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Describe a difficult thing you did and succeeded in: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What the difficult thing was
  • When you did it / where
  • How you did it / steps you took
  • And explain how you felt after succeeding
Show all 52 answers

Cue 1:What the difficult thing was

  • Clearly state the challenging task you undertook, making it relatable and specific.
  • Explain why this task was difficult for you personally.

Example

The difficult thing I did was preparing for the IIT JEE entrance exam. It was a significant challenge because it required extensive knowledge of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and I had to compete with thousands of other students.

Cue 2:When you did it / where

  • Mention the time frame when you undertook this challenge, such as during your final year of school.
  • Describe the environment, like your study space or school, to give context.

Example

I started preparing for the exam in my final year of school, around January 2022. I spent most of my time studying in my room, which I had turned into a mini classroom, filled with books and notes.

Cue 3:How you did it / steps you took

  • Outline the specific steps you took to overcome this challenge, such as creating a study schedule.
  • Include any resources or support systems you utilized, like coaching classes or study groups.

Example

To tackle this challenge, I created a strict study schedule that included daily study hours, practice tests, and regular revisions. I also joined a coaching class where I could get guidance from experienced teachers and interact with fellow students.

Cue 4:And explain how you felt after succeeding

  • Describe your emotions upon achieving your goal, emphasizing the sense of accomplishment.
  • Reflect on how this success impacted your future aspirations or self-confidence.

Example

After successfully clearing the IIT JEE and securing a seat in my desired engineering college, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and pride. It boosted my confidence and motivated me to pursue my dreams in engineering with even more determination.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, overcoming the challenge of preparing for the IIT JEE was a transformative experience for me. It taught me the value of hard work and perseverance, and I believe it has set a strong foundation for my future endeavors.

    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

    Avoid being too general when describing the difficult task. Vague answers can leave the examiner confused and uninterested in your story.

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    Tip

    Provide specific details about the task, including what made it difficult and the context in which you faced it.

    2: Skipping Steps

    Do not skip important steps in your explanation. Omitting details can make your answer seem incomplete and less engaging.

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    Tip

    Outline the steps you took clearly, ensuring you explain how each step contributed to your success.

    Neglecting Emotions

    Failing to express your feelings after succeeding can make your answer less impactful. Emotions help connect with the examiner.

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    Tip

    Share your feelings in detail, explaining how you felt during and after the experience to create a more compelling narrative.

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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 >7

    One thing I just remember, in my life, the one thing is a very daunting task for me because my recording skills are not too good. But when I asked my teacher, my teacher advised me to join industrial training because it's the best way to develop their coding skills and learn some leadership skills in this training. Then I decided to go for the industrial training in the web development in excellence technology. In this training, we noticed, we learned different things like how to make websites, front end, back end and databases. But in this in six months, the initial days are very difficult for me because it takes a lot of time for debugging any error. But after sometimes, I am so frequent debugging errors and making complex codes, writing complex codes easily and after the completion of the internship, we have a lot of opportunities for my career. And after this, I decided to go for a multinational company as the designation of company for interview as the designation of web developer and is my first interview and I really happy because in my life, it's my first interview when I cracked it and that's it.

    Band >7

    During my childhood, one of my hardest task was to learn cycling. It was very complicated and very difficult to balance our body for cycling. I was not able to move the cycles even 10 km in initial times. It takes several months to learn. It was very hard to learn for me. The first I was paddling it and then I used my leg to balance my body. Initially, it was difficult for me to balance and paddle together. I was trying to slide my cycle from a rolling or sliding slope so that it moves and I just have to balance myself. During that time, my friend Krishna and my sister Pratibha helped me a lot. They helped me to balance my body. After that, I was able to move cycle 100-200 meters but still I was suffering to balance myself. But yes, in the final moment, when my sister said that it was success, I was very happy and I used to cycle whole village 2-3 times every day. After some hours, I...

    Band 7

    The difficult thing that I have done recently was giving my GMAT focus addition test. This decision was made after a set of failures. I had given common admission test that is called as CAT, which is used to get into top B schools in India, but I had seen a failure there. I also had seen one more failure in my professional career. I was not promoted as a consultant and I also had faced lot of other setbacks in my personal life. At that time, deciding to give a GMAT and trusting my ability and trusting my math and verbal skills to give a GMAT again was one of the tough decisions which I had taken. So after I took this decision, I was clear that let keep the past aside and then let's focus on the present and the future. I took proper steps one after the other, preparing using official guides and official mocks. I was able to see gradual increase in my score and at the end of the day, during the day of GMAT focus addition, it was all fruitful. I got a very good score from which I can apply to some top B schools all over Europe. I look forward to utilize this score to get into top B schools and also continue this journey of trusting myself and trusting my capacities to be myself.

    Band 7

    One of the most difficult things I've ever done was participating in an inter-college debate competition and actually winning first place. I've always been quite shy when it comes to public speaking, so standing in front of a large audience and expressing my opinions confidently was a real challenge for me. When I first heard about the competition, I was hesitated to participate because I was afraid of forgetting my points or getting nervous on the stage. But one of my professors encouraged me to give it a try, saying it would help me grow. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone. To prepare, I went weeks researching the topic, which was about the impact of social media on society. I practiced my speech multiple times in front of friends and even recorded myself to prove my tone and body language. Despite all the preparation, I was extremely anxious on the day of event. My hands were literally trembling when I walked up to the stage. However, once I started speaking, I gradually gained confidence. The audience engagement motivated me and I managed to deliver my arguments clearly and passionately. When the results were announced, I was declared the winner. I was absolutely thrilled. It felt like a huge personal victory, not just because I won, but because I conquered my fear of public speaking. That experience taught me that real growth happens outside your comfort zone. Now whenever I face new challenge, I remind myself of that moment and instantly it boosts my confidence.

    Band 7

    The most difficult thing that I did was to clear the Mahadasha and Saptasha period of Jupiter and Rahu. I had severe blackouts along with memory loss and I was not able to focus on a particular thing. To add flavor to that salt, I had 5-6 backlogs from Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and was not able to complete the degree in 2013. It took almost 2 extra years to complete them. But the main important part that I emphasized on was Patience, Perseverance and Persistence. I had that 3 qualities with which I was able to succeed. It was a period of stuff but I managed somehow with the help of parents. Along with that, getting a job after engineering was the most challenging part. I prepared for interviews and ensured that I was selected at almost all the rounds which I gave.

    Band 7

    For me, a difficult thing that I did and succeeded in was the habit of getting into reading. Well, ever since I was young, for me, reading had always been a difficult task as I was not able to concentrate very long and books initially seemed very boring to me. My mother insisted that I start reading books because she has always been a big fan of books and have encouraged me to pick it up and read it. But I had always been sceptical since I had the habit of only reading the books that had photos in it. When my mother suggested that I read novels, I was very sceptical and I was not very interested in it. The first book that I read, it was the toughest book to read because I was not in the habit of reading. It was time consuming and it required a lot of dedication. But as I consistently started reading the book, by the time I finished that book, I had gotten into a habit of reading books. The things I did so that I could get into the habit was I used to dedicate one hour every day to reading books and soon it became two and three hours because I started enjoying the books that I read. Once I got into the habit of reading, I felt a sense of accomplishment because this had been a thing that I had seen as a major setback that I was not into the habit of reading. And my vocabulary and my English enhanced a lot due to reading books.

    Band 7

    A difficult thing that I did and succeeded in would be writing my entrance exam to join a bachelor's in architecture. This exam is called NATA and I wrote it about six years ago. It was difficult because of the large number of students writing this every year and securing a good rank was definitely a difficult task. I was able to succeed and secure the 11th rank in the country and I think that is one of my biggest achievements till date. I remember my parents beaming with pride and calling up all my relatives to tell about this achievement. I was immensely happy and the day I got those results was something I would never forget. I prepared for this exam by consistently working on it every day and giving a few hours on different subjects every day. I think that rigorous way of learning and that relentless efforts definitely made me achieve this and I will till date take away all the lessons I've learnt while preparing for this exam. It is truly something I hold true to my heart and very dear to my heart.

    Band 7

    One of the most challenging experiences of my life was attending a conference for my last internship. I travelled to Hyderabad all alone in the middle of the night and I was very terrified because I'd never been away from my family before that. I'd never travelled on my own and also I was visiting a place where everyone was going to be a stranger so it was very difficult but when I went there I met a couple of delegates from the conference right at the airport and we quickly became friends. I travelled to the venue with them and throughout the five days I spent a lot of time learning new things, having conversations with people that I still have not met again but people that I still consider as friends. I even got to deliver a space for around 200 people and it was really terrifying but it definitely made me a more confident person and yes I'm really glad that I took the step to do that.

    Band 6-7

    so I'm a person who have a really itchy face I love traveling I can hustle everywhere so I think that is my plus point in this scenario but that also created a big difficulty in that particular situation I had last year so the situation was I had my exams on third but that was not known to me before I was booking tickets for an event known as Tokyo Drift and that event was excited where I made a really strong decision to go to that event decision to go to that particular event on time but just before three days of event I got my exam scheduled and the date was the same date but in the morning the most difficult thing over here is that the event was in the night and the exam was in the morning but both was in different cities yeah exactly morning I was been in Pune for my exams but I have to go to the event in Mumbai which was nearly three hours from Pune so I decided to give my exam first obviously not to think anything about the event but the priority must be focused then I went to the event after that just taking a first train to from the station and reached to the Mumbai on time I changed my clothes on to the station and reached to the event again on time I enjoyed it a lot and I really felt that I can succeed anything and I can bite the bullet whenever

    Band 6-7

    There are many difficult things like painting, communication skill. I overcome by joining NGO called Revolutionary Minds, where we paint the walls and communicate with other people who I never met in my life. So, these two things help me help by joining NGO and Vinayak Anna help the leader of NGO help me to overcome communication skill because he taught me to read a book and also how to skill my communication by talking to unknown person and painting. It was a very difficult for me and when I was in a school, I don't use to draw, draw map also my grandpa used to draw for me and after joining this NGO, these wall painting help me to overcome this difficulty and I can paint flawlessly and I don't have any hesitation to draw any type of drawing and paintings and also the communication skill. When it comes to ask questioning or answering the question, it made me feel anxious whenever I used to question or
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