arrow back icon Top Answers

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 209 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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    Tip

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


    calendar icon

    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
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7.5

    location icon

    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
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 8

    location icon

    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
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 6.5

    location icon

    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
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7

    location icon

    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
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7.5

    location icon

    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

    Most of the times, a good piece of advice is pivotal in character development. One of the opportunities that I had to deliver a good piece of advice was to my friend. His name is Chris Matthew. I would describe him as a well-groomed and elegant looking man. He is such an optimistic person. I still remember back in the days we met in college. We had a beautiful front bonding. It was such a good time. Back then, he was troubled in financial stability. That was the time when I gave him a piece of advice. It was like, saving money now is very crucial for the future. That was the advice that I gave him. Although he listened to that very keenly. He also started to follow the steps to implement it. Overall, he was inspired by my words.

    Band 6-7

    People often come to me for advices because I try to understand their problems, I empathize with them and try to put myself in their shoes and after understanding the entire situation then only I advise them on some issues. So it is very often that people reach out to me for advices. One such situation I can recall is when I was advising one friend of mine when he was struggling with migraine and anxiety. Actually he was in a situation when he used to sleep late at night and then he used to work a lot, ruining his entire cycle and like his biological cycle was completely destroyed and he was so stressed, struggling in his personal life that he was often encountering this migraine and headache. So he reached out to me, I tried to understand the problem in its entirety and I also tried to go through some of the articles, research articles available on how can we mitigate and resolve the problem, what actually can be the reason behind it. So after doing all the research and taking some advices from the counsellor, I decided to help him out and for that first of all I advised him to improve his biological clock so that to go to bed on time, rise early and then stop taking stress, doing some meditation and yoga. He implemented that as well and he saw a quick improvement and that made him really relaxed and happy.

    Band 6-7

    I can remember that once my friend is going through a very rough phase and a tough time when I had a conversation with her then I got to know that she is dealing with a lot so I suggested her to let's go to a psychiatrist and take take a counseling from her so that you may so that she can feel a bit better and relieve herself from the relieve herself from that stress so both of us went together to a psychiatric counseling and then she advised that the counselor has advised her a technique called grounding technique which helped her which completely helped her and also that even that technique I use is useful for me for some time that by following that technique and the tips she had given entirely changed her her life to get back into a normal normal phase so I think the advised that the so I think that advice of going to psychiatric counselor that was the best part which I have done as far as I remember

    Band 6-7

    So recently, a month back, I had a friend called Hassan Wirk. He had gone through a serious heartbreak with a girl he loved for over four years and they had to break up due to mutual understanding and family problems. So Hassan would ask me for advice on what to do and I told him that it's for the best for the both of you if you moved on because I already knew she moved on and it was just going to hurt Hassan telling him to continue with it. So I gave the advice to Hassan that it's beneficial for you to move on and find someone else as it would clean your mental state and get you out of depression because Hassan was really depressed and he was suffering from anxiety attacks. So I gave him the advice to leave her and move on and find someone else and I think it really did help him because just a few days ago I met with him again and he was incredibly happy. He seemed like he got out of depression and he did not face anxiety anymore and he did not talk about the girl so I definitely feel like my advice helped him and that he's happy in life currently.

    Band 6-7

    A piece of advice once I gave to my friend. It was about saving money. She was my old friend and she used to eat snacks every day and spend at least 10 to 20 rupees on this type of snacks. So one day I told her that she didn't do that because she could use that money on something healthy or even something useful like books or notes. She really took my advice seriously and reduced her spending and then she realized that how huge mistake she was making. It helps to save her money and also it positively affects her health which she was ruining with the everyday fast foods and all. I really feel good that she is happy with my advice and she is so thankful to me for advising her because she never thought about that before.

    Band 6-7

    I advised my friend, my best friend, because he was going through a tough phase and he did not know what to do because he was going to take a drastic step in his life. So I told him, everything happens for a reason, trust your timing and it will not go away. I told him everything will happen for a reason and this has happened to you for a reason and every time after every bad time there will be a good time and it calmed him a lot and I told him because he was going through a tough phase in his life and I couldn't bear it. I told him. Then after that he kind of found out some sort of spark in his life and he tried to move on. That is the best thing I have ever heard with that my friend. He tried to come out of it after taking my advice and he felt so good and he told me thank you Ashwin, thank you for making me feel good.

    Band 6-7

    Few years ago in my software company, one of my colleague was not comfortable with coding and testing of the applications. He faced lot of difficulties as he was not aware of the latest technologies in which he was working. So he felt bad about it and decided to quit. When he informed about this decision to me, I took him to a nearby coffee shop and then spoke about the difficulties that he faced. And then I just guided him the things that he need to do in order to improve his performance in the career. I asked him to upskill his technical skills, be confident and take up personality development courses. I also took him to a nearby counselling centre where we counselled him. They first analysed him and then gave counselling to improve his communication skills, confidence and the way he needs to project to the senior folks and to the management. After few weeks, there was a visible improvement in his performance. He started feeling more confident. He was also strong in the coding and development part of the software. After one year, he got the best employer award and as a result, he was sent to the onsite BK for one year as an onsite coordinator. He got a better position and then he earned a lot.

    Band 6-7

    I still remember there was a time when my two best friends got involved into a massive fight and one of my best friends cursed my other best friend and that unknowingly it hurt her a lot and they kind of went on a break with each other and I still remember I giving advice to that friend who cursed just saying that you know you should control your anger sometimes it should not overpower it should not let it should not you should not let overpower the anger and furthermore I would like to add is that you should always just stop talking when you are angry whenever you're feeling angry you should just disconnect with the topic or get out of that place or if you feel too much in that situation you should just you know stop the conversation that time by stating that I wanna don't wanna talk about it right now I think that is much easier way than you know because whenever you're angry you just want to hurt other person so you will say a lot of hateful and meaningful things which you don't even feel like that way for that person so I moreover I would like to add is just that you should always have a control on your anger it should not the anger should not control you.

    Band 6-7

    A few days back I was on a call with one of my friends when she opened up about how she was worried for her upcoming examination and how the anxiety of what if she is not able to clear the examinations and her co-workers do. So I gave her one simple piece of advice that you should never compare yourself with others. You can only compete with them in the race but if you compare yourself then that is the point where you lag behind because any competition or any race is not just a race of talent or skill. It is how well you brush the edges of your strengths, how well you are able to handle the pressure and how well you are able to get over your weaknesses and I think she really did get through my point because she was smiling and she said that it's actually something that she wanted to hear therefore she would rather concentrate on preparing herself for the examination instead of worrying about others clearing the examination or not. So I think she really did feel great after my advice and I personally felt great too because I was able to give her a peace of mind in that stressed environment.

    Band 6-7

    Well, if to be honest, there is this saying that advice should not be given to anyone unless it is asked for, but yes, sometimes we have to speak about something because our nearest and dear ones are being affected by it. So I remember that one of my friends after graduation, we had, we have done the graduation in computer applications, she wanted to go for post-graduation that is MBA. So she wanted to change her stream from computer applications to business. So yes, that was the trend in that year going on that everybody should do a MBA, but still I insisted her to go for master's in computer only that is to do MCA because if you have chosen a stream and you are very very strong in your field, you should always and always go for the post-graduation studies, okay. Because if you are doing computers, then you can do some or something better in computers like AI and there are various various streams, numerous streams of computers in which you can apply your knowledge. Computers are being used in everywhere. So yes, I was very very happy about that because after doing MCA, she got her placement done in a very multinational company which offered her a huge amount of salary and now currently she is in USA doing her job in Google and she is very happy and contented with her life.

    Master IELTS Speaking with Leap's Self-Prep Course

    student enroll count

    Students Enrolled

    review count

    2,411 Reviews

    app download banner image
    See Course Details

    Master IELTS Speaking with Leap's Self-Prep Course

    student enroll count

    Students Enrolled

    review count

    2,411 Reviews

    app download banner image
    See Course Details