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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

Show all 43 answers

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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    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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    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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    Sector 34 Test Centre, Chandigarh

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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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    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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    Anonymous student Band 7

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    Begumpet Test Centre, Hyderabad

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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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    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

    There's always a tough decision in everyone's life that they have to make and they have to just leave things as it is and go with the flow and just see how the events would turn out. For me, that decision was learning how to drive a car. I took this decision when I was 18 years old with the help of my parents. It almost took me a month to come to this conclusion that I want to learn how to drive a car. Moreover, I felt that if I'll learn a car, I'll be able to commute anywhere and I would also be a good help for my parents and my grandmother. Besides, it was a difficult decision personally for me because of the past experiences, I was not really good at driving. I had problems when I used to drive or when I had to back a car or reverse a car, I encountered problems. So, for me, learning how to drive was like giving a maths test and maths is one of my favorite subjects. So, it was that difficult for me but ultimately, I learned how to drive a car and nevertheless, I even got my license and that's it.

    Band 6-7

    Well, life is all about gaining, life is all about making decisions and whether it is hard or easy, you make the decision and you make it worthwhile. For me, the hardest decision probably would be accepting the placement offer that I got from the college directly after my undergraduate. The reason why it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made was my parents wanted me to go for masters directly after my undergraduation but I approached them, I told them that I did not want to go abroad for masters, rather I wanted to gain experience, have practical knowledge in the current corporate world and know how the system and business work in the current scenario. I fought with my parents for this reason and eventually it led to them letting me off their hook and allowing me to come work in another state. One of the major reasons why it was a difficult decision for me was I had to work in a completely different state which is Chennai, whose language is not even my mother tongue. The language over here is Tamil and I was not fluent in the language. So always change the difficult aspect of life, the way how we face adversities in life is different and that will actually make you multi-faceted in life, that will actually prepare you for the better things and make you face life in a better way, it will make your perspectives align with different things in life. As far as I was concerned, the biggest challenge that I faced was how do I survive in a state where I don't even know the language, where I don't have friends or family members, so I was all alone.

    Band 6-7

    So, there are many times when we have to take a difficult decision in our life and it is a part of our life when we come from over it. So, today I am going to talk about a difficult decision which I made during my school time and it was around 2012 that after passing my intermediate, so I was unable to understand which stream I need to take for my higher education and when once I cleared my plus 2 with good grades and when I got a distinction in that, so I was not able to understand which stream I should go for. Some people were asking me to go for an e-commerce background but I was completely from science background and I was keenly interested doing something with the doctoral degree or MBBS. So, after that when I took a decision to take a subject in biotechnology which is also related to research and innovative things, I came to know about this difficult situation after 2 years when once I attempted a CPMT exam but I was not able to clear it up due to some of my personal reason. I was not able to clear the CPMT exam and I failed in that. Since coming from a science background, we have a very limited choice of selection for a career development and when I saw that biotechnology is one of the evolving subject or a career so I took a chance to get and step my career into that area and it was a difficult time. I was feeling blue once I was not able to clear my CPMT exam.

    Band 6-7

    I would like to describe an incident which was difficult for me but turned out to be good later. So when I was placed, during my college placement, I was placed in two different companies, one which is the current company I am working in and the other one is a company called HCL. Both the companies had equal income with around 25-50 lakhs difference but having researched both the companies online, I preferred to choose Accenture over HCL but when the job offers came out, HCL had an early joining date as compared to Accenture. So Accenture date of joining was around December 1st which is 6 months after our graduation and HCL was offering a joining date of 3 months, 3 months prior to it in September. So many people suggested me to take HCL over Accenture instead of waiting for 3 months but I knew that I, however, I wanted to join Accenture itself because I knew it was a much better company compared to HCL and offered a better pay and had different opportunities for me to explore and learn for which I waited for 3 months to join the company which turned out to be fruitful in my favour.

    Band 6-7

    The most difficult decision that I have took was when I was entering into the college and which course that I have to select, that was the most difficult decision. I chose to do Electronics and Communication Engineering apart from what initially I thought I would take Robotics Engineering, but there were no robotics courses in Kerala and my parents won't allow me to go outside of Kerala and do the course. So it was a really difficult situation and over a month I pondered about what should I do or which course should be better if I am replacing it with Robotics. And then I came to know about Electronics and Communication and there is still a paper Robotics in Electronics and Communication. So I just went with my guts and I chose EC. Actually I was a little worried about the future probabilities in EC and how well I can excel in this field because Electronics always had difficult subjects inside it and a lot of minor, minor subjects is there and even that minor subjects is very important to this particular course and it would possess a very high credit score, but it is also difficult on one hand. I referred with one of my seniors who was in the school and she also took the same subject and she said, yes it is difficult, some of the subjects are really difficult, but if we have the mind to study it would be better. So I just hoped good. I just...

    Band 6-7

    The most difficult decision that I have taken recently is selecting a university. After finishing my intermediate, I had a lot of doubts regarding which university to go to. So the options that I kept were the United States or just staying in India and getting a good college in Hyderabad or in the tier one cities. So I was very much confused between going to the US and staying in India. I had a lot of discussion with my parents. I have a lot of ideas, throwing ideas. I'm thinking about where to go. So until the last minute I couldn't guess what, where to go. So finally I've taken a very good decision by going to Mahindra University in Hyderabad. I think this has just transformed my life to another level because choosing that college at the last minute has just changed my life. It actually took months to take the decision. I don't know, probably don't know why I've taken that long. I should have taken it very earlier. I think after selecting the university, going through the university process and all that, I've learned a lot. After enjoying the time in university, I've learned a lot of things in the university. However, the college lacks some infrastructure compared to the United States colleges. But the professors, the teaching staff and the people, my friends in the college are very friendly and enthusiastic. They supported me all the time. I've learned a lot in the college. I've gained a lot of skills. I've personally developed in the college because of interacting with many people. I've organized many events there. I made a lot of impact in the college as well. So this college has helped me in a lot of ways. Now this college will just push me to another level when I'm going to the master's. So the decision I've taken at that point of time has been very impactful right now for me to go to further studies.

    Band 6

    At certain point in all of our lives, we have to take difficult decisions. I feel that the most precious, but the most fruitful decision that I took was during my 10th standard or after my 10th standard while I was choosing my career streamline, whether it was arts, science or commerce. Being a fashion fan, I love fashion a lot, but also I have a major interest in biology. So I was very much confused if I should take fashion designing as my career or I should go into a medical field. At that time, one of my uncle helped me to take this decision. As I was a teenager, I thought I am not mature enough. I was not mature enough to take a proper decision. So my uncle helped me with it. He motivated me to take up science as a career because he felt that there was a need of having one more doctor in our family. Not only being a doctor could fetch me a lot of respect in the society, but also a lot of money. So he told me that we already have a setup at our home itself. So I can always become a good doctor by investing very much less amount into it. As I am skillful at my work as well. He was very much keen on helping me with becoming a healthcare professional. However, this turned out to be the best decision because now I really enjoy my work by helping others not only by earning money, but also by gaining a lot of respect in the society. I feel doctors are someone who give you lives and they require a lot and also put a lot of efforts in you. Somehow this makes me feel very special in the society that I am able to give so much

    Band 6

    the decision which I took in my life was to move abroad that was the decision which I took and basically I took when I just was going to pass my complete my UG and one year was remaining so I was very pretty scared about taking the decision but after the moving abroad I felt it was the good decision which I have made but the only thing was that I at some point I realized that the decision which I have took was not so great or not right but as the days pass as I realized that I should be independent I should be self-financed to myself as the days pass I grew all around myself the confidence was really helped me to build a lot so I think that the decision which was bad it recently turned into good I was not expecting this thing but as the days pass it was really good and it changed my life completely so I think so this was the decision which I took was I can't say it it was a bad decision but it was not that confidently which I have to but it took me away or I think so it took me far away to change my career

    Band 6

    Hi there, this is Mohammad Uttar. In 2017, I was writing my intermediate examination. Like I didn't read anything for the exams. I worry for that. And I don't know what to like read and what to write for the examination, what questions I'm getting from there. I'm unable to write the questions. I'm getting very duff there. I'm very demotivated. Other students were writing, but I'm sitting like a dumb face. Teacher was only looking to me only what to do and all that only I'm thinking. But again, I was focused, read questions like the questions about our Telangana only. So what I know about the Telangana, what previously our chief minister did. According to that, I was written a lot of answers, essays on the basis of that I got passed in that exam. So my decision in that is like before going to exam, please read well and get clear because not every time like you will get this kind of luck. You will get a lot of difficulty and all, but mainly before doing any kind of these things, be prepared, be planned, be time management, do time management, what you're actually doing or what is your next step. According to that, use that steps only and as per plan, you can achieve your goals and you can get easily your level and you can get a good result.

    Band 6

    Studying hard and concentrating on my studies was the hardest and the most difficult decision I made. I have to agree by telling you that I was a very laid back, careless and average student in my school who did not care about her grades and the obvious result was that the results and the grades that I got were below the average moderate line. And coming to college I got this sense that I had to reform myself and concentrate on my studies. Studying is an act which requires diligence and commitment and hard work. At some point you have to work against the clock so I had to bite the bullet at some point even if it was tiring, even there were a lot of points where I thought of giving up. Time and again I had break downs, I was very gutted and thought that it is better to not care about the grades. However, I stuck to the decisions and the results were fantastic. I developed and discovered skills which I did not know had been in me, embedded. I would like to say that while studying I came to know that my oratory skills were excellent. Also I gained an affinity to literature and reading habits as well. So this decision of concentrating on my studies not to become a nerd but to prove myself that I can do it has reaped me much more benefits. And studying I believe always, gaining knowledge always has a power that is in me.
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