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Describe a challenge you faced that you thought was rather difficult: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What it was
  • When and where you faced it
  • Why you thought it was a difficult challenge
  • And explain how you felt at the time
Show all 20 answers

Cue 1:What it was

  • Clearly state the challenge you faced, providing specific details.
  • Make sure to explain the context of the challenge to give it depth.

Example

The challenge I faced was preparing for my final exams during my final year of college. I had to manage my time effectively between studying, attending classes, and working part-time.

Cue 2:When and where you faced it

  • Describe the time frame when this challenge occurred, including any significant dates.
  • Mention the location where you were during this period, such as your college or home.

Example

This challenge took place in the months leading up to my final exams in April 2022, while I was studying at my college in Pune. I often found myself studying late at night in my hostel room.

Cue 3:Why you thought it was a difficult challenge

  • Explain the reasons that made this challenge particularly tough for you.
  • Discuss any external pressures or personal expectations that added to the difficulty.

Example

I thought it was a difficult challenge because I had to balance my studies with my job, which left me with very little time to revise. Additionally, the pressure to perform well for my future career made it even more daunting.

Cue 4:And explain how you felt at the time

  • Share your emotions during this challenging period, such as stress or anxiety.
  • Reflect on how you coped with these feelings and whether they changed over time.

Example

At the time, I felt extremely stressed and anxious. I often worried about not being able to cover all the material. However, I coped by creating a strict study schedule and seeking support from my friends and professors.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the main points of your experience with the challenge.
  • Reflect on what you learned from this experience and how it helped you grow.

Example

In conclusion, facing this challenge taught me valuable lessons about time management and resilience. It helped me grow as a person and prepared me for future challenges in my career.

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 Descriptions

Using vague language can make your answer unclear and unengaging. It’s important to provide specific details about the challenge to create a vivid picture for the examiner.

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Tip

Use specific examples and descriptive language to clearly explain the challenge you faced.

2: Lack of Structure

Failing to organize your response can confuse the listener. A well-structured answer helps convey your thoughts clearly and logically.

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Tip

Follow the cue prompts in order to structure your response: describe the challenge, when and where it happened, why it was difficult, and how you felt.

Overly Negative Tone

Focusing too much on negativity can leave a poor impression. It’s important to acknowledge the difficulty but also to highlight any positive outcomes or lessons learned.

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Tip

Balance your response by discussing both the challenges and what you learned or how you grew from the experience.

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IELTS Cue Cards asked last week

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

The challenge I faced that I thought was rather difficult is, when I complete my graduation, I was actively searching for a job and it was very difficult to get into a job as the industry is very dull. So, at that time, I was nervous and anxious. I couldn't do anything. I was selfless and hopeless. I tried my best to get into a job but unfortunately or fortunately, it took a very long time. Through that time, I learned many things like skills which will be helpful for my career and I learned how to talk with people and I spent time for my personal development. Moreover, that time, it was very difficult even though I tried my best to get into a job and I was like nothing will happen if I come out of this. I used each opportunity to get into a job and I wanted to engage myself to be depressed while thinking about the condition.

Band 6-7

Well this is a very intriguing question that I'd love to answer it. Yes as I work in a multinational company I just want to take the scenario from there where I work. As I'm working the first day when I was in the company I faced a challenge to face the leaders or the teammates who was in my team who were assigned to me as my teammates. I thought that yes I'll find difficulty initially that I'll not cope up with them with the work and they'll be very rude to me. I thought okay I will be like this only I'll be not getting any support but I was totally wrong. I was taken aback when I just saw my teammates. I was totally wrong. Once we started working together, once we started knowing each other it was very very interesting and intriguing and I just loved working with them. I was very happy working with them and what I've learned from this is you should never judge a book by its cover. As the thought says you should never judge a book by its cover and also you should never judge anything too quickly until you have known it completely and yes all this you know all this process of recruitment is a rigmarole process which everyone hates. I am the one who despise it more and yes this is it. I just love working with my team.

Band 6-7

I faced various challenges in my life, but with all the challenges I have learned from them. Also, a challenge which I faced was to change my career subject. I am a graduate from BE Computer Science, but I have interests in management studies. So, I was struggling to switch my career. Also, my father was not accepting it, but at the end, he saw capabilities in me and hence he allowed me to face these challenges and I overcome them and I feel very confident now.

Band 6

I think we all face some kind of challenge when doing a stuff that we are not used to. One such incident happened with me recently when I was playing cricket with my friends. From my childhood, I am more interested in playing football and I never played cricket. As I lived in a boarding school, I had friends who were also interested in playing football. We played football every single day for a one hour and on weekends we played football almost like two to three hours. That's why I never got to learn playing cricket. When I came back to my hometown, all my friends were interested in playing football. They didn't know how to play football. They were more interested in playing cricket. So one day when I went to play cricket with them, I was not able to hold the bat properly and I didn't even score a single run. That was the more embarrassing moment for me that felt really demotivated. From that day, I started to learn playing cricket with my friends but after that incident, my friends were also supportive of me. They started to teach me cricket every single day. Now I am able to play cricket on a good level. I think facing challenges in our life at some time is quite helpful because these challenges make us more strong.

Band 6

So, basically being a 9 to 5 working employee, I would usually experience lot of challenges in my daily life, in my work life. But if I want to specify a challenge where I felt very difficult was when I was working with my first company, there was a position that I got assigned with, I mean a project that I got assigned with, after seeing that project I felt it was very new to me and I do not have any experience with that, any tools of them and I felt very like uncomfortable because it was a position that should assigned with more senior level, but I got assigned with that position, so I felt very difficult while reading, while studying the project and I tried to take the help from my colleagues also to make it easier for me and I tried hard on that day to complete the task on that particular day, overall I can say I felt so far in my work life, this was the position that I felt very challenging than any other thing.

Band 6

One of the toughest challenges I faced in my life in 2023, March, Feb 22, when I was in Ukraine. My voice was from Ukraine to Italy. The same day, my vessel was going to depart on 2 o'clock. But suddenly, city hooters rang on. So that pilot cancelled and everyone just stopped working. And agents informed us, now war began. So I was stuck in Russia-Ukraine war. And that time I was in Ukraine, in Mykolaiv. And it was very tough for us to face it. We tried to escape from there. There is no way to escape. And our company was just giving us sympathy. They are planning to take you away from there. But they were not able to do that. So it was difficult. From 22 of Feb to 9 of March, we were in the war zone. And there were continuous shelling. And we tried to go in bunker. And we saw the bunker condition was very worse. There were small children and women. They were crying. There was no food, nothing. And that time I was...

Band 6

It was during my bachelor's time. I was actually travelling to a point in Himachal. While returning from there, I missed a bus which used to fly from Badrinath to New Delhi and it used to fly every two days. During that period, it was snowing very heavily in the mountains and there was lack of food over there. At that time, it was a very difficult situation for me. I couldn't understand what should I be doing next. Moreover, it was an unplanned trip for me and I went there without informing my parents. The network coverage was not there and during those days, there was no easy connectivity and even transferring of money. The whole town was closed by then and I couldn't just understand what to do. But anyway, there was a lovely couple over there, very old couple. They asked me to stay at their place and gave me warm food and all. I stayed there for two or three nights and when the next bus, when the snow was cleared and the bus started flying from Badrinath to New Delhi, I did catch it. What I realized during that period was one shouldn't lose hope on anything. I ran out of money. I lost my contact. There was no electricity. My parents were worried and I thought that I would be stuck for a very long time but it did end up in just two days.

Band 6

A difficult challenge in my personal view would be balancing the work and personal life. Many a times I felt so overwhelming doing all the house chores and along with it managing the work. It's tough to find time for everything. The challenge was learning how to prioritize set boundaries and making some time with the loved ones. It took a lot of trial and error for me but eventually I figured out how.

Band 6

The most difficult challenge that I have faced in my life yet is at the time of internship when I was doing my M.Ed and we were asked to teach B.Ed students. So the topic was given to me, sorry the subject was given to me was philosophy and what I find is that the syllabus has completely changed. Why I find it very difficult because I don't have anything, any course material that I could prefer and explain. What I have done is firstly I thought it was the biggest challenge for me because there were many terms and rules that I need to follow while explaining. Later I find it very easier. Why? Because of the help of AI and Chats with PT. I couldn't find it easy because I could type the questions related to the topic, relevant to the topic and I could find the answers and then I research on those topics. I find it bit easy and I could attach the pictures to it. With the PPT presentation I have explained the philosophy to the B.Ed students and the most important thing is that they find it very easy and they applaud me for the explanation I did in the class. That's the only thing that I face challenge while explaining philosophy to the B.Ed students. Thank you.

Band 6

Since three year ago I was a student in my college time. I'm basically a civil engineer and my stream was civil engineering course. Most students have only academic pressure and struggles but I have struggle in my campus activities because I'm the one who was the chairman in the College Union at that time. I have to face so much struggle at that time because my campus life was stucked in between 19 and 2020 because of COVID pandemic. After that the college reopened and I become a college union chairman. So I should make the college back actively. So after all I conduct a college union program but actually it was very struggle for me because I have only experience in watching the college programs in first year. After two year I directly become a college union chairman. This puts a lot of pressure on me and also the struggle was I should educate my juniors to encourage the other activities and upcoming events and years. So it was very struggle for me one but I performed it as well.
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