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Describe a place you have been to where things are expensive: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • Where the place is
  • What the place is like
  • Why you went there
  • What you bought there
  • And explain why you think things are expensive there
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14 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 14 answers

Cue 1:Where the place is

  • Begin by mentioning the city and specific location of the place.
  • Include any notable landmarks or features that make the place recognizable.

Example

I visited Connaught Place in New Delhi, which is one of the most famous shopping areas in the city, known for its circular layout and vibrant atmosphere.

Cue 2:What the place is like

  • Describe the ambiance and overall vibe of the place.
  • Mention the types of stores or services available that contribute to its expensive reputation.

Example

Connaught Place is bustling with energy, filled with high-end boutiques, luxury brands, and gourmet restaurants. The architecture is colonial, which adds to its charm, making it a popular spot for both locals and tourists.

Cue 3:Why you went there

  • Explain your purpose for visiting the place, whether it was for shopping, dining, or leisure.
  • Share any specific event or occasion that prompted your visit.

Example

I went there to celebrate my friend's birthday. We wanted to have a special meal and shop for some unique gifts, so Connaught Place seemed like the perfect destination.

Cue 4:What you bought there

  • List the items you purchased and their significance.
  • Mention any particular store where you made your purchases.

Example

I bought a designer handbag from a well-known store called 'H&M', which was quite pricey but I felt it was worth it for the quality and style.

Cue 5:And explain why you think things are expensive there

  • Discuss factors that contribute to the high prices, such as location, brand reputation, or quality.
  • Mention any personal experiences that highlight the costliness of the items.

Example

I believe things are expensive in Connaught Place because it is a prime location in the city, attracting affluent customers. Additionally, the brands available are often international and cater to a luxury market, which drives up prices.

Conclusion

  • Summarize your overall impression of the place and your experience.
  • Reflect on whether you would recommend visiting this place to others.

Example

Overall, my experience at Connaught Place was delightful despite the high prices. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a taste of luxury shopping and dining in Delhi.

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 less engaging and informative. It's important to provide specific details about the place to create a clearer picture for the examiner.

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Tip

Use descriptive adjectives and specific examples to illustrate your points, such as mentioning the architecture, atmosphere, or unique features of the place.

2: Don't Overlook Personal Experience

Failing to share your personal experience can make your response sound generic. The examiner wants to hear your unique perspective and feelings about the place.

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Tip

Include personal anecdotes or feelings about your visit, such as what surprised you or how the prices affected your experience.

Neglecting to Explain Prices

Simply stating that things are expensive without explanation can weaken your answer. It's crucial to provide reasons for the high prices to demonstrate your understanding.

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Tip

Discuss factors like location, demand, or quality that contribute to the high prices, and relate them to your personal experience.

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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.
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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.
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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

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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

Hi, I am Vidisha and a place where I have been to and the things were expensive was when I traveled to Jaipur. Jaipur is a very beautiful city of forts and it has a very rich culture and heritage. I went to different restaurants there which specialized in the local food. It was a great experience tasting the traditional Jaipur thali. Then I really enjoyed traveling and sightseeing the different forts and knowing the history of each and every fort and the kings who lived there. Traveling to different forts was expensive since the city is all about the forts so you have to take another vehicle and travel to those places. Generally these forts are not situated in the city they are little farther away so you have to plan everything accordingly. When I was in Jaipur I did buy different photographs which had me in their traditional clothes or attire. Wearing that ensemble was a very emotional experience for me because for the longest time as I can remember I had never worn any traditional dress and trying that dress and getting pictures along with my friends was an exciting and fun experience for me.

Band 6-7

A few years back I went to Hyderabad which is in Telangana state of India. It is a multicultural city, a metropolitan city as some would say. It was a nice experience over there. I went there to do my internship which was in forensic lab. I did there internship for a brief period of 2-3 months and when I stayed there for that period of time, I went for shopping casually and I found things that are in the market are very quite expensive compared to that those we can find here back at our town in Vijayawada and then I thought the place is too much pricey, even the food stalls, the food is very costly over there. We could find much affordable products or much affordable food over here back at my home town, so I felt that it was a very pricey place to live in, expensive I would say. But then it was very different from what we have in our home town. It is very diverse with many cultures, many cuisines and vivid fashion sense also. That is definitely an upgrade from my home town. But then the prices are not affordable for everyone especially for somebody like me who comes from a middle class background. So I could...

Band 6-7

I am basically from Vijayawada but I have did my bachelors in Bangalore. So I used to quite travel a lot in Bangalore and I love shopping. So whenever I get time I would be going for shopping and in the same journey I have experienced one mall which is called as the UB City which is located in Bangalore itself and when I went there for the first time I found it very expensive because the ambience itself, the architecture of the mall itself is quite expensive I felt because of the architecture, the lights, everything was off to the mark and every place and every corner of the mall is vibing richness and when I went to the stores however even though I never went to shop there but in particular when I saw each and every product and each and every shop in the mall I figured out that it was the most expensive mall which I have ever went in Bangalore but as of now I didn't purchase anything in that particular mall because it was very expensive and the price range of my budget and the actual budget of the mall is very different so I never purchased something from that mall but I do wanted to purchase something from that mall someday and why I think the mall is expensive is because all the top brands were located in that particular mall as well as the other malls which are located in the Bangalore and middle of the city also have the same shops but the price ranges are quite different from normal malls and that particular mall because may be because of the area where all the rich people do be residing in that

Band 6-7

Yes, so recently I've been to a most thrilling and adventurous trip to Cook at Chikwagalur with mountains covered all around and with an adventurous roads with forests covered all over. So, we have experienced waterfalls, sunrise, sunset and what not. So, we had a very great adventurous jeep rides all through the mountains edges and we had a great experiencing watching the sunset and the sunrise and I could maybe not describe it in words and we really enjoyed it and we had bought some few famous things from there like coffee and wine which are famous in that place like Coorg and then we really had burnt our pockets with some expensive rides and unworthy places which we visited which are really not worthy and we really had learnt and we had a great experience through that and yeah, it was a great experience and then we have had the best food from there by just googling through it and yeah.

Band 6-7

quality. So the place where I had visited and the things were expensive was London in UK. Since London is one of the smartest city in the world so definitely the cost of the goods and products available which are available are at a very you know extraordinarily high priced and when I went for the shopping I didn't know about this fact earlier but since my parents were extraordinarily extremely concentrate they allowed me to purchase few of the bags and clothes that I really liked and I did that and if I talk about the place the place is really aesthetic where ambience is really really good and even the people over there are very soft-spoken and polite. My overall shopping experience over there was really really full of satisfaction because they did not harass me with marking it at a very high cost then to which I had to bargain and all sorts of things. The things were marked accurately and the cost was fixed so it didn't take me much time to bargain or to talk with the shopkeepers for the reduction of the cost etc. My experience in London for shopping was really good.

Band 6

Recently, I have been to the Tirupati, which is a famous temple in Andhra Pradesh. So I went to visit the temple as every year we family go and visit. So mostly whenever we get a free time, we plan to book the tickets and we go. Because there are like plenty of people come every day to see the God. And the most, it's a most favorite place of mine from the childhood as it's very good place. So the other day, when we went there, we tried to book a hotel, which was damn expensive. It should, as a temple, we feel that the temple's place and everything would be a affordable price. But the rooms costed us like almost expensive, which was over our budget. And later I went to purchase for my cousins, some of the gifts to remember like for the temple. But when I went to purchase some bags, they were like very quite expensive. And it was very costly. And I thought I will buy it like from my salary. But I couldn't because it was very expensive. So I realized that the place should reduce little bit of money for the affordable people. Mostly I enjoy the temple view. But the other day when I went to buy a small photo frame, which was almost 400 rupees. In our place, we get it for 150 to 200. But 400 rupees was quite expensive for me. So I think it was an expensive place recently when I visited. Thank you.

Band 6

So last week I went on a trip with my friends we have been planning to visit Europe since long and last last year we thought why not and we just went for a trip so we went to Europe we visited many places over there but the most I liked was Paris and I think it's a very beautiful city very serene very clean very amazing city I must say my we visited the place because we have been working as I am a working professional I'm a dentist so I work every day without a break I usually work on Saturdays and Sundays so I didn't get time for myself so it was just a rewind and just a relaxation time for me so we went on a trip with friends and we enjoyed it a lot what I liked the country is it's a beautiful but the thing is it's a very expensive country the food over there or any amenities or anything you buy it's a way costlier than in as compared to India and I think why this happen this is why is I should say because I think they need money to maintain that hygiene they maintain they need to you know maintain all the decorum all the amenities all the hygiene

Band 6

I recall this incident when I was in my college, which was in the year 2019. Me and my friends visited a mall which was nearby to our college. It had various stores, it had so many shops and brand deals and there were discount codes happening during that time. People were there, many people were there visiting because it was a Black Friday sale. It was a very expensive place because the cost of the items were very high. A normal middle class guy can never be able to afford those goods for that amount of cost. Because the price for these costs were 2-3 times higher than the average cost which you can get in a local shop. I agree that it is too expensive, making it difficult for the normal people to get it. But the quality says its price. They used very premium quality, the service was great. It had also a customer care service department set up in the shop, giving you a problem solution and it can be fixed in 5-6 minutes.

Band 5-6

Hi, in recent times I have been to the city called Goa, basically I was a traveler and I enjoy exploring the places but one interesting and pathetic experience I have from that tour is like budgets has crossed the limits. Let me share the experience over there. Initially we have planned for around 20,000 and but when I just reached there that things are lots of lot more expensive let's say when we planned for the hotel booking with the money we planned is around 10,000 rupees but it reached around 15k and which made our pockets to be limited on spending about the food and the recreational activities and even as we went on the peak hours in the recreational things which cost around 1000 rupees they are charging around 2000k that's how expensive even the places were not clean and hygiene as we expected and the hospitality we received from the people who resides there it's not so convincible for me and all over I would say it's not a good destiny for me because I have explored lot many places all over the India but this time which I visited last month it just made a bad experience in my tourist place as it is. So I would definitely don't recommend this place to visit in next 2-3 weeks because the government of Goa is taking some further action to improve the conditions of the hospitality.

Band 5-6

The place I went to was Srinagar and Dubai. In Dubai, every place had very costly things like jewellery, perfumes and other things. I went for my vacation with my parents, but it was the most beautiful place I ever went to in Dubai. In there we have the Burj Khalifa Mall, the world's biggest tower in the world. I bought the perfume, it's too expensive. We convert the Indian money, nearly 2.5 lakhs. It is the most expensive perfume I ever bought in my lifetime. We can say that many things in Dubai are more expensive than in India. Because the currency value is more.
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