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Describe A Difficult Decision That You Made And Had A Good Result: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What was the decision?
  • When did you make the decision?
  • How long did it take you to make the decision?
  • Explain why it was a difficult decision to make.
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43 unique answers with expert feedback

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Cue 1:What was the decision?

  • Clearly state the decision you made, providing context about the situation.
  • Mention the potential outcomes of the decision to highlight its significance.

Example

The difficult decision I made was to leave my stable job in a multinational company to pursue my passion for photography. I had been working there for over three years, and while it provided financial security, I felt unfulfilled.

Cue 2:When did you make the decision?

  • Specify the time frame when you made this decision, such as a particular month or year.
  • Share any relevant events that led up to this decision to give it more context.

Example

I made this decision in early 2022, after attending a photography workshop that reignited my passion. The workshop made me realize that I wanted to turn my hobby into a career.

Cue 3:How long did it take you to make the decision?

  • Discuss the duration it took you to arrive at this decision, emphasizing any internal conflict.
  • Mention any discussions you had with friends or family that influenced your decision-making process.

Example

It took me about two months to make this decision. I spent countless nights weighing the pros and cons, and I also spoke to my family and friends, who encouraged me to follow my dreams.

Cue 4:Explain why it was a difficult decision to make.

  • Describe the fears or concerns you had about making this decision.
  • Explain how the fear of failure or uncertainty contributed to the difficulty of the decision.

Example

This was a difficult decision because I was afraid of financial instability and the fear of failing in a competitive field. Leaving a secure job felt risky, and I worried about what others would think of my choice.

Conclusion

    Example

    In the end, I took the leap and started my own photography business. It was challenging at first, but I am now thriving and feel more fulfilled than ever. This decision taught me the importance of following my passion and believing in myself.

    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 Responses

    Providing vague or unclear answers can make it difficult for the examiner to understand your experience. Specific details help create a clearer picture of your decision-making process.

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    Tip

    Use specific examples and details when describing your decision to make your response more engaging and informative.

    2: Rushing Through the Explanation

    Rushing through your explanation can lead to missing important points. It may also make your answer sound unstructured and less convincing.

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    Tip

    Take your time to explain each cue clearly, ensuring you cover all aspects of the decision-making process.

    Neglecting Emotional Impact

    Ignoring the emotional aspects of your decision can make your response less relatable. Emotions often play a significant role in difficult decisions.

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    Tip

    Include how you felt during the decision-making process to add depth and connect with the examiner.

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    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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    Anonymous student Band 8

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    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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    Anonymous student Band 6.5

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    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.
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    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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    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

    When it comes to a difficult decision that I had to make, it was when I was trying to choose an academic career path for myself. My parents were diligent on me, were insistent on me pursuing a career in engineering. However, this did not align with my interests, as my passion always lied in the life sciences. And so, after my twelfth, it was quite a difficult decision for me to choose between my passion and a relatively easier subject with a strong scope for a job. However, I am very glad that I chose to study zoology and psychology in my undergraduate. I believe it was the right decision for me, as through the three years of my undergraduate, it was a very lovely experience, and it was really, it was, I believe it would be the right decision, because studying that subject gave me joy.

    Band 6-7

    The most difficult decision that I have taken in my life is to prepare for government jobs. This is the decision that changed my life. Before this decision, I was hopeless. I didn't know what to do in my career. After this decision, I regularly studied for my upcoming exams. And that changed my life. Anyway, after preparing for one year time, I got a government job. I have taken this decision after my graduation. I graduated from a renowned engineering college. Its name is Gurdwala Engineering College. I studied Electronics and Communication Engineering. Before this decision, my father used to talk to me in a way that you should go to software industry, you should go to IT industry. This kind of talks are regularly happening in our home. But whenever I have taken this decision, all of my family members supported me. It took me nearly one month for me to take this difficult decision.

    Band 6-7

    Yeah, so one difficult decision that I made in my life was to move to Mysore for my pre-university as well as graduate degree education. So I made this decision after I finished my high school and after I got my 10th results, I decided that I need to move to Mysore which is comparably calmer location than Bangalore. So it will be easy for me to commute to the college or tuitions. So I will be able to spend a lot of time on my studies rather than commuting and so I spent almost about a week or just more than a week on making this decision because I felt this was one of the most important decisions I am going to take in my life and hence I didn't want to hastily commit to it. So I took a lot of time and hence I decided it but after that I feel it was a very difficult decision for me to make because I had spent almost 17-18 years in Bangalore for my schooling and right from my birth and I was very attached to all the people at my house like my dad, mom, my grandmom, my granddad and my cousins also. So they were also quite attached to me and I love them very much. So I couldn't think of a time where I can leave them, I can live far away from them and I had to take care of all the things by myself only. So that I faced.

    Band 6-7

    In order to take decisions in your life, you need clarity and it took me ample amount of time and effort to get on to this decision that I had taken. The most daunting decision of my life was to pivot into a new career which was of management consulting. It was a heavy decision on my life because I had to go through a lot of ups and downs to gain precise clarity over what I really want to do in my life. I graduated in 2021 and that is when I began my first job in the field of teaching which is why I realized that I am not a fit for this career and that is when I sort of realized that there is something missing in life and I wanted to get a new sense of fulfillment from my career and that is when I switched to human resource management consulting. This has really given me a sense of satisfaction over the years. This career was definitely a blessing in disguise so yes, this was the most difficult decision I had ever taken which also made me realize of what I am capable of.

    Band 6-7

    Quitting a very high-paying and rewarding job a couple of months ago was the hardest decision I have ever made till now. I had to take that decision because I wanted to explore new arenas and new interest in my life. I have this passion of art since my childhood. I am very much interested in dancing and I always wanted to have career in dance but due to family constraints I had to take up a job for a time being and I continued pursuing that job. After a few years I am habituated to the job and have made few good improvements in my job profile that my boss is really impressed with. After so many years it was really hard to quit the job and to start everything from the scratch again but my love for dance was such that I could take up any task with so much drill that I didn't take a long time when I had this thought of pursuing dance. I took a notice period of one month and cleared everything and moved to a new city

    Band 6-7

    The difficult decision that I made is to do a course which I was in final year, sorry I am not in final year, I am in second year, so it is a pandemic time which we was very affected by COVID and at that time and my family also very much affected by financial crisis and the course is related to the quality level of the manufacturing industry which is called Six Sigma and I was utterly bewildered of my career since the pandemic is extended for a longer period, I was so worried about my future and the placements, so I just wanted to do something which is more useful for my career and that's the way I have chose Six Sigma course which is also called Lean Six Sigma, the meaning of this course is to reduce the wastage and improve the production through the improvement of quality, so I researched a lot about this course and find out an institute called Hendrick Harvard if I am not wrong and after that I have told this about my parents and they also very harboured with this course and even though they are ready to allow me to attend the course, they were at the financial crisis at that moment and after that they gave some salary to me and lent it to the bank and gave me some money and I have attended the course for the three months and I completed the examination which I got almost 83-85% and got a green belt in that course and successfully

    Band 6-7

    The hardest decision was for me to quit my toxic job. It was a very hard decision with lots of inner turmoil and a long battle. I had to do the thing because it was necessary for me to come out of that environment and then move on with my real life. At first it was a daring challenge but then when I looked at it with positive thoughts and positive feelings about why I did the quitting, it made all the difference in the world. Actually first however at the initial days of my quitting, I found it very hard to break out of the habit of daily going to the job and being busy. But then I embraced peace and the stillness that was present in my life. Then I started evaluating my results about the job and I started to plan my day with the structure of how it is going to go. Each day how I am going to pass on and go on with my life. Now I do it with full confidence and memory on how to go on with each day and how to structure every day what to do, how to do. I do it all and I think this is something that I have been extremely looking forward to. I wouldn't say this had been an easy decision but if this decision has not been taken, I don't think what toll it would have taken upon my mental health. So I think every hard decision is worth and just a one step away.

    Band 6-7

    I believe that decision-making is inevitable in our day-to-day activities. However, there are times when we are encountered with difficult decision-making. I remember back then, there was a time I had to make a very crucial decision in my life. It was an exam. I was out of time and I had to write that exam before the date elapsed. I haven't prepared fully for this exam, but I wrote it anyway. This was a promotional exam that is required for a placement in a college. I wrote the exam without proper preparation. It took me about 2-3 days to prepare for the exam and I was able to write it. The major reason why it was difficult was that I was on the fence about writing the exam. I was thinking whether I should forfeit or just sit for it and fingers crossed. But I was excited that I got to write the exam and I did excellently at the end of the day. It was a tough decision, but I was decisive. As the saying goes, all paths kneel before decisive mind. I think that was the major reason why I was able to do excellently in the exam.

    Band 6-7

    To talk about the decision that I made which was pretty difficult but had a good result would be taking up the current job that I'm particularly in right now. This requires, the difficulty arises when it, when it, the whole jazz with. To talk about the decision that I made which was pretty difficult but had a good result would be taking up the current job that I'm particularly in right now. This particularly required me to shift from my hometown to a whole new different place which is of a great experience to live alone, to look after your own things, your expenses, everything when it comes to jazz. And also the job got me a lot of learnings right from the business understanding because I wanted, I had a deep passion to learn about business. And the decision to move from my hometown for this particular job was taken later last year, soon after my graduation. And yeah, this basically was a very good decision from my life which I found it very difficult to take in but had a high impact in my understanding of things, my decision making power and also my, the way I could sustain my life alone. So this was a very good decision. Thank you.

    Band 6-7

    From my childhood onwards, I wanted to become a doctor and in 10th, I decided to join in biology, physics and chemistry group that's majorly called as BIPC. But, before my passing in 10th, my sister joined in BIPC. So, my parents decided to me to become an engineer. I didn't understand these subjects and all and all. But, after so many time taken and so much of time taken by me, I went to MPC only. In that classes, I didn't understand the maths properly and I failed in some even weekend tests also. But, after so many struggles, I cleared my 12th examination with a distinction. And, after I joined in B.Tech in Engineering. In that 4 years, there are lot of subjects according to the MPC subjects only. But, I constantly crossed all the subjects. And, today I have placed in 2 MNC companies. But, who taken BIPC, my sister didn't completed her education also. Because, the course term of the BIPC. Today, I am so happy to taken that decision. But, not much happy because my aim to become doctor. But, I am also happy with this decision also.
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