phrases to connect the macro-economic shift (factories closing) to the micro-level social impact (relationship building/formality).

The vocabulary is somewhat limited and repetitive (e.g., using 'sphere' and 'online' multiple times). There is a significant lexical error in the raw transcript where 'demons' was used instead of 'dynamics' (though the refined version corrects this, the original intent was unclear). To reach a higher band, use more precise professional terminology such as 'virtual interaction', 'decentralized workforce', 'informal rapport', or 'digital communication etiquette'.

The candidate uses a mix of simple and complex structures, but there are noticeable errors. For example, 'moved completely to the online' is unidiomatic (should be 'moved online'). The phrase 'we allow ourselves to really not stick to the rules' is a bit clunky. Work on using more natural modal verbs and conditional structures to discuss hypothetical or changing social norms (e.g., 'People tend to be less formal...' or 'The shift has allowed for...').