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Describe a job that one of your grandparents did: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What was the job about?
  • Was this only the one job she or he did?
  • How you felt about it?
Show all 31 answers

Cue 1:What was the job about?

  • Begin by describing the job in detail, including the responsibilities and tasks involved.
  • Mention any specific skills or qualities that were important for this job.

Example

My grandfather worked as a school teacher for over 30 years. He taught mathematics and science to high school students. His job involved preparing lesson plans, grading assignments, and mentoring students. He was very passionate about education and believed that every child had the potential to succeed.

Cue 2:Was this only the one job she or he did?

  • Discuss whether your grandparent had other jobs or careers throughout their life.
  • If they had multiple jobs, briefly explain what they were and how they differed from the teaching profession.

Example

Teaching was not the only job my grandfather did. Before becoming a teacher, he worked as a clerk in a government office for a few years. However, he found his true calling in teaching and dedicated his life to it. He also took on tutoring students in the evenings to help them with their studies.

Cue 3:How you felt about it?

  • Share your personal feelings about your grandparent's job and its impact on you or your family.
  • Reflect on any lessons or values you learned from their work.

Example

I have always admired my grandfather for his dedication to teaching. His passion for education inspired me to value learning and hard work. I remember how he would often share stories about his students' successes, which made me realize the importance of making a difference in others' lives. His job taught me the value of patience and perseverance.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, my grandfather's career as a teacher not only shaped his life but also had a lasting impact on our family. His commitment to education and the values he instilled in us continue to inspire me every day.

    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: Avoid Vague Descriptions

    Using vague language can make your answer unclear and unengaging. Specific details about the job will help the examiner understand your response better.

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    Tip

    Provide specific examples of tasks your grandparent performed in their job to make your answer more vivid and interesting.

    2: Don't Focus on Irrelevant Details

    Including too much unrelated information can distract from the main topic. Stay focused on the job and its significance.

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    Tip

    Stick to the cues provided and ensure your answer relates directly to the job and your feelings about it.

    Avoid Negative Tone

    Expressing negativity about your grandparent's job can reflect poorly on your attitude. It's important to show respect and appreciation.

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    Tip

    Even if the job had challenges, highlight positive aspects and what you learned from your grandparent's experience.

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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

    In Telangana, mining is a major part of its GDP. Mining plays a major part in our GDP. Coal mining is one of the toughest jobs which my grandfather used to do. He worked as a coal mining worker for almost 15 years. He worked in an open cast mining, which means it is a large open space. Almost two cricket grounds would be settled in that. That much large space has to dig by large machines and these people. My grandfather's job is to dig the coal and send it by any transportation vehicle. It is a very tough job. Also, he worked as a farmer after his retirement as a coal mining worker. He did almost 8 years of farming. He used to cultivate 8 acres of land. He produces different kinds of crops. He is a multi-talented person and a hard worker whom we admire a lot. For me and my father, he is our hero who constructed a beautiful life for us.

    Band 6

    My grandparent did a job called Brahmin job. It's almost like doing puja in the temple for the God. It's one of the finest job that to do because like praying for a God or doing praying for a God is almost like touching the God and taking the blessings of the God. It's not about that all people can't touch the God and serve the God like that. It's one of the finest job that my grandparent did in the past and till we are continuing the job and responsibility taken from my grandparent to my father and my father from me and we are taking the responsibility and roles of the job and we love the job and we enjoy the job role with full of attraction, with dedication, with diligent of the work which shows them how we are involved in the work and one of the greatest job our grandparents did in the past and we are continuing in the present and maybe in the future also.

    Band 6

    My grandparents had their own shop where they work as a worker with iron tools and my grandmother is a housewife, sorry my grandmother was a housewife. That shop was located in Zanzibar and now my father is a worker there after my grandfather.

    Band 6

    Today I am going to say about the job that my grandfather did. He was my father's father and he served in Indian military as a Subedar for about 25 years. He retired in 1995 and he came back to our hometown after his duty. He was an army man and he brought his discipline with him from the military. I felt so good of being born as a son of a person who served the country. He used to tell me a lot of stories about him and his friends in the military. He used to describe about the war that happened in the late 90s. He participated in about 3-4 wars like Kargil war etc. He used to describe everything in detail. He said that he once jumped from an aeroplane and parachuted down. He also brought that parachute with him to his house and it went missing after some restoration work that he has done in the recent years. He always tells me stories about his youth and how he was selected into the army. I feel really good after hearing about him. I feel that he was the one who was most happy to describe his story to me.

    Band 6

    My grandparents are not literate well, so they had done some farming job for their living. They own some acres of land. So they worked in their land by cultivating several crops like paddy fields and some kind of trees and plants like bananas for the cultivation. And they also have had livestock such as chicken, chicks and ducks and they own a fish farm also. They are living with the income from this type of farming. So I am really happy for their job because they maintain the land very well for the future generations and they haven't done any damage to the land or the environment. They kept everything really good and furthermore they haven't done any pollution to the environment like nowadays many industries are polluting the air through the smoke and chemicals. But at that time farming is really very close to nature and they did it in a very good manner in a very through sustainable eco-friendly agricultural practices they maintain the land and the environment very good level without any pollution. So I am proud for that practices that they have done at that time. They really done a very great job and it is really appreciable. So that's all.

    Band 6

    My grandfather used to be a fireman. He saved a lot of lives and he was a really brave man. He was a really brave man. He used to go to the houses which were caught on fire and extinguish them. He worked as a fireman for 25 years and he retired after 25 years after a major incident. He saved a lot of lives and he has a great number of stories of saving lives. He is a really good person and firemen really need to work hard and really need to be really brave to extinguish all the fire and bring all the people back to safety. In my opinion, being a fireman is like being a superhero. They need to go into a fire, extinguish them and bring all the people back to safety. My grandfather was a real superhero for me. He worked really hard and saved hundreds of lives. Being a fireman is not an easy task. He used to share a lot of stories with me about how he saved lives and how people have to be.

    Band 6

    So my grandparents are doing agriculture. I live in India, so we belong to the agriculture background. So in India, mainly people prefer to do agriculture in Asian time and also now only. It is not a profession, it is a generation to generation family business, as we say. So it is the only option in village if we see in India, there is not another option in India, village people. So they have to accommodate this profession in their life. My grandparents and also my whole family are engaged in this profession till now. They lease the land and do agriculture farming. Also they grow wheat, bajra, paddy. In winter they grow wheat and in summer they grow rice. They have huge experience of growing these crops because they are growing from Asian times because they are parents and parents and parents like this. So they don't do any other job besides this because it is a profession of my family. It is an experienced job as we see. It takes time to learn the process of agriculture. So I am proud I belong to the agriculture background because it is the economy of India.

    Band 5-6

    My grandfather used to do farming as the main source of income but other than farming he usually does a job called selling kerosene. He used to sell kerosene during those days because kerosene is one of the one of the thing that is very much used in those days for lightening the sticks or in pesticide work and even in the farmland if they want to burn the field after taking cutting down the trees they usually do this use this kerosene very much I feel that this job is one of the profitable job in those days and kerosene is one of the kind that helps us in making much income rather than farming because farming is the main job but in India farming has very less income which only feeds their own family but there won't be any savings I feel that having another business like selling products or selling kerosene like this which will help very much in building new stability life I feel that the job which my grandfather done had educated me a lot how important by taking other business can cause and I took that as motivation and I started doing working on my thing which I am doing and also having some other businesses which I feel which will be helpful for my growth of my income

    Band 5-6

    My grandfather was a PWD engineer. He used to residing in the, he used to see the dam gates are been opened, dams gates are been opened or he used to work under the BWSSP of the government. He was the one of the government employer and used to receive the government salaries and also after his death he used to take a pension also. In the meanwhile, his job is prescribed as per the government employees, his job is to maintain the gates of water walls and seeing the dam securities and maintaining the, if the water has been overflow, how to avoid it, if the water has been restored and how to leave it, overflow it out or how to open the gates and in the time, meantime he used to do the all this, like these jobs. Even though he used to do these jobs in morning and although in the night also, night also. In the coming days, my grandparents, as from, as my grandparent, my grandfather is the best inspiration in my life because he is a struggling of the hard works and he is in his younger ages and in his duty ages, how he had struggled and how he was facing the problems and what are the problems he used to face and what are the circumstances he used to face and how he will solve the problems. This all has been considered for me as an inspiration in my life. My grandfather is a very dedicative and very strict person in his job related process, except that he used to nothing to hear. When he allowed to the job, in my grandfather, when he used to work in the dam, our father at late night, he used to take and go the food to him and give him with eating the food while we enjoyed a lot of their catching the fishes and eating the fishes in the meantime of his working jobs. My grandfather is the two best person to my inspiration of life with his

    Band 5-6

    My grandfather was a farmer and he have a farmhouse and he cultivate lot of vegetables and fruits in the land and I like to go in my grandfather farmland because there is lot of vegetable and fruit. I like the fruits like litchi my grandfather give to me and that taste was good and he's very happy while he doing that job and sometimes he he spend a lot of time to clean the farmland and I also help to him and we we would like to protect the farmland from the other animals because one day my grandfather get a unexpected situation in the farmland a elephant elephant destroyed the farmland and lot of vegetables and fruits are damaged and lot of trees are also damaged and my grandfather was very sad for that and me and my grandfather clean that and we put a new plants in that place and that was a childhood memory in my that was childhood memory for me and and my grandfather I will have a lot of pets in the farmland to protect the farmland and I like the dog Lissy and she she's very friendly to me and she's a sharp sharp to the other animals and one
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