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IELTS Speaking Forecast · Q3 2026 · September–December

Describe a wild animal that you would like to learn more about.

This topic is part of the Part 2 forecast set for Q3 2026 (September–December). Below are the questions that keep coming up, each with an original Band 9 model answer by WIKION.

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The wild animal I'd absolutely love to learn more about is the octopus — and yes, I know it technically lives in the sea rather than roaming a jungle, but to me it's about as wild and alien as a creature can get.

I first properly got hooked on them after watching that documentary, "My Octopus Teacher," where a filmmaker basically strikes up a friendship with one off the coast of South Africa. Since then I've fallen down countless rabbit holes online, reading articles and watching clips whenever they pop up.

What I already know is honestly staggering. They're remarkably intelligent — they can solve puzzles, unscrew jars, even recognise individual human faces. On top of that, they've got this jaw-dropping ability to change colour and texture in the blink of an eye to blend into their surroundings. What really blows my mind, though, is that they have something like nine brains and blue blood, which sounds like something straight out of science fiction.

The reason I'm so keen to dig deeper is that their intelligence is completely unlike ours — it evolved on a totally separate branch of the tree of life. So when we talk about understanding a genuinely non-human mind, the octopus is probably the closest thing we've got here on Earth. Getting my head around how they think, and how they can be so clever yet live such short lives, would be endlessly fascinating to me.

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