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Describe a difficult skill you learned.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When did you learn it?
  • Why and how did you learn it?
  • How did you feel after learning it?
Show all 25 answers

Cue 1:When did you learn it?

  • Mention the specific time frame when you started learning the skill.
  • Provide context about your life situation during that time.

Example

I learned this skill about two years ago when I was in my final year of college. It was a challenging period as I was also preparing for my exams.

Cue 2:Why and how did you learn it?

  • Explain the motivation behind learning this skill, such as personal interest or necessity.
  • Describe the methods or resources you used to learn the skill, like classes, online tutorials, or practice.

Example

I decided to learn graphic design because I wanted to create my own projects and improve my employability. I enrolled in an online course and spent hours practicing using software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Cue 3:How did you feel after learning it?

  • Share your emotions and thoughts after mastering the skill.
  • Reflect on how this skill has impacted your life or confidence.

Example

After I finally grasped the concepts of graphic design, I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment. It boosted my confidence, and I even started freelancing, which has been a rewarding experience.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the overall impact of learning this skill on your personal or professional life.
  • Mention any future plans related to this skill or similar skills you wish to learn.

Example

In conclusion, learning graphic design has not only enhanced my creativity but also opened up new career opportunities. I plan to continue improving my skills and possibly explore other areas like web design in the future.

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: Lack of Specific Examples

Failing to provide specific examples can make your answer vague and unconvincing. It's important to illustrate your experience with clear details.

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Tip

Use personal anecdotes or specific situations to highlight your learning process and feelings about the skill.

2: Overly Simple Language

Using overly simple language can make your response sound basic and uninteresting. Aim for a richer vocabulary to express your thoughts.

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Tip

Practice using varied vocabulary and complex sentences to enhance your descriptions and make your answer more engaging.

Ignoring Emotional Impact

Neglecting to discuss how you felt after learning the skill can make your answer less relatable. Emotions add depth to your response.

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Tip

Reflect on your feelings and share them to connect with the examiner, making your answer more personal and impactful.

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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

A skill which I learnt very recently is the usage of the application called Power BI. Power BI, I learnt it during, after I left my corporate job. I had a lot of free time and I decided to make it very, you know, productive by engaging myself into a course. Power BI is basically like a Microsoft Excel. It enables a person to make use of the program to prepare amazing PPTs, PowerPoint presentations and reports. So it is like an impressive, it is like, it is an application which enables us to present data in an impressive manner and I think it will be useful for me when I go for another job wherein I can apply it and showcase this new skill to my new boss and I am very much excited about it. How I learnt it was, I enrolled a course.

Band 6-7

the skill of video editing which mesmerizes most of the viewers and makes most of the content you look through the social media platforms good and engaging I started learning this skill in 9th grade in the age of 10-12 years I was very fond of AMVs which were basically videos of a particular movie or a program and audio is added or the song is added and the clips are made and edit is made of that video I was very inspired by them the people who put the work through it was a feeling which I could never ever forget when I first heard my own firstly edited video it was not that good but it was not that bad either after hearing that video I was too determined to learn that skill and after learning a perfect thing for 3 years I am pretty sure that I can say that I am very glad and somewhat of a cool guy when you look through the other's perspective and I like that but I just want to say that editing a skill is very essential in the today's world as many of the influences and creators are needing video editors who pay a lot of salary to them Thank you

Band 6-7

Patience was a skill I learnt after I became a teacher, because as a teacher you will have to deal with a lot of naughty, notorious kids. And this skill has taught me to handle kids perfectly. I learnt this from one of my co-worker who told me a story about patience and how it is useful even any time of your life. She told me how you need to listen before you speak. For a teacher, it's essential to be a listener, to understand, evaluate before judging. So this skill has taught me to be more calm and quiet. Meditation has helped me to be more patient. My yoga teacher taught me a lot of meditative poses and many mantras to keep my mind calm and relaxed. This helped me to be more patient and quiet, as teaching career requires those skills, very importantly. You can easily deal with the parents if you have patience. So patience is the key to success.

Band 6-7

The difficult skill I have learned is programming language. The programming language is very difficult skill in upcoming generation. I have learned this programming language from YouTube. They have so many classes like how to fix bugs, how to improve typing speed and what are the differences between programming and bugs of a computer. They are very famous technicians and coders that can be reviewed in our day to day life. And I feel so much better after learning programming language. I learned how to fix bugs and how to solve errors from our present life to past life. And it's all is nothing but there are few more programming languages like Python, C++ and Java. These are three programming languages I have learned from YouTube. The explanation was very nice and quite different compared to other professors. I feel like I cracked a international job with an LPA of 10 to 20 lakhs per annum and I feel so much peace, relax and peace of mind. After that I cracked an UPSC examinations with an international server bug that can be handled in my day to day life. I am so proud of myself that I have learned this many courses from online.

Band 6-7

During my college days, I have learned SAP, a BAP skill and it's kind of a mandatory score in my college and you know, like in my last year, I prefer to study this course so it could be easier for me to learn which will not disturb my other courses which will be more difficult to learn everything at a single task. And later, years unpaused, like I came to my final semester and that moment I applied for the SAP skill and we had a course of two months classes and all went well. During this class period, I had a good time with the lecture and even my friends was awesome because we learned in a funny moment which give me a more remark about these courses which will never fade in my life. And this provide me a beautiful opportunity to search a job in my career and you know, like while I am doing this course, I have faced many difficulties during implementing the programs and later once I got an idea about how it work and how it may be easier to get the output and all went well at the last two weeks of class and you know, when I started to get output easily and later like I become more interested about this course and have learned more detailed and in depth I went along with my lecture and who provided me an extra added point and tips and tricks to how we can approach.

Band 6-7

I would like to, the most difficult skill I have learnt was a mantala art during my college time. I think it's a stress burst and during my college time, it was a regular period of practicals as well as exams, everything. So, I was very stressed and I really thought about an interesting hobby that I can learn from anywhere. So, I was enrolled in Instagram. So, I got to know that there is a free class called mantala art and I moved to it. And even though, in addition to that, I was, I want to tell that I am a partner giving creativity workshops and so I would like to, I frankly want to know how I can improve my skills and how I can create a good achievement or create a good aspect in my life. So, I would like to know how I can improve my skills and how I can create a good aspect in my life. Thank you.

Band 6

So recently, last year in the month of January, I learned how to drive a car. So I joined a driving school which taught me, there was an instructor available to me who gave me training to drive a car. So it was a manual transmission car. The duration of the course was for one month in which every morning for 30 days, I used to go on a driving school where the instructor used to sit with me in the car and we used to drive for one hour. So this was the skill that I wanted to learn for a very long time because it comes very handy and it is something that I.

Band 6

I think the most difficult skill I have learned that is fighting skills like I learned karate when I am in my fifth standard so I started my karate classes from fifth standard and I completed my karate classes in eighth standard it is the most important thing every girl should learn and I learned it because I am quite interested in the things like fighting and all so I learned it for self-defense and the most important thing comes is that it is quite interesting and sounds very cool when we say I know karate as a girl it is very important in today's world to learn the self-defense techniques like karate boxing kickboxing and I personally love to play games and the things which are something unique from the others girls usually likes the things like a Barbie doll and all but I personally thinks that the Queen must know how to defend herself in any situation so I learned the skill of fighting which includes karate, taekwondo, kickboxing, boxing and the supportive part is that my parents also supported me to learn these skills

Band 6

When I am 13, I am learning to play guitar, but that time this is very difficult for me. My mother said that, your voice is very sweet, so you learn guitar and sing a song. But guitar play is very difficult for me. Now I am comfortable with guitar playing, and I enjoy the guitar and this music. Now I am playing guitar without hesitation.

Band 6

I understand how people do understand the way I sing by getting their feedback and also you know like everyday I start to practice it, put it into my daily practice and by knowing how to realize the mistakes I do in each day makes me to correct myself and I would like to sing to a huge audience trying to gain more popularity and to make them get the vibe so it makes my mind energetic, it makes my mind feel free whenever I sing on stage, it makes me feel so happy because I hear the crowd cheering me up, I hear the crowd applauding me all the time and I feel so better each and everyday and this makes me to think that I have something like so called a skill so which helps me to you know like cultivate myself in singing so I came to believe that I have a skill because of the people who comment on my singing, the way I sing is so beautiful so that is how I come to know by the way that people, when I get influenced with them and that's how things happen and every time when I engage with people and I sing in front of them it makes me cool, it makes my mind feel and that helps me a lot and people find it useful when I sing and I am not going to stop with that you know.
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