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Describe a book you recently read.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What is it called?
  • When did you read it? What was it about?
  • Explain how you felt about it.
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44 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 44 answers

Cue 1:What is it called?

  • Start by clearly stating the title of the book and the author.
  • You can also mention the genre of the book to give context.

Example

The book I recently read is called 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. It is a philosophical novel that falls under the adventure and self-discovery genre.

Cue 2:When did you read it? What was it about?

  • Mention when you read the book and the circumstances that led you to choose it.
  • Summarize the main plot or themes of the book in a few sentences.

Example

I read 'The Alchemist' last month during my vacation. The story follows a young shepherd named Santiago who dreams of finding treasure in Egypt. It beautifully explores themes of destiny and personal legend.

Cue 3:Explain how you felt about it.

  • Share your personal feelings and thoughts about the book.
  • You can discuss what you learned from it or how it impacted you.

Example

I felt incredibly inspired after reading this book. It encouraged me to pursue my own dreams and reminded me that the journey is just as important as the destination. I found myself reflecting on my own life choices and aspirations.

Conclusion

  • Summarize your overall impression of the book.
  • You can recommend it to others and explain why.

Example

In conclusion, 'The Alchemist' is a remarkable book that I would highly recommend to anyone seeking motivation and guidance in their life. Its powerful message about following one's dreams resonates deeply with me.

Following this structure will ensure you cover all the essential points while providing a clear and engaging response to the cue card topic.

Tips to answer this Cue Card

1: Vague Book Descriptions

Avoid being too vague when describing the book. General statements can make your answer less engaging and informative.

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Tip

Provide specific details about the plot, characters, and themes to give a clearer picture of the book.

2: Ignoring Emotional Response

Neglecting to explain how you felt about the book can make your response less personal and relatable.

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Tip

Share your emotions and thoughts about the book, discussing what resonated with you and why it mattered.

Rushing Through the Timeline

Rushing through when you read the book can lead to a lack of context and depth in your answer.

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Tip

Take a moment to explain when you read it and how that timing influenced your experience or understanding of the book.

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IELTS Cue Cards asked last week

Reported by Leap students who gave IELTS

Describe your favourite food at a traditional festival or a special event in your country
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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Pitampura Test Centre, New Delhi

Answer

I like to taste different types of cuisine. Here I would like to talk about my favorite dish at my traditional festival of Onam which is Sadya. Sadya is popular in my city. We are experimenting these cuisines on Onam festival day. Onam is a famous festival in my city. All family members get together in my home and we make a delicious Sadya. There are many ingredients includes that Sadya. Moreover, we make a big feast that day as well as we create a lot of memories together and we wear that day the traditional dress called Sari and men wear the Dhotis. That festival is really important to us because the whole day we are conducting different kinds of games at our homes and all the family members came together. It's a memorable day in my life. This is the festival. We are making the Sambar and Aviyal. These all the kinds of foods are making with the vegetables.
Talk about a toy you liked in your childhood
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 8

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Sector 34 Test Centre, Chandigarh

Answer

The toy which I liked in my childhood was a panda doll, which makes me pleasant and makes me more blush. The pandas are the most beautiful creatures of the world, which looks gigantic and has pooshy cheeks and they are like stars in the clouds and they dream in me. Furthermore, these have been given by my father. My father is a very very beautiful artistic person, who makes me think of that. Every day you will face every difficulties and make you suffer and move forward. Pandas are always seen in Japanese countries. It is my lifelong dream to visit a Japanese country and click a photo with the original pandas, which makes sounds better.
Describe a time you were in a place where you didn't know the local language
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 6.5

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Whitefield Test Center, Bengaluru

Answer

As India is a very large country full of diversity, so there are many places which have their own language and speak their native language. The place which I visited and I didn't know about their language was Leladakh, which is about 300 km away from my hometown and it is a very good place as it consists of different kind of trees, animals and have many scenic views and I visited over there last year in summers as it was the best time to visit because it has many, it was cold over there and we had summers in our area so it was the best time to visit over there and I went over there with my whole family.
Describe a time when your friend damaged something you owned
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

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Begumpet Test Centre, Hyderabad

Answer

When I was a kid, I had a little pencil box which had these four buttons which gave the pencil box an operative use. When you press the button, the box would open up. When you press the second button, a little part of it would slide out. Basically it was just a little electronical and a fun thing to have and I owned it when I was in 6th. One day after break, I was standing and talking there with one of my friends and another friend of mine was running through the hallway and accidentally she pushed my shoulder and my pencil box hit the ground and it broke into multiple pieces to the point that it was not functional anymore.
Describe a book you recently read
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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CBD Belapur Test Centre, Navi Mumbai

Answer

It Ends With Us is a book I read recently. It's by the author Colleen Hoare. It's mainly a story about two teenagers, Atlas and Lily, and how they just handle their life going through high school, adolescence, and just domestic violence at home. Both of them come from very, very different families. However, they have one common determining factor between them, which is domestic violence. The abuse that they've seen their moms go through is just insane, and they connect through that on a different level. They're actually in the same high school, but they never speak to each other until Atlas actually crashes into an empty house next to Lily's villa. When Atlas is homeless and he doesn't have anywhere to go, he just comes and breaks into the house next to Lily's, and Lily helps him with all the daily necessities like clothes and food, medicines and stuff. Furthermore, their friendship blossoms into love, but it doesn't really fructify as Atlas has to leave. This book really gave me a lot of knowledge about domestic abuse and how to deal with it.

All Answers

Here are all the answers by real-users practicing speaking for IELTS Cue Cards on our IELTS Prep App.

Band 6-7

I would proudly say that I am a bookworm and I like to read variety of novels like not only the contemporary ones but also sometimes the historic novels or mythological novels etc. Currently, I read a book written by Holly Jackson and she has become my favorite author since then. The title of the book is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and it is particularly about a teenage girl whose college assignment turns into something more complicated and she solves a crime which was closed many years back in the same city. She is given an assignment to open up a cold case and do some digging and research about it and just note it down but while doing the same, she discovers that the victim was actually not the victim and additionally, the person they concluded that was the criminal wasn't actually the criminal but he was the ultimate victim of whatever was going on in that city and however small that city was, it hid so many secrets that the protagonist finds out while going through the investigation process. Also she is threatened, moreover she is also threatened by the actual criminal so that she couldn't disclose the details about whatever she was finding. The story, it made me realize that it portrays that a teenage girl can do anything if she wants to so it is like sort of message to all the teenagers or young adolescents that if they wish to, they can pursue anything that they want and they can follow their dreams to become whatever they want to in their life and so it is quite an interesting book as well as educational.

Band 6-7

I recently read this book named Atomic Habits. This is almost famous everywhere. So this book was very much close to my heart because it taught me a life lesson and it turned my life upside down. Because I was leading a life with procrastination and I don't meet deadlines a lot. Firstly I would like to talk about the book named Atomic Habits. I know it's very famous among teenagers. This was recommended by one of my friend and she gifted me that book so I didn't personally buy it myself. This book is mainly on the topic of motivation and it starts with author's personal experience where he had lost the dream of his life and he comes up with another dream and he succeeds on a great scale where he is a very successful author now. So this book completely tells a recipe for a very successful life especially when you are a teenager. It gave me an insight into the mistakes I have done in my life because I was not very much disciplined in my tasks or works in my school. I used to procrastinate a lot, didn't have a disciplined everyday routine or everyday workout plan, anything. I just go with the flow and I also had setbacks because of that. So once I read this book and had an insight on a disciplined life, I started step by step improving myself and the quality of my life was also improved because of this book. So this book is very close to my heart.

Band 6-7

The recent book which I have read is Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. What I, why did I read it if you ask me? My best friend suggested me one day when we went to a book fair. I saw that book and she said you should read it and I was like okay I must. So I bought it and then the next day I opened the book and I saw a picture of a cockroach, a dead one. So I felt a bit disgusted by the image of the cockroach because I am very scared of insects but then I read the book. It was about a man named Gregor Samsa who one day turned into a cockroach. It is a metaphorical story where he felt like he was a burden to his family and to his sister who was his sister. So I read the book. It was about a man named Gregor Samsa who turned into a cockroach. So I read the book. It was about a man named Gregor Samsa who turned into a cockroach.

Band 6-7

Recently I read a book called Wings of Fire. Recently after completing my exams, my source or my teacher said to go library and study anything you want and I went and suddenly I found a book called Wings of Fire. Actually I am not a person who likes to read and I went to there. I found it very interesting. I took the book and started reading and it is about or the book is about autobiography of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Garu and the author of the books were A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Garu and Arun Tiwari. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Garu was a former president of India and a Muslim man of India. The book was originally published in the year 1998 and in that book there are many struggles that faced by him. Actually like the struggles he had faced a lot in his child days or teenage and he is a person who came from a middle class family and he grown up to the, he actually became a popular man and he got much fame and it is a very inspiring to many of us and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Garu was one of my inspirations and I love to listen his speeches which are inspiring and challenging to us and moreover he struggled a lot and that's it.

Band 6-7

Undoubtedly, my favourite book would be Friends. I first read it two years ago and have been rereading ever since. Basically, the book is about six friends who co-live in a society, hang out in each other's apartments or at a coffee shop which goes by the name Central Perk. What I extremely love about this book is that it teaches different perspectives people can have over different situations. Moreover, one can learn from it how to respect each and every person no matter what their religion, caste, occupation, sexuality or opinion on life is. I certainly feel it's a great book everyone that must read to gain insights on the facts I mentioned earlier.

Band 6-7

The recent book I have read was Agni Chiranjal, but that was not the recent book, actually maybe that is the last book I have read. That was written by the former Indian President Abdul Kalam. When I was in my school days, when I was studying 7th standard, I used to participate in more speech competition. I also got so many awards for speech competition, but it is always a Tamil speech competition. At that time, when I was studying 7th, one of the speech competition was held in Coimbatore. So, my native is Polachi, so we just travelled to Coimbatore and have attended speech competition. At that speech competition, I got 3rd place. For that prize, for that, they have rewarded me with that Agni Chiranjal book. It was, as I told earlier, it was written by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. This book is always about how the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam grew, growed like that, even though he was born in very rural village, he just, he just got his, got his opportunity to, to get his dream position, IELTS practicing. So, I love that book very much.

Band 6-7

The book which I recently read is called Your Fault. It is a book based on a romantic experience between two individuals who are step-siblings and I have read it around a few weeks back. And the book is so, so beautiful. It's talking about how, it's informing about how love can be, how beautiful love is and love is not just between two separate individuals and it doesn't need to have so many credentials and validations. Love can be between anyone and if it is pure and if it is what you truly desire then you should stand strong for it and always, it's all about how determined you can and how can you fight for your love, loved ones and how can you fight for love. This is so amazing, it's a fictional story but it is so beautiful how the hero of the story sacrifices for his heroine and about all that it just explains how wonderful it is to be in love and how important it is to keep up the love and how to not fall out of love. There will be so many temptations, there will be people out there who will try to pull you apart but then at the end of the day you should stand strong for your love and always prioritize your love against the world.

Band 6-7

The book I read, the book I want to talk about is The Palace of Religion by Chitra Panechdevi-Ankur. I read that book a long time ago. It is about Bharat on the perspective of Draupadi. Like what Draupadi's in-depth or her life experience, her perspective over persecution is defined in that book. But it is basically a fictional book, a fictional book with a mythological impact. It is a very overwhelming experience to read such a book. It shows ups and downs in Draupadi's life. It has some kind of negative comments also, like negative critics from it. Because of some note in it, like it explains that Draupadi's love for Karna which is not actual part in actual Mahabharata. In actual Mahabharata, it seems like she would interact with him 2-3 times only in her life. But in this book, it shows that she loves him but in a secret way at once. It is a fictional book and this book takes me to another world.

Band 6-7

Okay, so the recent book that I read recently is Mastered Java by Edric Nock Techniques. It was written by Jack Phillips who is a software engineer and he has really mastered Java. So it was suggested by my teacher who is my guider at school in the field of science and technology. So the teacher suggested me to read the book and because it is fulfilled with various techniques and suggestions that could enhance my learning. So I read it before like three months ago which was in like November. I started to read it in November and I ended up successfully and I successfully completed it in ending December. So I read it for two months. So it is fulfilled with various techniques and like strategies that could enhance my productivity and essential skills. From this book, I got to know about various techniques and various functions and various functions that could help me in my projects. I have created many projects and before reading this book, I remember when I struggled with Java language but now I am very capable of doing Java. I have successfully created many projects and submitted many assignments. This book is one of my best book that I ever read and I thank to my sir and teacher and also Mr. Jack who has prepared this book. It's very comprehensive and I suggest all of my friends and all of my sons and juniors to go through this book at least. At least I would suggest first two parts which are very comprehensive and easy to understand. So I am very helpful for my teacher and all that.

Band 6-7

The last book I read was Hero of Ages, Miss Bourne series. It is a book by Brandon Sanderson and it's the last book of her trilogy. And it definitely, I read it, I finished it last week and it definitely made me very sad as the book ends with the main character dying which is very heartbreaking to read. I like how everything comes together at the end and even though there were lots of twists and turns in the whole book, I was hoping that the main character would have her happily ever after which it didn't really happen which is very frustrating. But yeah, I mean, with her character it is a cinematic ending for the character because whatever she wanted to do in her life she achieved and ultimately she knew that she would die for her cause which is very noble. But because it's a trilogy I've been reading the book for so long now, all the three books and I definitely am attached to the characters in the book. So obviously the main character especially dying made me very, very, very sad and yeah, very sad.
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