Describe an interesting or unusual thing you did recently You should say:
What and where was it?
When and with whom did you do it? Did you enjoy it? Why?

Sample answer:

Few months back while our visit to a friend’s hometown, all of a sudden a friend proposed us to go inside a nearby forest and have a picnic there. This was a plan proposed by Arnold (…say one of your friends name…) and 4 of our friends agreed to do so.

This was bit dangerous as people scarcely go inside the forest and from the local people we have heard different scary and wild stories about this jungle. Our main attraction was the abandoned house inside the jungle and we planned to do the picnic there and take photos of wild lives and the abandoned house. We knew that my friend’s guardians won’t permit us to do that and hence we planned not to let them know about it upfront.

On a Thursday morning we left the friend’s house and bought the necessary ingredients, vegetables, foods and other things that would be required for us to do the picnic. We entered inside the jungle and to our surprise the inside was much more open and beautiful than we thought it would be. With some difficulty we reached near the abandoned house and spent time till the afternoon. This was a very exciting and unusual experience for us. We collected some woods and made an arrangement for cooking. We eat the food we cooked and that was horrible in taste. However, we were looking for the adventure and interesting stuffs so a bad food did not kill our spirit. We could not enter the abandoned house as it was blocked and very fragile. We took several photos of the place and we notices some of the wild animals were observing us with suspicion.

I have to confess that was a bit dangerous and imprudent thing to do but we enjoyed our
interesting and unusual picnic inside a forest.

Follow-up questions:

1. How the types of gifts people send to each other have changed in recent years?
   I guess some people who feel tired of their routine duties want to try new things at times. Most people need a break from the same things they do every day, and I am not an exception. I think my brain has been so used to what it has been doing, so I sometimes stimulate it by trying something new. I believe that it is a great way of living a more exciting life.
2. What problems can people have when they try new activities for the first time? When people try new activities that they have never experienced before, they may face fear, anxiety or tension. I think psychological problems are the most common when trying a new thing. New activities, in the end, will allow people to learn how to overcome such feelings.
3. Do you think it’s best to do new things on your own or with other people? Why? Personally, I feel that it is a lot better to try new things with other people who can share the same interest. It is not necessary to reveal your courage and willpower right in front of other people, but it’s more enjoyable to do fun activities with those who can feel what I feel. I don’t think everything should be about learning or studying. I believe having a great time with good people is always great even when I feel afraid trying a new thing.
4. How do people in Vietnam spend their leisure time, for example, after school, after work or on weekends?
   It is a fascinating question; to me different people have different ways to while away their leisure time. A lot of young people like staying at home to surf the internet or log onto some social networking websites. Some sports lovers will play a game of sports, such as basketball,football, and tennis. As for women, might be into shopping tremendously because they want to make themselves look more gorgeous in others’ eyes.
   However, there’re also some people who would play cards during their free time, which I don’t particularly approve because most of this kind of game involves gambling.
5. In general, who do you think has more leisure time, men or women?
   I reckon that for a lot of married couples, men might have more spare time than women because it’s very common for women to do the house chores and take care of the children. Since most women also work after getting married, they don’t have much time left for other leisure pursuits. However if a woman is a housewife, she will definitely have more free time.
6. Do you think that people today have more leisure time than people in the past? Maybe, not actually. Nowadays, modern people suffer from more pressure than previously. People have to keep learning in order to stay competitive in their professional field, and because of the urbanization, a lot of people need to commute for several hours each day to go to work, which makes their time budget even tighter. However, for those living in the countryside, their life is probably still very slow-paced, relaxing and fortunately, they have a lot of free time to enjoy themselves.
7. Are there any differences in the way people relax today compared to the past? The answer is a yes for me. I’d say there are, because for example, in the past, I assume it’s fair to say that people mainly used to let their hair down in front of the TV, whereas nowadays, it seems to be the case that people are moving away from the TV and spending more time on the computer instead. So that’s one difference, and I suppose another thing to mention would be t quite a lot of people now, especially young people, like going to cafés to have some chitchat with their friends. And this is reflected in the fact that there are lot more cafes around than there used to be.
8. So why are people spending more time on the computer?
   I’d say there are a handful of reasons as to why this is the case, one of which would be that we are now capable of doing more stuff on the computer, like watching films and TV series, whereas some 40 years ago, we were only able to watch them on TV. And if you watch stuff on your computer, you don’t have to sit through all the annoying adverts which you get on the TV.
9. Why do you think some people find it hard to relax? Would you say that people have enough leisure time today?
   That’s a tricky question, and I suppose there are a number of possible reasons for this, one of which might be that they’re overloaded with work, and generally just too stressed out to relax. I mean, a lot of people I know find it very difficult to completely forget about their work when they’re at home, because their work is always at the back of their mind, regardless of what they’re doing.
10. Are there any differences in the way people relax today compared to the past? How do you think science and technology has changed people’s lives in Vietnam in the past few years? Yeah, I’d say there are, because for example, in the past, I think it’s fair to say that people mainly used to relax in front of the TV, whereas nowadays, it seems to be the case that people are moving away from the TV and spending more time on the computer instead. So that’s one difference and I suppose another thing to mention would be that quite a lot of people now, especially young people, like going to cafés to relax with their friends. And this is reflected in the fact that there are lot more cafes around than there used to be.
11. What about the future, do you think there will be less stress than today, or more?
    Well I’m not altogether that sure, but my feeling is probably that there will be slightly less stress, because I mean, I think we’ve reached a point where life can’t get much more stressful than it already is! So in the future, I imagine life will go back to being a bit simpler. In other words, I think what will most likely happen is that people will get better at prioritizing their time and cut out doing things which aren’t that important to them.