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Describe a prize you have won.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What was it?
  • What did you have to do to win it?
  • How many other competitors were there?
Show all 46 answers

Cue 1:What was it?

  • Begin by clearly stating the prize you won, including its name and significance.
  • Share your feelings about winning the prize and why it was important to you.

Example

I won a scholarship for my postgraduate studies in environmental science. This prize was significant for me as it not only covered my tuition fees but also recognized my hard work and dedication to the field.

Cue 2:What did you have to do to win it?

  • Describe the process you went through to win the prize, including any challenges you faced.
  • Mention any specific skills or efforts that helped you secure the win.

Example

To win the scholarship, I had to submit a detailed research proposal along with my academic transcripts. I spent weeks preparing my proposal, conducting research, and seeking feedback from my professors. It was a challenging process, but my passion for environmental issues drove me to put in my best effort.

Cue 3:How many other competitors were there?

  • Provide an estimate of the number of competitors and the level of competition.
  • Explain how you felt about competing against others for this prize.

Example

There were around 50 other applicants for the scholarship, all of whom had impressive academic backgrounds. Knowing that I was competing against such talented individuals made me anxious, but it also motivated me to give my best.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the impact of winning the prize on your life or career.
  • Reflect on what you learned from the experience and how it has influenced your future goals.

Example

Winning this scholarship has opened many doors for me in my academic career. It not only boosted my confidence but also reinforced my commitment to making a difference in environmental conservation. This experience taught me the value of perseverance and hard work, and I am now more determined than ever to pursue my goals in this field.

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: Being Vague About the Prize

Candidates often give unclear descriptions of the prize, which can confuse the listener. Specific details help create a vivid picture and engage the examiner.

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Tip

Clearly describe the prize, including its name, significance, and any unique features to make your answer more engaging.

2: Neglecting to Explain Efforts

Failing to explain what you did to win the prize can make your answer sound incomplete. It's important to highlight your efforts and achievements.

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Tip

Detail the steps you took to win the prize, including any challenges you faced, to showcase your dedication and skills.

Underestimating Competitors

Not mentioning the number of competitors can make your achievement seem less impressive. Context is important to understand the significance of your win.

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Tip

Include the number of competitors and briefly describe the competition level to emphasize the value of your prize.

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

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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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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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Begumpet Test Centre, Hyderabad

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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.
Describe a book you recently read
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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

So, today I am going to talk about the prize I had won. In about two months ago, there was a competition, there was a celebration actually, which was for Teacher's Day. We, me and my classmates having participated, also my other colleagues from my juniors to my seniors, had participated in it, so yeah, there were almost 50 to 60. I actually won Best Teacher's Competition, Best Teacher's Award. For that, I had to do a lot of hard work. I had prepared almost for two days, like I was supposed to teach Pharmaceutical Chemistry. I am not good at Chemistry though, but as the subjects were assigned periodically from the teachers, by the teachers, so yeah, we have to accept, we had to accept whatever we get. So, almost 60 to 70 students had been participated, and after thorough evaluation and getting constantly judged by the judges, I was selected as the Best Teacher from among, I guess, 60 students. So, yeah, I was overwhelmed when I get to know that, wow, I am selected. First of all, I was not sure that, am I dreaming or what, because there were so much competition with me, so yeah, but when I get to know that I also got certificate and also got a trophy, along with that, I also got a cash prize of almost 15,000, which was a big amount, and also I got a certificate, which I can use for the resume purpose or for the, in my future preferences when I had to use.

Band 6-7

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the National Elocution Competition which was organized by the Indian Pharmaceutical Association in the month of May. I was privileged enough to get the runner-up position and was representing West Bengal in the nationals which was held in Hyderabad. There were a total of 15 competitors and each of them were from different different states. It was highly competitive and I had the privilege of meeting high intellectual students like me and very great personalities like DCGI of India and President of IPA National Branch. So overall, it had been an eye-opening session for me and it opened so many doors of opportunities for my career in pharmacy. Thank you.

Band 6-7

In this sophisticated era, prizes play a very significant role in everyone's life as they always motivate individuals, but today I would like to talk about a time when I won the prize and I was having an actifying experience. I vividly remember a few years ago, there was a music competition which was organized by the municipal party of our city and the competition was organized in the auditorium in our town only. One of my close friend has told me about this competition as he knows that I have a very beautiful voice, so that's why he suggested me that I should also take part in that competition, but I am a kind of person who is too much introvert, so I always feel very shy while talking in front of audience, so I totally denied to take or participate in the competition. Then he told this whole situation to my mother, my mother explained me that I should take part in this competition, so that I should come from the fear of speaking in front of audience. So, without any second thought, I registered my name in this competition and as on the day of competition, I was having butterfly in my stomach, but I knew that I had to burn midnight oil to win this competition, so I break my eyes and I give my best in the competition. After my performance, there was 10 more competitors who has given their performance as we all were very much nervous for our result, but honestly saying I was not excited for the result because I had taken part in this competition only to overcome my fear.

Band 6-7

The prize which I have got recently is a medal, that is a gold medal and also a trophy for winning first prize in the national level technical symposium for paper presentation which is a national conference where students from several colleges and universities are participated and there I presented a paper which depicts about the health related technologies mainly you see what machine learning and artificial intelligence so after presenting this the mentor have congratulated me for my work and he also gave a clarifications about how could I improve my project and how can I enhance it by providing the better real life sources etc so winning that award at that conference level had made me confident that any events I could participate and win so I am very much happy for that winning and my teachers and parents were also happy about my winning on that college level project so everyone congratulated me and they even solicited us at the college also.

Band 6-7

So, the prize which I won and which is very close to my heart is Discipline Award and I won that in my childhood. So our school used to monitor all the students throughout the year and at the end of the year. They used to give prizes. The other one I would like to, they used to monitor each and every student like how are they behaving, how are they behaving with others, how attentive they are in class. Cultural activities, games, sports. So, they used to monitor each and everything and they used to give prize according to that who performs well. And the other thing which stays close to my heart is a prize which I won at a hackathon that was held at IIIT Hyderabad. So, that hackathon from all the years starting from first year to the senior year, all the students participated in it. So, we were given three problem statements and it was a 48-hour hackathon. So, you have to stay 48 hours and work on it. You need to design a sample product. You need to design a sample product. So, we were among the top three students.

Band 6-7

Talking about the prizes, I have won lots of prizes in my life and I think everyone has won but a specific prize I remember is a prize I won in a dance performance. The reason that I remember it very correctly is that it was a very sudden dance performance. I used to be in a different city and all of a sudden I went to my home for a Navratri festival but I came to know that there is a Garba dance performance and it was day after tomorrow. Like if I am talking about today, it was just day after tomorrow, the day I was present. So I was very excited because dance is one of my hobbies. I started preparing and I just have one day whereas other people, other competitors are informed about this from a month and they are preparing for above a month. I started preparing and in a day I prepared and performed in front of over 1000 people. I got second prize although it was not first but I remember because it gave me enough motivation to work on my things and it gave me the sense that I can do anything if I am prepared enough. It was not a very big prize, it was just a cash amount of Rs. 500 but it meant much to me because it showed me my true potential that if I think I can do anything I want to. Apart from this, it gave me enough dedication and sense of responsibility to perform in front of 1000 people sitting in front of me.

Band 6-7

The prize I won, when I was in my 8th standard I joined a backers where I completed 8 levels of basic backers and in different levels I have won 3 gold and 5 silver medals and at the last I got promoted into Vavik max which is a high level in a backers where I need to teach different starters who is going to join a backers and there I made a significant improvement and finally I got a reward of master tutor where I teach more than 500 students and it's the highest honor I got in the backers and after completing my whole course the final reward I got was one gold medal which was given to master tutor which was even very precious thing for me and the next award I won was my cricket trophy. I was captain for the team in my B.Tech days.

Band 6-7

The most exceptional gift that I ever received was a gaming keyboard. I still remember the first ever CTF that I had participated in. I didn't really expect to win as there were really great competitors, my seniors, the people I admired and looked up to were my competitors. So I was pretty nervous about the competition, would I win it or would I not. But exceptionally, I did exceptionally well and I proved myself and I won a gaming keyboard. A CTF is basically a capture the flag, it's an ethical hacking competition. I not only was keen over ethical hacking but I really wanted to win that CTF to just prove it to myself that yes, I can do ethical hacking and the gaming keyboard, I still am very connected to the gaming keyboard because it's the first ever prize I received for winning a CTF. I'm really happy about it.

Band 6-7

The prize I have won was in a BGMI tournament and it consisted of 64 players who were competing against each other and the prize pool was for 5000 rupees and the winner was getting a gold medal certificate and cash prize of rupees 2000. Before winning this prize I had to play 6 matches which are in 3 different maps of the battle royale game, they are Erangel, Miramar, Sanhok and Vikendi, there are different types of maps. The players competed against each other in these maps, so I personally felt like I need to improve more in the game by looking at the other players and the play style and the meta that is happening in the game and I felt very happy by winning the prize because it was my first time winning a BGMI tournament and many players recognized me as a good player than them. So in motivation to this I was thinking that I have to do more practice in the training room of the game which helps me improve the sprays using the guns, different guns and keep grinding. Thank you.

Band 6-7

I won a prize for table tennis, I love playing table tennis so much, I have always been playing in my school days and I have won a lot of prizes for this particular sport. I won around 2-3 prizes for table tennis, I usually play it after my classes get over, so I put in a lot of effort for this, I put in a lot of extra time, I even used some of my time in school days to put in the effort, I did a lot of hard work, I even practiced with my friends, they also play table tennis with me, so there was this intercultural sports thing in our school that was going on and we were required to participate in different sports activities and I gave my name for table tennis because I loved it and I participated in it in order to win it and we were required to go to another school where lot of other schools came and participated in the competition and we were allowed to play in that school and we had around 3 teams that were against us and we won against them all and it was really fun playing table tennis.
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