An occasion when a home appliance broke down or stopped working

　　P2

　　Describe an occasion when a home appliance broke down or stopped working

　　You should say:

　　what the equipment was

　　How it was broken

　　How this affected your life

　　And explain how you handled the situation

　　P3

　　What are the common home appliances that people use these days?

　　Do you think modern technology makes people lazier?

　　What can people do to protect their equipment from technical problems?

　　When an electronic item of yours does not work, would you repair it or buy a new one?

　　Are you good at handling problems on your own?

　　范文

　　I remember once, a few years ago it was, when I had a problem with my washing machine. It was quite an old machine but it had always worked very well and was effective at washing clothes, sheets and such like.

　　Anyway, one day when I was using it, I noticed some water leaking out from underneath the machine. It was maybe about half-way through the washing cycle when this happened. I started to mop up the water and thought it maybe wasn’t anything serious – but a few minutes later a wave of water appeared across the floor of the laundry room, it was as if I’d just opened the door on the machine while it was still full of water.

　　I couldn’t mop up the water fast enough. I had to turn the machine off, and there was still more water inside it. So, the machine stopped and I continued trying to mop up the water, eventually managing to get the floor dry.

　　I’m not a technical person at all, so I called my brother who is quite good at things like that and he came around later in the afternoon to have a look at it. It only took him about 5 minutes to find the problem – apparently one of the water hoses at the back of the machine had come loose and that was why the water had been pouring out from under the machine instead of draining away through the hose.

　　He managed to reconnect it again and then we tested the washing machine by filling it with a little water and some clothes to make sure that it would operate again normally. Thankfully it did … so it was quite a simple problem to fix, but it was very inconvenient at the time. I’m happy to say that it’s been working fine ever since then – just like it used to.