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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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    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

    Once I gave an advice to a friend of mine who was actually dealing through a break up and a heart break kind of emotion. So I told her that there is nothing important over and above your mental peace. You should be at peace with yourself instead of crying about a person or a broken relationship or your emotions. So yeah, I think keeping yourself at the central highlight and then working on yourself and healing for yourself, healing for your growth and betterment is the actual solution of coming out of a break up instead of moving on or jumping on to another person. So after discussing these things with me, she felt better and when she tried applying these things onto herself, it was actually fruitful for her. I could feel she was turning into a better person, into a better version of herself. And I also applied the same advice on me and even I would suggest this to anybody else who is going through a bad time or emotionally or in any other possible way. I think believing in yourself and keep moving on with yourself and working on yourself is important rather than sticking to a person or a relationship or something. So I think yes, it is very important to work on yourself and to identify your own drawbacks and pros and cons of you as a person. You should be in competition with yourself. So you should always try to improve yourself compared to your previous version. It could be your behaviour, it could be your nature, it could be your professional growth, it could be your personal development, it could be anything. So I think yeah, it is very important and this is the advice I gave to my friend and she was very supportive.

    Band 6-7

    My advice which I would like to give to everybody is to play sports in their teenage. Sports helps in mental development as well as physical development. Sports should be played outside as well as inside the house. Alongside with playing sports, running also plays a very important role in our day to day life. Running helps to build up muscles. A good diet should be followed in order to support the daily activities. I suggest students not to become a bookworm and just go on cramming and cramming the things. They should be encouraged to watch sports and have an interest in those sports. I would request the parents to indulge their children into sports classes. Children can play sports with their families, friends and have a lot of fun. I prefer outdoor sports over indoors because indoor sports are played under artificial environment created by ACs, televisions, high volume speakers etc. They are not good for health. Sweat is very important for every children. Sweat helps to reduce over hydration which the body has stored beneath itself. As we all know, human body is made 70% of water. Water is very essential component of our body but excess of water is as harmful as less quantity of water. So, sports helps the body to get rid of excess water which is stored beneath the body.

    Band 6-7

    It happens with me very rarely that someone asks me for advice, but it happened with me recently. It was a time when my elder brother asked me for an advice that which car he should buy. As he was searching for a new car, he asked me that which car should I buy. As he thinks that I am a car interested guy and I keep more information about car, so he think to ask from me. When he asked, I advised him to buy a car of a Honda company. It's a 5-seater car with a unique price and unique features. He usually asks these things from me because we usually keep connected with each other and we have a very good relationship between each other. We usually share all our feelings with each other and moreover whenever we stay connected, we feel more encouragement and confident that someone is behind back us who can encourage us. And he also feel very much helpful whenever he asks for advice and I give him good advice. He always get very much elated and whenever he asks me some difficult advice, I feel it's a hard net to crack and maybe it's extremely challenging. But after researching on the thing sometimes, I feel it's a piece of cake or effortless thing that he asked from me. And I felt very much elated after whenever he asked me some advices because it happens very often that someone is asking from you. And if someone is asking from you, it would be must his priority towards you. And I gave him very good advice that I think and I also think that he might feel this advice helpful.

    Band 6-7

    A good piece of advice that I remember, I gave it to my mom. My mom has been sedentary all through her life and she was having a lot of health issues lately like knee pain and some other vital health issues. And that's when I advised her that she should take her health little more sensitively and she should understand that being healthy is so important to lead a good life and a happy life. I sent her a lot of videos which she can follow and do a lot of exercises every morning. She can follow a diet chart that can help her to keep herself healthy. And I'm really happy and I appreciate that even at this age and under all those health problems, she tried her best and I'm so happy that she was able to achieve a good weight and all her vitals came under the normal range. She still has some issues but the way she is following all those advices given by me and by the doctors also, I'm sure that she will be achieving the required goal, leading a healthy and a fit life. So I'm very happy and I appreciate her efforts because I know it's quite hard when you have certain issues and unbearable pain, still when you try to achieve something, it's commendable.

    Band 6-7

    I remember the time when I had advised a friend that I had met an year ago. She was low on self-esteem and that was because there were people who were spreading some rumours about her. Furthermore, many did not like her. I had to do so because I did not want her to feel any less than anyone else. So, I went ahead and gave a piece of my experience and my knowledge, telling her that the only people who could judge you are the ones that are better than you and fit to judge. So, therefore, no one in her class can actually say anything and even if they do, their words don't mean anything. Just as if in another language, we hear people even curse at us but it wouldn't affect us emotionally at all. That's because we don't know the meaning of those words and those words are weightless to us. So, that's why they don't carry the same meaning and emotions to us. In such a vein, we should also overhear all those words that are told to us by everyone else inferior to us and all those who mean to disregard us or humiliate us and instead focus on the advices given by those who are better than us and truly want to see us grow and then work on our flaws and strengths. This made a really positive impact on her. I remember how easily she cheered up and she managed to get her strength and her self-esteem back. She earned it through her choices and the biggest part of it was the choice to listen to me, to understand what I'm saying and to change her own life with her own hands.

    Band 6-7

    Let me share an example of my own. It's time to give advice to my cousin sister. We completed our intermediate education and she is seeking for higher education at graduation level. And she asked me for advice, which one should I choose. And I say, well, it is better to choose pharmacy or MBBS groups. Before that, she also waiting for one year to crack NEET exam. But unfortunately, she unable to clear the exams. After taking my advice, I am clearly say to her, if you are interested in science group other than the maths, please go with pharmacy at graduation level. Otherwise, there is another branch called D-form or doctorate level. So, which can I say to her easily, but she never obeyed to me. After few days, she tell me, oh, this is a good one. Why should I didn't take? But she felt bad after refusing my advice. Eventually, I used to...

    Band 6-7

    If he is so good, my advice that I gave to my brother is that he was really disappointed about his exam result and he was feeling more stressful and also lonely. I advise him to start a new business enterprise that made him more achieve in his life. Advice is a grateful factor that have an important element in our life. Advice can change our own life situations and also to become successful in our own life. I advise my brother to start a new business enterprise that changed his entire life and he soon started an exchange of vehicles that he has more knowledge and information about the vehicles. So, he has the ability to make more profit and sales turnover towards the business. It was about a year ago that my brother was feeling more stress and anxiety that he had not passed in an examination that can be an important element in his life. But I advise him to focus more on goals than on any degree or any other factors because degree and higher education certificate does not value our life situations. If a person have knowledge, if a person have ability or perseverance to achieve a goal that he has decided, he would achieve his own life situations and become a successful person in his own life.

    Band 6-7

    Once upon a time, I was studying in ADAPT at Kozhikode in Kerala. Once I got to the classroom and a faculty suddenly came up. He introduced him and started to class in the topic of Logistics and Personal Development Leadership, such like that. He gave me an advice. Use ACA method. ACA that means A- Approachable, C- Coachable, A- Accountable. These three things you use in your life, you get success. That word very influenced me. Then I started to try to apply in my life. First was difficult, then it was easy to become. His name was Sohail Abbas. He is one of the best faculty I have ever seen. Such a beautiful class and that advice became help after two years. When I approached a company, they applied me. I get the job and happily living. Thank you.

    Band 6-7

    One of my close friend Arpit, he is really conscious about his looks and he get worried about what might people judge him and at that time I was very concerned about his thinking like when we go to the college, it is the time when a person really step out in the real world and he wants to look really good in the uniform and out of his look but he is not that concerned about it but I gave him an advice like everyone focus on themselves because they have their own problems and they live in their own world but they don't focus on anyone else rather than their problem or loved ones so he took this advice and gradually gained a self confidence and not concerned about his looks but he really put a lot of efforts for his face like he used beard oils to grow a really good beard and eventually that kind of beard already infects his skin and he got a lot of acne and pimples and rather he looked quite bad in that situation so after I gave him this advice he was really thankful of mine because at that time he really appreciated me for my advice and after that he gets really confident on his looks and rather than focusing on what others judge he really focus on himself and not think about that anyone other than himself wants to say something to his friends because everyone is really focused on themselves and they don't want to make a comment on someone else and now he is a very confident person and he rather don't look towards other people they might judge and he is very confident now

    Band 6-7

    So, when I was in college, I still remember one day when my younger brother came to me and asked me that I am not preparing well for my boards and consistently I got bad marks in my semesters. So, what is the way to solve this problem? How you overcome this failure in your schooling? So, I gave him advice that first of all, you don't need to worry about the outcome. You need to focus on your result and you just need to work on it. Be in discipline. Make a good timetable and see the timeline that in this given time you need to finish your work. This is the most important thing. And the topic in which you are weak, make a separate note of it and give them more time during weekends. This is the right way to tackle this type of questions. So, by giving this idea, he really use it, this technique and follow in his life, in his boards and effectively it gives a good result to them. Overall, I also felt a good way to teach my younger brother.
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