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Describe a disagreement you had with someone: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • Who was the person?
  • Why did you have the disagreement?
  • Was the issue resolved? If yes, how?
  • And explain what happened after the disagreement.
Show all 113 answers

Cue 1:Who was the person?

  • Introduce the person you had the disagreement with, mentioning your relationship with them.
  • Provide some context about how long you have known this person and the nature of your interactions.

Example

The person I had a disagreement with was my younger brother, Rohan. We have been close since childhood, sharing everything from toys to secrets. We often have friendly debates, but this particular disagreement was more serious.


Cue 2:Why did you have the disagreement?

  • Clearly explain the topic of the disagreement and why it was important to both of you.
  • Share your perspective and Rohan's perspective to give a balanced view.

Example

The disagreement arose over our plans for a family vacation. I wanted to go to the mountains for some adventure, while Rohan insisted on a beach destination for relaxation. Both of us felt strongly about our choices, as I wanted to experience the thrill of trekking, and he wanted to unwind by the sea.


Cue 3:Was the issue resolved? If yes, how?

  • Discuss how you both approached the resolution of the disagreement.
  • Mention any compromises or discussions that led to a solution.

Example

Eventually, we decided to sit down and talk it out. We listed the pros and cons of each destination and realized that we could combine both ideas. We agreed to spend a few days in the mountains and then relax at the beach. This compromise made both of us happy.


Cue 4:And explain what happened after the disagreement.

  • Describe the aftermath of the disagreement and how it affected your relationship.
  • Share any positive outcomes or lessons learned from the experience.

Example

After resolving the disagreement, our relationship grew stronger. We learned to appreciate each other's viewpoints more. The trip turned out to be a fantastic experience, and we created wonderful memories together. It taught us the importance of communication and compromise.


Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, disagreements can be challenging, but they also provide opportunities for growth and understanding. My experience with Rohan taught me that listening and finding common ground can lead to better relationships and enjoyable experiences.


    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

    Using vague language can make your answer unclear. It's important to provide specific details about the disagreement to engage the listener and demonstrate your language skills.

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    Tip

    Use clear examples and specific details about the disagreement, such as the person involved and the exact issue to make your response more vivid.


    2: Ignoring Resolution

    Failing to discuss how the disagreement was resolved can leave your answer incomplete. It’s essential to show how conflicts can be managed and resolved.

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    Tip

    Always include how the issue was resolved, whether through discussion, compromise, or another method, to show your problem-solving skills.


    Lack of Reflection

    Not reflecting on what happened after the disagreement can make your answer seem shallow. It's important to show personal growth or changes in your relationship.

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    Tip

    Conclude by explaining what you learned from the disagreement and how it affected your relationship with the person involved.


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    IELTS Cue Cards asked last week

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    Anonymous student Band 7.5

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    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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    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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    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 are a lot of disagreements I have done in my life, but today I am going to talk about a disagreement, the most important disagreement, which was happened between me and my friend and the disagreement was on some Instagram page, actually me and my friend were running an Instagram page for some funny contents and it was going very good, but after some time my friend wants to delete that page and delete all its posts and wants to close the page, but there I denied that, if you want to close then you can go, but I would run that page on my own and put more contents, I will put more contents on my own and after some time my Instagram page become very popular and thank you.

    Band 6-7

    The recent disagreement I had with this person is my very close friend and the disagreement was about how when it comes to a woman and we speak for ourselves and whenever some certain issue happens to a woman, be it cheating, betrayal or a woman is going through some assault or have faced some molestation in the past and when we come up and say men will be men and the guy, my friend, the guys come up and they start defending, no, it's not all men because of the simple fact that not all men are same but the fact that even we know all men are same, it's just a line which simply says men will be men and they are not going to change but the people, the guy, especially the men who are defending this that no, not me, it simply triggers the other person and makes the wound even more worse. So which is why the topic when the femininity and masculinity arises, the topic of these two crucial subjects arises, my friend and I have very diabolical opinions on this and we disagree on that a lot and that's the recent disagreement I had with my close friend. No wonder he is not defending himself but he has a different perspective, so do I.

    Band 6-7

    Decision making is the most vital role in an individual's life, but today I will tell you once my experience in which I had a disagreement with my parents. So the disagreement was on that they want me to further pursue my higher studies, medical studies from India, but I wanted to study and be a successful doctor in a foreign country. So this was a total disagreement which today I will tell you. So as my parents want me to study in India and stay with them in India and take care of them, they wanted me to study from the local colleges, but I don't want to study from the local colleges because they do not have so much facilities and do not have as high professional professors or teachers in the colleges, in that college. So I had to take admission in government college, it is very tough to take admission in government college because in India, because you have to clear the NEET exam, NEET entrance exam which is, whose difficulty level was increasing year to year and the cut off for general categories is also increasing every year. So it is very difficult to take admission after clearing NEET exam and after researching some of the, after researching about the, about the facilities and education provided by the foreign countries colleges and universities, it just astonished me, astonished me so much that I have aimed to become a doctor in India, become a doctor in India.

    Band 6-7

    There was one incident that has struck with me for a while now. I had a disagreement with one of my professors in college regarding the marking criteria for an assignment. The disagreement came up because I felt like some of the students who have worked really hard to get the assignment done were marked in an unfair manner. I felt like the students who had more potential were looked down upon. The issue was eventually resolved with other authorities being involved. They have looked into the matter in a more systematic and deeper manner and they felt like students were in fact affected by it in a very unfair manner. It was not a fault from the student's side. Nothing much changed after the disagreement because once it got solved, everybody just went back to their everyday lives and their everyday happenings in college.

    Band 6-7

    I had a disagreement with a neighbor of mine. At one occasion, both of us were in the same car and he was driving, when he made this remark that women dress for men. And that remark triggered me because I am a staunch feminist. Such remarks come from a place of patriarchy, assumed patriarchy, I guess, and also from a place of literal lack of knowledge on issues faced by women. The statement was problematic because it places the responsibility on the woman to cover themselves or to project themselves in a manner that do not provoke men to commit violence against them. Which is completely wrong, considering that it is the men who have to change their attitude towards women on how they view and also on how they view them.

    Band 6-7

    No audio text available

    Band 6-7

    Describe a disagreement you had with someone. So the person I had a disagreement with was a person from my current workplace at Henton Nursing Home. His name is Shahjoo Han. He is a care assistant. We had a disagreement over something to do with a pressure mat at work, where he had gone upstairs and alerted the pressure mat, which incidentally alerted the family member, who then decided to get out of bed. That family member was heightened, so we had a disagreement over that, as to why he is upstairs and messing around on my floor. The issue wasn't resolved for a long time. We have currently made up. That was my doing. I spoke to the manager, who spoke to Shahjoo Han, and she let him know that these actions were not right, and that he had to apologise. He denied the allegations that were made against him for a long while. However, after some time and consideration about his acts, he then apologised to me. And since we have made up... So after the disagreement, we have both, like I said, have met up and we have shook hands. We explained both sides of the story, and we both apologised and accepted each other's answers. I think the issue was mainly with him going to my floor. I didn't appreciate the fact that he did that, because the family member was quite heightened, and she was awake for a very few hours, so she needed to settle. Him going up and alerting her pressure mat, which then set her off again. So she was up for the rest of the remaining of the night, whereas she really needed some sleep. So yeah, since then it's been resolved and all is good. So, yeah.

    Band 6-7

    So, the most recent time I had a disagreement with someone was 4 years ago when I started gyming. It was with my mother. My mother wouldn't let me eat more than 4 eggs a day and she believed that it would increase my cholesterol levels. So, I had to explain her to that my cholesterol would stay the normal even if I eat like 10 But she would refuse to believe that and so I had to read a lot of research papers, watch a lot of videos on the internet of people actually eating more than 10 eggs a day, show the results to her and make her believe that it is safe to eat more than 10 or 12 eggs a day and it would not cause any harm to my body and it would actually be beneficial for my body as the good cholesterol would help me improve my hair quality, skin quality and other aspects. So, after a few days of arguing back and forth with my mother, my mother finally agreed that it is safe for me to eat more than 6, 7, 8 eggs a day and she then now has allowed me to eat more than 10 eggs a day although I don't consume that huge amount of eggs but it is good to know that she won't say anything if there ever be a need for me to eat that many eggs and since then she has also started consuming a lot more meat based diet and that has really helped put things into perspective that health is really the key aspect over here and eggs do not cause any harm. Eggs are good for your body and she has also recently seen more changes in her hair quality.

    Band 6-7

    So, I would like to talk about the one specific incident that happened recently in my office that I had a queue named review post default where I have to churn out the cases based on their text. So, based on the text I have taken down them and I marked it for suspicious spam thing and later on the case went to the bin and the bin will be rectified again by the quality team. So, the quality team made that my error as well they were reviewing the case they said it was not spam and they said I have mistaken and I have reviewed the case as spam. So, we had a disagreement on that and later on that we had a very brief discussion on that and after that disagreement was still being there and lot of doubts were there and there were lot of questions which needed to be clarified. So, probably I and the quality team further went to the managers, senior managers and the policy head to get the mistake rectified and after that many meetings happened, lot of questions were asked to me as well as the quality team, lot of artifacts were need to be rectified and the workflows were cross checked and after all these things were happened finally the managers and the policy team gave the verdict that mine verdict was so accurate rather than the quality team verdict. After that I felt very happy because just after that I was awarded for the best above them and sing.

    Band 6-7

    The person I had disagreement with was my ex-girlfriend. The topic which I disagreed with was about feminism. Feminism at its soul is a very concrete way of empowering a woman, giving them an environment to work and flourish. But what the environment has actually led to is that in the era of independence, people are lacking the fundamental issue which actually given rise to the term feminism. My girlfriend suggested that a feminist woman owns everything which belongs to her. But in a coherent world, if two people mutually exist, so it shouldn't be that a thing belongs to a particular person. I guess this particular definition of feminism or particular perspective of feminism is a pretty toxic one, which has led to huge rise of number of divorces across continents, across countries and across societies. And to be very honest, as an Indian, the culture that I have lived in, the culture which I have seen since my childhood with my parents and everything, it's a very healthy household. And I feel feminism is sort of destroying the future aspect of this mutual household.
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