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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

    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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    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

    So, a difficult thing that I did and I succeeded was, would definitely be my driver's license. So driving is one thing which I am not really good at. So applying for others could have been not a big deal and could have been normal thing for them. But for me it was quite a big deal. So it was quite a challenge. The steps that I did to achieve the target was, I started slowly practicing. Initially I started with the automatic car, got hold of the steering wheel and overall control of the vehicle. Then I slowly switched to a manual car, then understood how the gear system works and slowly got touch of it. Then I started practicing on real roads, experiencing real time traffic and pressure and handling them and tackling it. Then over a period of 4-5 months when I got used to driving, then finally I fixed a date for my exam and took it. And I am really happy to tell that I was able to clear it in my first attempt and get my license. So being able to overcome one thing that was difficult for you in the first attempt was quite a great achievement for me. So I am really happy that I did that and it's quite a proud moment for me.

    Band 6-7

    So the most difficult thing that I did according to me is studying programming language. So I studied Java, Java is a very popular programming language which is not very easy to learn. So I decided I should study Java because I wanted to attend my college placements. So obviously I studied Java when I was doing my final year.

    Band 6-7

    Recently, I have faced one of the most difficult thing in my academic career. The idea of doing research internship from a renowned institution in a biotechnology lab was a hard working step for me. I started this idea last year and I approached a lot of renowned institutions like IIT Pune, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Kanpur. I was fortunate to land a research internship at IIT Kanpur last year for my M.Tech thesis. It was a long process of emails, interviews and showing my talent to the supervisor. But at the end, I was fortunate enough to land an internship at a prestigious institution.

    Band 6-7

    I would like to talk about a time when I was in my diploma afterwards I decided to pursue my graduation in between the graduation diploma I took five years of a gap after five years of a gap I did not get the lectures very well because I'm not able to do science and math subjects which are very tough because all the basic things I have forgotten at that time to revive that I started coaching taking a I took so many coaching and I joined a coaching I took so many deals about those subjects it was very tough for me doing daily practices I was able to do I was a plan that I have to complete my graduation in one chance without failing in one subject for that I I use so many things to clear that I slept night at two o'clock and I studied well because I'm very weak on that stage afterwards it will be very easy for me to clear the exams were very tougher doing a well study at all I cleared and the distance also very far distance

    Band 6-7

    First of all I would say that I am a person who loves to explore everything even if it is a difficult one. Here I would like to talk about something that I succeeded and succeeded but it was very difficult for me for the first time. I am very fascinated about driving and I found it very difficult for me for the first time. It was like an uphill battle for me and through practice and perseverance it became like a piece of cake. At first time when I hold the steering for the first time I felt like a fish out of water and later through the practice and guidance from the trainer and the encouragement from my family side and other people have encouraged continuously and I have achieved this milestone and acquired the driving license at the age of 18 and it was like a milestone in my life because driving was not at all an easy job. It can be earned through practice, perseverance, hard work and determination everything combines and the effort I put towards achieving it was like I burnt the midnight oil for days and nights understanding the practical mechanism of driving a car, the theoretical lessons and the knowledge of driving a car and all. I hope everyone should experience driving once in life because it's an essential skill to survive and even like a male and female regardless of their gender.

    Band 6-7

    A difficult thing that I did, it may sound very small to you but it was a herculean task for me at that point of time and it was to convince my parents to study in a different city other than my hometown. That was something which never have been accomplished by any of my family members. None of my family members went out to pursue higher education but after scoring very well in all of my examinations in my 10th and 12th standard, I felt like there is room for more improvement and I can gain more knowledge by studying in a different city. So I started convincing my parents when I was in 11th and slowly slowly I was putting the idea into their head, obviously with which they didn't agree at that point of time. After my 12th board, as my result was declared, what my parents realized is that their child can pursue more and have more potential and so after almost a year of completing 12th, I even got my admission in the bachelors course but my parents were not agreeing to it.

    Band 6-7

    There are multiple things in my life when I felt like it is a very difficult thing for me to do but eventually we had to do it as we don't have any other option. One of such thing was travelling to mountains and drive my car there. This was an experience when I had back in 2020 in January month when we were visiting McLeodganj. At that moment there was a situation where we had to drive our car on the icy surface. It was drizzling and because of the temperature the raindrops were converting into the ice and we have to drive our car on to that particular icy surface. I personally did not had any prior experience of riding my car in such scenarios or situations but I did had some experience where I have seen videos how to do and when to do. The steps which we have taken is like considering the pace with which the car is moving, if it is moving in the correct direction and the nearby circumstances as well where we are currently. That was the most difficult part of my life till date which I felt like that I can be dead if I make any mistakes in this situation. Well, after succeeding it was a feeling of relaxing and I felt like that I have achieved something because that was very difficult and it was a life threatening situation in which we were and after that I felt very relaxed and it was a great achievement for me to have it in my record.

    Band 6-7

    The most difficult thing I ever did and succeeded in is passing this subject called signals and systems, which was part of my curriculum in the BTech program of Electronics and Communication. In general, I am actually a bright student and I don't find most subjects difficult. However, this one subject took the life out of me because I had a very bad teacher for the subject and she wasn't teaching anything properly in the classes. It was totally a waste of time sitting and listening to her in classes. So the entire burden of doing well in the subject was put on our heads and I did face many challenges like dealing with the math of the subject because it involved lots of integrations and calculations which were very complicated math problems. So I practiced a lot of problems of each type to tackle the issue of math and I also went through previous year question papers in addition to the question bank given by our university. Eventually, I could score a very good marks of 99 out of 100 in the subject after hours and hours and hours of study and grind for the subject. Most of the subject preparation I think happened the day before the exam because that's when I understood that it needed so much practice from my end and I am really happy that I could successfully complete and finish the subject with flying colors and I hope everyone else also succeeds in things they find difficult in.

    Band 6-7

    One of the most difficult things I would say was the adventure sport that was in my bucket list for such a long time. It happened when I went for a vacation to Dubai so there was no certain plan for such an event but I had that in the back of my mind so as the days were going by I was contemplating about it but then I decided to go forward with it so I sat with my family, I told them I wanted to do this, they were not really on board about this but they didn't disagree so I went through the forms, the instructions, what I had to do for it, what are the requirements so after going all through the documentation I signed up for it, I booked a session, they had a training session for it and the compound was very big and spacious so once I got my instructor, I got the training, then they allocated a time for my jump so we went up to about 13,000 feet and then I finally did it. I jumped and it was an exhilarating and amazing experience.

    Band 6-7

    First of all, I learned my coding skill and that is most important part of my career because in this time my career is in IT field and it helped me to enhance new skill and add new thing to my life and I learned around six months ago in my college while pursuing my bachelor degree and I learned from different things and different places by my teacher. They helped me to enhance and trying to understand the complex topic and the most important part is that I learned multiple things from the internet like YouTube, Google and I tried to learn by step by step one thing at a time and trying to practice as many times as I give the time on the specific topic and after succeeding this after gaining this skill I thought now I get some opportunity in this field I can get a good job and it feels me motivated and inspiring and I thought like now I can achieve anything or any part of my life because coding was my the headache part I used to think that maybe the coding the term is not made for me and the programming skill is very essential as a IT student so yeah I learned the coding and that is the most difficult and I love when I succeed in this
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