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Describe a piece of technology that you find difficult to use.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When did you get it?
  • What did you get it for?
  • How often do you use it?
  • How do you feel about it?
Show all 55 answers

Cue 1:When did you get it?

  • Mention the specific time or occasion when you acquired the technology.
  • Provide context about your initial excitement or need for the technology.

Example

I got my first smartphone about three years ago as a birthday gift from my parents. I was really excited because I wanted to stay connected with my friends and family more easily.

Cue 2:What did you get it for?

  • Explain the primary purpose you intended to use the technology for.
  • Share any specific features you were looking forward to using.

Example

I got it mainly for communication, social media, and to access the internet. I was particularly looking forward to using apps like WhatsApp and Instagram to share moments with my friends.

Cue 3:How often do you use it?

  • Discuss the frequency of your usage and any challenges you face.
  • Mention any specific tasks that you find particularly difficult.

Example

I try to use it daily, but I often struggle with navigating the settings and downloading new apps. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by the number of features available.

Cue 4:How do you feel about it?

  • Express your feelings about the technology, both positive and negative.
  • Share any frustration or satisfaction you experience while using it.

Example

Overall, I feel frustrated because I can't fully utilize its features. While I appreciate the connectivity it offers, the complexity makes me wish for something simpler.

Conclusion

  • Summarize your overall experience with the technology.
  • Reflect on whether you would recommend it to others or not.

Example

In conclusion, while my smartphone has great potential, my difficulties with it make me hesitant to recommend it to someone who isn't tech-savvy. I hope to learn more about it in the future.

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 Responses

Being vague can lead to unclear answers. Candidates might not provide enough detail about the technology, making it hard for the examiner to understand their experience.

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Tip

Use specific examples and details about the technology, such as its features and your personal experiences with it.

2: Don't Rush Your Answer

Rushing can lead to incomplete thoughts and unclear communication. Candidates may skip important details or fail to express their feelings about the technology.

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Tip

Take a moment to think before speaking. Organize your thoughts and ensure you cover all the cues provided.

Avoid Overly Technical Language

Using too much technical jargon can confuse the examiner and detract from your overall message. It's important to communicate clearly.

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Tip

Explain the technology in simple terms and focus on your personal experience rather than technical specifications.

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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 6-7

A technology that I find difficult to use or operate is smartwatches. So I received a smartwatch on my birthday as a birthday gift and I had begun to use it with my smartphone and I had begun to use it but the reason I find it difficult to use is because it just shows time and time can be checked anywhere in your phone or on your laptop anywhere. I don't see the use of wearing a watch on your hand and personally I don't like wearing anything on my wrists basically. So that's the reason I find smartwatches difficult to use.

Band 6-7

Well, there has been a tremendous breakthrough in the field of technology in the contemporary scenario. Also, technology has made an indispensable role in our life. Here I would like to talk about a piece of technology that I find difficult to use is the smart watch that was gifted by my bosom friend on my 18th birthday. Usually he gifted me this watch to analyze my footsteps and also recommend me some daily diet to maintain my health and fitness as health is wealth and health is the most prized possession for a human being. Apart from this, what I find enormous in this smart watch was that it was not able to have the best connectivity of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Apart from this, it also made me difficult to listen the songs as it was having low connectivity. The over brightness of the smart watch also was a drawback for me. And additionally, as a fashionaholic by nature, I usually try to find new clothes, so I decided to do window shopping on the watch, but it was quite difficult, moreover, whenever my

Band 6-7

A piece of technology that I find very difficult even now to use it is a camera, a DSLR camera. So I first bought it when I was studying 12th grade and I got it because I had a competition on photography and I wanted to sign in for the competition and I had always had a big dream to become a photographer from my childhood.

Band 6-7

A piece of technology that I find difficult to use is the latest model of automatic vehicles. Driving is my passion and I am very fond of vehicles, motorbikes, cars and bicycles. I got a driving license when I was 18 years old and since then I used to drive to all the nearby places and during my leisure times. But since the arrival of this automatic vehicle, I was unable to cope up with the mechanism. The gear system and also the accelerator system was a bit confusing for me. I was unable to operate the vehicle and drive it. I even met with an accident while driving an automatic vehicle and people started staring at me for my lack of balance in driving. But the real fact comes with Rome wasn't built in a day. So automatic vehicles cannot be equipped to my mind within one day and I am sure of that. But gradually I learn it. I will definitely get my hands into automatic vehicles. But the system is difficult to adapt and obviously for old age people also it will be very difficult to balance the steering and also the gear. But I am not a person who always give up on things. I went on to a tutor. The teacher taught me how to drive this vehicle effortlessly without any hurdles and obstacles.

Band 6-7

I remember last year I learned graphic designing. It was quite difficult for me to learn it as I am a medical student and I don't have much knowledge of technology and related things. So I learned graphic designing as I really want to try new things and experience those. The most common apps that I use are illustrator, canva, photoshop etc. I use it for editing images, videos and creating illustrations. I feel creative and very innovative after learning it as I can do anything I want to with the image. On top of that, initially it was so complicated for me but over the years I have learnt it and now I feel I can create magical images as well. To be honest, it was a difficult task for me and I thrived for it yet I learnt it and I use it once in a week and not so often but it helped.

Band 6-7

I think programming languages, software engineering is a piece of technology which I find difficult to use because we have to do a lot of work in it, we have to use logic and without logic we cannot work and build apps and websites. I find it difficult to use. I started using it because I have to become a software engineer and I think it is really difficult if you are a non IT background person. I think it can be very helpful if you use it properly.

Band 6-7

One piece of technology that I find quite difficult to use is a 3D picture. I first came across it during my college project, when our dean was supposed to design a prototype model. Although I had read about 3D printing before, actually operating the machine was much easier than I thought. The main problem was understanding the software that converts designs into printable files. It required precise adjustments and even a tiny error could lead to the whole model being renewed. Moreover, setting up the printer and handling the material was time-consuming and frustrating. At first, I felt a bit overwhelmed and even because I thought I might damage the machine. However, with some practice and help from my classmates, I slowly learned the basics. Even today, I won't say I am confident using it on my own. This experience made me realize that while technology is advancing rapidly, it still demands patience and technical skills to use effectively. It also taught me the importance of hands-on learning rather than just feeding theories.

Band 6-7

So a piece of technology that I found difficult to use was QGIS. QGIS stands for Quantum Geographic Information Systems. So the thing is I hail from a background of Geo-Informatics from my Bachelor of Technology in Andhra University and we were trained with ample hands-on experience in ArcGIS, ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap and EDAS Imagine which happen to be GIS softwares and also QGIS is one of those softwares but we were never given hands-on in that software. But for the first time I have used it was when I had to extract spatial data from the schools which happen to be the main resource for our Bachelor's thesis project and so as I was new to that software I found it very difficult to use because the interface I couldn't recognize the interface and it was a bit of a difficult thing and so I am practicing regularly doing some small little bit of tasks so that I could increase my fluency with that topic that software.

Band 6-7

The piece of technology that I am about to say is a PCR machine. It's nothing but a polymerase chain reaction machine. This machine is particularly used in biotechnological field to amplify DNAs. So I had a job, sorry I had a project which was involved with this PCR machine. So what I did was, I tried to operate the machine myself but I couldn't and initially I thought that was impossible to operate on with complex structures and complex way of looking. Now after that my principal invigilator which is my mentor and guide, he taught me how to use that particular machine and which settings we have to use for which type of or which mode of project that we are in. He used to tell us a lot about that and I quite eventually hooked up on the learning that, learning how to use that machine. So it is the machine that I found difficult to use and I still do find difficult because what I do know is some particular functions of that machines but there are a lot to learn about that and in order to speak elaborately the thing that I can do with that machine is amplifying DNA only. There is a lot more other thing which the machine is capable of that I still need my eyes on to it.

Band 6-7

Now we are living in a technological world. Everything around us is technically surrounded, technically developed. Knowing or technological knowledge is a necessary skill in this century. I am very used to multiple technologies including handling gadgets like phone, laptops, smartphones and etc. But I am very poor to handling gadgets, technological gadgets in the kitchen. I am very afraid to handle washing machine. After so many practices from my teaching lessons from my mother, I couldn't know how to handle a washing machine, how to do a laundry. I am still afraid because once a day I do laundry in my washing machine but somehow it leaked. Water and soap was filled in my room and it made our home very messy. I was scolded by my mother for that. After that handling a washing machine or doing a laundry seems to be a very difficult one for me. Now also whenever do I do laundry I make some mistakes like putting or clicking wrong switches or by adding lot of soaps in laundry.
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