Describe a person who won a competition You should say: • who this person is • what competition they won • how they prepared for it • and explain why winning this competition was significant for them.

I’d like to talk about my cousin, Minh, who won a regional public speaking competition when he was in his final year of high school. He has always been quite confident, but he wasn’t naturally brilliant at speaking in front of a large audience. In fact, he used to speak too quickly and sometimes lost his train of thought when he felt nervous. The competition he won was an English public speaking contest for students from different schools in our city. His speech was about how young people can use technology more responsibly, which was a topic he really cared about. To prepare for it, he spent nearly a month writing and rewriting his speech, recording himself on his phone, and asking his English teacher for feedback. He also practised in front of our family, which was awkward at first, but it helped him get used to being watched. Winning the competition was significant for him because it gave him a huge boost in confidence. Before that, he had been unsure whether his English was good enough to study abroad, but the prize made him believe that he could actually compete with strong students from other schools. It also strengthened his university application, so in a way, it opened up new opportunities for him.