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Describe a piece of good advice that you gave to someone: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • Who did you advice?
  • What was the advice?
  • Why did you give the advice?
  • How was it helpful, and how did he/she feel about it?
Show all 199 answers

Cue 1:Who did you advise?

  • Begin by introducing the person you gave advice to, including your relationship with them.
  • Mention any relevant background information that helps to understand the context.

Example

I advised my younger sister, who is currently in her final year of college. She was feeling overwhelmed with her studies and unsure about her future career path.

Cue 2:What was the advice?

  • Clearly state the advice you gave, ensuring it is specific and actionable.
  • Explain any reasoning behind your advice to provide context.

Example

I told her to take a step back and focus on her strengths and interests. I suggested that she explore internships related to her field of study to gain practical experience and clarity on what she truly enjoys.

Cue 3:Why did you give the advice?

  • Share your motivation for giving this advice, including any personal experiences that influenced your decision.
  • Discuss the importance of the situation to emphasize why your advice was necessary.

Example

I gave this advice because I had faced similar challenges during my college years. I remember feeling lost and stressed about my future, and I wanted to help her avoid that anxiety by guiding her towards practical experiences.

Cue 4:How was it helpful, and how did he/she feel about it?

  • Describe the outcome of your advice and how it positively impacted the person.
  • Share their feelings or reactions to your advice to illustrate its effectiveness.

Example

After following my advice, my sister secured an internship at a local marketing firm. She felt much more confident and excited about her future. She expressed gratitude for my support and mentioned that it helped her gain clarity about her career goals.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, giving advice to my sister not only strengthened our bond but also helped her navigate a crucial phase in her life. It was rewarding to see her grow and find direction, and it reminded me of the importance of sharing experiences and supporting loved ones.

    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 Responses

    Avoid giving vague or general answers that lack detail. This can make your response less engaging and informative, leading to a lower score.

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    Tip

    Provide specific examples and details about the advice you gave, including the context and the person's situation.

    2: Neglecting Emotional Impact

    Failing to discuss how the advice affected the person emotionally can weaken your response. It's important to show the significance of your advice.

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    Tip

    Include how the person felt after receiving your advice and the positive changes it brought to their life.

    Ignoring the 'Why'

    Not explaining why you gave the advice can leave your answer incomplete. This is crucial for understanding your thought process.

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    Tip

    Clearly articulate your reasons for giving the advice, linking it to the person's needs or situation.

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    Talk about a toy you liked in your childhood
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    Anonymous student Band 8

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    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.
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    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.
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    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

    Recently, I was having a chat with my younger sister and she was fed up by her college and she was really going through the problem of overthinking and she was concerned about her grades and college days. She was worried about how the professors would treat her and should she say specific things or not, should she be open to be an opinionated girl in the college. So as I was having a communication with her and being an elderly sister to her, so I told her that everything doesn't matter and everything in this world is transient and has an end. So I just advised her to be herself and I think being yourself is the most important advice that you can ever give to someone younger to you because you know you have seen the world, how the world works, I have seen in my job and even in my college days how I used to be very much concerned and affected by the people's opinions of myself and I think that really triggers you when you are in the younger age and early days of your college. So I just told her to relax and chill and think about herself first. Be clear that who the person is she going to become in the future, what she really needs to achieve, how to navigate her thoughts into other productive things and in that way I just advised her to take one step at a time, don't take things too seriously and not to take other people's opinions very much seriously because that changes as per your actions. Your actions

    Band 6-7

    The best advice I give someone is about her relationship. Actually, I gave this to my friend Fazina, who is from Kanyangad, a small town in Kasargod. While we are studying at Ganman Medical College, Kottayam, she had a boyfriend. And that relationship started around her high school studies. So it was really deep for her. But every time I look at her, I feel like he is really controlling and he is really a toxic person. Always try to control or command her or instruct her to what do she wear, where do she go, and what does she should study. And he always demand that she would be always available for him whenever he calls. So he is really controlling person according to me. So sometimes I saw her crying about this particular behavior of him. But I told her that she should leave him if she can't handle him. That is the best for the both. But she told me at that time she can do that. But I always try to persuade her about this is not what she wanted. Actually, if we want to live further, we should have a smooth and peaceful life. If she goes with the same guy, she won't get the same thing. That means we can get a smooth and peaceful life. So I told her to leave him. So she just once at the most level, she really leave him by break up with him by told him that they can't move further if his behavior is same. So they are broken up and she is really happy and feels really comfortable right now.

    Band 6-7

    The one advice that I gave in my life that was absolutely significant to me too was to a friend. It was that we shouldn't get too attached to people and try to build our own lives first. I advised my friend because I myself learnt this from my own experiences. When I was in college, I was dating this beautiful girl who left me and I was devastated. So I advised my best friend to not get attached with people and concentrate on your life while maintaining balance between social and personal life. He really liked my advice as he himself saw my life with my ex-girlfriend. Additionally, he always listens to me so it really changed his opinion about dating and making friends. He started taking care of his own life and he was also able to maintain a good balance. Furthermore, I have also learnt this thing in my life that we should treat everyone in a good way. This is also one thing that I taught him.

    Band 6-7

    I advised a friend. His name was Bhuvan. It was about taking care of his parents. His parents were anxious about his future as he was going to Germany. I felt that his parents were taking care of him and used to pay for a lot of his things. He did not have any job since 6 months. What I told him was to prepare well for his future, study well and he was very weak in Mathematics. So I told him to study Mathematics, English and other resumes, CVs to get a very good Master's education in Germany. He felt that he was anxious himself and what I told him was to do meditation, taking care of him everyday by giving skin care, mental health routine checkups etc. and also visiting the therapist. He felt less anxious himself and this helped him nurture himself in a way that he never could. It also made his parents feel very good about him. He also became a Master's graduate from University of Stuttgart in Germany. He thanks me everyday whenever we talk about me helping him and about my advices.

    Band 6-7

    I have given the advice to my friend that he drinks daily and I said that he don't have to drink daily because his breakup was held and then I gave him advice that you have your family, friends with you so you have to quit this and then he said that I don't care about it and then I said that you have to quit because this was not a good habit that you are doing but one day I said that you have to quit otherwise no one will stay with you and then he has quitted and after that today it was about 6 months that he quits everything and is now happy

    Band 6-7

    A good piece of advice that I gave was to one of my close friends. One of the bad habits that she had was smoking. She knew that what she is doing is wrong, but she never realized how it is killing her every minute. When I met her recently, I saw that she was trying to use smoking as a stress buster when ever she had some stress, she used to start smoking. That was the moment when I realized that it's my responsibility to make her aware that the things that she is doing are not correct and it will harm and affect her life. I told her that there are so many other ways by which she can completely vanish her stress in day to day life, but it's very important for her to understand that what steps are needed for it. When I told her that talking to me or talking to any of her close friends can also solve a problem instead of going for smoking, that's when she realized and she also felt the same, but the only issue that she faced was the circle of friends that she had. Whenever she used to go to the college, she used to meet her college friends and they all went out to smoke. That's when I told her that it is very important to cut off people from her life who are not bringing any positive impact because if she doesn't stop it now, in the long run it will affect her and her career and I believe that she is very talented, very smart and she should make rules for her life and nobody else can define it for her.

    Band 6-7

    As I am loving to give advice to my friends and family members that maintaining a healthy relation between the friends and family is important for the our mental health. My grandfather was give me a advice that I follow till now. I want share this with you that maintaining healthy relationship with friends and family provides your mental health, happiness, calmness as well as relaxation and leads to entire healthy environment amongst you. I would like to share with my friends and families because in today's era it is important to keep your mind healthy and be free from any disease or any psychological illness so it was a good experience for me to give advice to my friends and families and this is a grateful experience for me.

    Band 6-7

    If my memory serves me right, it's been a couple of months when I last visited to my friend's house as his brother is struggling a lot in academics and as he's demotivating himself and telling us that he's not that much good in academics and after some time, he asked me for advice but at first, I don't think that much interested to give advice to him but after some time, I wanted to give advice to him so he can improve in academics and I have a talk with him and I tell him to track his progress and the main thing to improve his writing and reading is to write something more and more which will be helpful for him in his studies and it will also enhance his creativity by using more ideas and after listening to my advice, he was very escalated because no one gave him this best advice

    Band 6-7

    I am not the type of person that gives good advice rather I like to be there for a person who is grieving or is sad but one advice that I had seen of the social media was if there is something that you're not changing then you're choosing it that's when I gave it to someone who was choosing the same person over and over again in their relationship and I wanted them to choose better and that she was stuck with this particular person because she was choosing him and not changing and that I think really helped her identify what was wrong in her relationship and really grow as a person and today I see her in another country doing what she loves enjoying her life not worried about anything and just being herself she is true to herself and she inspires me to be the person she is and I love her so much and I wish the very best for her

    Band 6-7

    My friend got married at an early age and did not know much about marriage and how to handle a family on her own, giving up on her dreams and ambitions at a very young age. My advice to my friend was to help herself rather than helping other people within her marriage, alongside in-laws that deviated her or discouraged her from achieving any of her goals that she had in mind that she wanted to be ambitious about. I advised her to follow her passions and follow her dreams while other things would fall in line, because by doing so she would have the self-confidence to inculcate this within her child as well, as she grows up to be the role model that she wanted herself to be so that her child would be ambitious as well and would not live in a failing environment as a family. This was my advice to her because she was depressed and was thinking about suicide and giving up on life instead of living life to the fullest. I think it's really important that we look at what is good for ourselves before we look at what is good for others around us. That is how we attract positivity and we attract good energy into our lives. This is why it is so important for us to be surrounded by the right people with positive energy that bring in good intentions and good vibes within ourselves.
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