arrow back icon Top Answers

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.

bulb icon

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.

bulb icon

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.

bulb icon

Tip

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

calendar icon

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
anonymous person icon

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

location icon

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
anonymous person icon

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 8

location icon

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
anonymous person icon

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 6.5

location icon

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
anonymous person icon

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

location icon

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
anonymous person icon

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

location icon

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

I would say when I started preparing for my JEE mains exam, which is an engineering entrance exam in India, I thought it was very difficult. At the start, I don't know what to study and what was the syllabus and after knowing syllabus also, the questions were very difficult. I am not able to solve but after practicing more and more, I realized it became easy. Before the exam, I was practicing, I am getting the answers but when I am moving to time-based exam, like in a limited time, if I have to write the exam, I was not able to do it. It was a very difficult time but by practicing that also, I am able to crack that and able to finish the exam in that limited time. The time was very difficult but the practice was worth because I cracked that exam after studying for two long years. After cracking that, I felt very happy. Actually, in India, if we crack that exam, it is considered as one of the biggest achievements. After cracking that, I got into a great college actually, NIT Nagpur, which is a national institute in India. I chose electronics and communication as my stream and after that college, I even got placed from my college, I have a campus.

Band 6

So I remember back when I started my startup about dry fruit gift hampers, I used to curate gift hampers for corporate and personal use. So last year there was this time when I thought I would earn a lot of money by not doing any type of marketing and just word of mouth which later became an issue because I got to know there were many more competitors and my sales started falling gradually but then I realized after a certain period of time that you have to keep up with social media, you have to keep up with other marketing techniques, you also have to create a strong customer base which then can do word of mouth for you and that's when I thought it would have been very difficult for me to not have a single new customer in my startup, during my startup and then when I thought about it I was very depressed and it made me feel embarrassing because I had invested a lot of amount in it, therefore it not only led me to understand what technology and marketing is all about but also made me realize that how much updated one should be to take their profits, their business to another level and I thought it difficult because it was not something that had ever happened to me.

Band 6

Well, the challenge that I faced, which is difficult for me, is my health issue. However, it was in 2019, while I was pursuing my BBA, Bachelor of Business Administration degree. And what it was means, I went through a phase where I can't even lift my hand, and where I can't even walk without any support. And that was the toughest phase that I've ever went through in my life. And why it was difficult for me is, I need to depend on others for each and everything. Even when I want to get up, I should take help of my brother or my father. If I want to walk, I should take the help of a walker. If I want to eat, my mom has to feed me. And those were very difficult days. When doctors told not to step out from the house in that situation, where I felt too depressed, where I felt helpless and worthless, so-called depressive thoughts attacked my brain and soul. That's it. That's the most difficult phase that I've ever faced, and I never want to face that situation in life again.

Band 6

For me, my 10 board exams were challenging at the early age of my teenage period. I found it extremely difficult to write my 10 board exams because I was little under prepared for it as I was having family issues. I tackled it with a lot of guidance from my parents and my friends.

Band 5-6

A challenge that I face, difficult right? It's during my placement times. During my third year right, my third year of college, I was preparing a lot for my placements compared to the other people in my department because I mostly focused towards IT and my preparations are towards that. But people who didn't prepare a lot as much as compared to me, got offers, got internship offers before me and till the end of my third year, I am not able to get my internship. At that time right, I felt very depressed and faced like what's this going in our life and we are working hard but things are not going in the way what we expected. But, suddenly right, I started feeling that feeling won't make anything change or won't change anything. You just need to move forward with the things what happened and I entered my final year, my fourth year of my engineering and the same preparation went along the way but the preparation got bit reduced because of the things happened in the past in my third year. But, moreover right, I didn't stop to practice. Maybe the practice time got reduced. In addition, I used to do some other works which are related to my college. During one day, finally I got placed and I am the happiest to be here.

Band 5-6

A challenge that I faced, it was my sister's, it was my sister's delivery time because she and myself were alone at home, but I don't know, I'm a child, I don't know what to do, I become very nervous and she got panic and we both are panic, but she become unconscious due to pain, but after some time I realized and I got an idea to call for the ambulance and they come and we reach the hospital, I will be there and hold her hand and stand with her with the confidence, but I never think I can do that, but I did it, that was the most challenging time I have faced because I'm a child, I'm not aware of what to do on that time, but my perspective and perseverance took me to do like that and after some time after her delivery, I feel very stress-free and relaxed and I'm also feel proud about myself and that was the most memorable moment that I have because I should trust me in every way.

Band 5-6

Well, well, well, achieving difficult task, well, achieving difficult task and the challenge, it's one of the bestest feeling in the world. Here I would like to talk about, talk about, talk about challenge which I faced when I was, when I was, when I was in, when I was in fifth standard. That time, when I was in sixth standard, when I was in sixth standard, that time my class teacher told me to lay the knees in front of the apple. That time I, I, I, that time I, I felt all stuck on the, that time I felt all, I become all stuck, statue on the, that time I became statue on the stage. That's why I, that's why I, that's how I came to know about, I have a perfect speaking for me,

Band 5-6

One of the most challenging problem I faced was debugging a complex problem from a scaling data values across different ranges in a remote sensing project. The challenge was that the algorithm need to dynamically adapted to different data sets while ensuring that the final data value are always be in a range. At first the issues seemed minor, some values were slightly off due to floating point precision errors. However, as I tested the implementation across multiple data sets, I realized that the problem was more significant. The incorrect rounding was affected classification results, leading to misinterpretation of satellite data. To solve this, I had to implement the functions like flooring and ceiling and ensuring that the transformation preserved accuracy. Additionally, I need to replace hard-coded value with registry-based fetching to allow flexibility across different data set. After this testing, I successfully implemented 222 algorithms out of 249, while 25 is in feasible cases where I didn't get values based on the formula. This experience taught me that even small numerical inconsistency can have major downstream effect in data processing. It also re-informed the importance of adaptive solutions and dynamic parameter handling in large-scale project. At that time, I felt that it is very difficult to solve this, but with a calm nature.

Band 5

When I like I love to challenges in my life without challenges we did not face or experience in life but here one of this major challenge I faced it was so trouble in my life but I did it one of the time after I completing my I become a doctor after I completed completed my 10th standard I decided to go for a science stream in 11th and 12th exam I prepared a lot of things in 12th standard I wants to become a MBBS doctors to get a higher band score in 12th standards to I want to need a university which is important for me to get a better scholarship in my life so I learned a lot of takes about the 12th standards I burnt a midnight oils and I do a hard work as well as smart works in whole days to preparing this exam it was a difficult for me I am I was of I failed during the first attempt I does not get admission in MBBS branch in government university so I was decided to get another chance this was a challenge for me I faced it was very difficult me but I did it and I am happy and I'm proud to myself as well as my family member.

Band <5

MBC 뉴스 이덕영입니다.
1 2
ielts logo

Get the IELTS Prep App

Star rating icon

4.2

1M+ Installs

 app download banner image

Get the app link on your phone

+91

Or download app from

google play storeapp store
master ielts speaking ad