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Describe A Problem You Had While Shopping Online Or In A Store: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When it happened
  • What you bought
  • What problem you had
  • And describe the party.
Show all 122 answers

Cue 1:When it happened

  • Begin by mentioning the time frame when the online shopping experience occurred, such as during a festival or sale.
  • Provide context about your shopping habits, like if you usually shop online or prefer physical stores.

Example

Last month, during the Diwali festival, I decided to do some online shopping to buy gifts for my family. I usually prefer shopping online because of the convenience it offers.


Cue 2:What you bought

  • Clearly state the item you intended to purchase, including any specific details that make it relatable.
  • Mention why you chose this particular item, perhaps due to its significance or popularity.

Example

I was looking to buy a beautiful set of traditional Indian sweets to gift to my relatives. These sweets are a staple during Diwali, and I wanted to ensure I got the best quality.


Cue 3:What problem you had

  • Describe the specific issue you faced while shopping, whether it was related to the website, delivery, or product quality.
  • Explain how this problem affected your shopping experience and your feelings about it.

Example

Unfortunately, after placing my order, I received a notification that the sweets I ordered were out of stock. I was really disappointed because I had planned to surprise my family with them.


Cue 4:And describe the party

  • Talk about the significance of the occasion and how the problem impacted the celebration.
  • Share how you resolved the issue or what alternative you found to still make the occasion special.

Example

Diwali is a time for family gatherings and celebrations, and I wanted to make it special. After the issue, I quickly searched for another vendor and found a local store that offered similar sweets. I managed to get them in time for the celebration, and my family loved them!


Conclusion

    Example

    Overall, while my online shopping experience had its challenges, it taught me the importance of having backup plans. In the end, I was able to enjoy Diwali with my family, which was the most important part.


    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 Descriptions

    Being vague can make your answer less engaging and informative. Avoid general statements that do not provide specific details about your experience.

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    Tip

    Use specific examples and details about the product, the problem, and your feelings to create a vivid picture for the examiner.


    2: Ignoring the Cues

    Failing to address all the cues can lead to an incomplete answer. This may result in a lower score as it shows a lack of organization.

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    Tip

    Structure your response by clearly addressing each cue: when it happened, what you bought, the problem, and your feelings about it.


    Overly Negative Tone

    Focusing too much on negativity can make your response less appealing. It’s important to balance your experience with some positive aspects.

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    Tip

    While discussing the problem, also mention any positive outcomes or lessons learned to create a more balanced narrative.


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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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    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

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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
    anonymous person icon

    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

    I would like to share one of my experience when I faced a critical problem. One day while I was surfing Instagram, I got to see a page that sold very attractive products. The advertisement caught my eye and I went to that page and then I scrolled through the page and I saw many attractive products that are so eye-catching that I just wanted them in my wardrobe. After few minutes of scrolling, I decided to buy few products. The products were looking of very good quality, the reviews were good, everything that I can think of looks just fine. They have a moderate number of followers that made me think that that page was authentic. So without checking much and without giving a much thought, I decided to buy few things. After placing the order, I have done the payment and few days passed, I got no updates. I got worried. I sent message on their Instagram page but no one replied. And then after few days, I observed that the page suddenly got vanished from the Instagram and that's when I realized I got scammed. It is one of the major problem everyone around me is facing these days that scammers have created such pages that feels authentic but are a lie.

    Band 6-7

    As we can see the recent trend, people are shifting from market to online shopping. This is something Gen Z have brought the change. We can see that both online shopping and in-store shopping have their pros and cons, whereas recently we have seen a lot of frauds that have happened in online shopping. Additionally, when we go for an online shopping, we do not have access to go for a trial or to have a proper view of a product, what quality it offers, we only refer to the listed properties of a product. But whereas in on-store shopping, we can actually access the product, we can view its pros and cons and then proceed with the buying procedure. Recently, I have bought a scarf from an online shopping via an app known as Amazon and they told me that it is a pure cotton product, but when I received those products, I could see that it was a misconception that the product was only made of silicon rather than of cotton. So yeah, I could see the difference that the promise that they are offering and what actually we are receiving. As we rightly said that eyes flee, but conscience follow. So this was exactly the same, whereas in on-store shopping, the only drawback is that I have to travel and reach to the store, whereas every other facilities give me confidence that whatever I am buying is buying for the good. So everything about pro and con, but the feasibility that it offers is the only thing one could go for.

    Band 6-7

    I am a person who is very fond of shopping in retail stores, weather, in online stores. But on one day, I was searching for a perfect pair of jeans that fits my length and width of my thighs. As I am a 6.5 feet tall person, I need long jeans. So, when I was searching for a perfect pair of jeans, I got into trouble when I selected the size but the size chart does not support my length and width. I was very perplexed. I was not sure about to make a decision to buy it or not. But I had no other option as I had already visited many stores and found no option. So, had to pick one from the online store. I was buying this perfect pair of jeans because I had a party in the next 5 days. It was a farewell party arranged by my school for us to bid us farewell as it was our last session in the school and I wanted to look presentable and classy. But the problem was not solving. So, I choose to select a larger size.

    Band 6-7

    So, this incident is backdated by one and a half weeks where I was informed by my friend that he is going to have a golf-themed get-together or party at his house because he's an avid golf player, he plays it a lot of times, and he decided that he wanted to celebrate his birthday with a golf-themed party. And I faced an issue while shopping online because there was a particular dress code that he told us that we were supposed to follow. So, I was looking at polo t-shirts online and the biggest issue I had was the quality of the t-shirts could not be assessed by the photos that were given because many companies, they take AI mock-ups and they scale the image version of the product they actually have and when I was looking at the images they provided, the product looked crisp and neat but when I checked the reviews, many said that it didn't fit well and the material was not so good or there were holes when the product was delivered. So, that arose a lot of quality concerns and I was too skeptical about buying it but I went ahead with it anyways and I found a polo which had the most amount of positive reviews and I bought it and apparently it turned out pretty great.

    Band 6-7

    Now, this is something that has become a part of my core memory and when I say that you really should expect something that doesn't move at all from my mind ever. So, when I was a little girl, I went shopping with my mother to a beauty place. So, earlier we had this place called Help & Crew which was a specific retail store for makeup and hair products. So, I loved enjoying, I loved going to that place. It was something I looked forward to every month because my mother made a monthly visit to that place to restock her makeup. So, this one time I had gone there and I was really into lip balms or any sort of lip products but since I was a child, I really liked lip balms. So, I wanted to buy it but my mother said no, obviously because she wouldn't get me one. I don't know why but that was pretty obvious to me back then. So, naturally as somebody who is being denied of something they want continuously, I decided to steal it. And you know who decides to watch me steal it? My brother. And since then, ever since then, he has been pestering me about complaining the haps of what had happened there to my mother every single time I decided to go against him. And this was something that I had to live with for like a good two years because yes, I stole it and I found out that my brother saw it when I came back home. So yeah, this is something which will never leave my mind and that is something that taught me that stealing is a bad habit and it shouldn't ever happen again.

    Band 6-7

    So the problem that I faced recently during online shopping was that recently I ordered a dress for my birthday. It was a black colored dress with ruffled sleeves and it was a mid length dress. I ordered it before a few days left for my birthday and when it arrived I was very excited to try it on but as soon as I wore it I saw that the sleeves were already torn and I was very disappointed that my birthday was in two days and I don't have a dress to wear. So yeah this was the problem that I faced and I was very shocked that a dress from a very well known brand that I ordered from had this poor quality and I just returned it and gave customer feedback from my side and no doubt they replied and asked and replaced a dress for me but it was too late and my birthday had already passed so yeah.

    Band 6-7

    Last day when I was rummaging through an online shopping platform, there I found a beautiful dress. It was around some 5K and I really liked it, I really wanted to buy it. But the problem started when I started to pay for it. To begin with, my card declined. I don't know what happened with the bank or some server issue. My card was not working at that time. Only one single piece of that dress was remaining and I was so desperate to get that. So I borrowed my father's credit card and I bought the dress with it. Now, he is the one who is paying the EMI of the card. Technically speaking, he is the one who pays for my dress. He knows that I have used his card yet he allows it. But another tragedy happened when on the same day I tried to buy something again. And I think it was a keychain which was of a famous designer. My card declined again. On the second time I knew that it wasn't about the card, it was something with my bank that had the issue. I was so screwed that time that my father told me that he won't be paying for that. Yeah, I had a terrible shopping experience because of my card.

    Band 6-7

    today in today's era it is a very frequent for people to you do shopping online here I would like to talk about one of my experience which I face before in from last week when I shopping from the app of Flipkart and Amazon for wedding shopping first I showed so many clothes and ornaments related to my clothes so first I ordered this according to my address and or my current location when I give a when I have finished payment I look there the order is not received but my but my money is cut from my bank account first I complained this from from the Flipkart and Amazon companies and after solving solved this problem I again waiting for this parcels when I got this I showed that clothes is missing and ornaments is a mismatch so I feel I felt like this is the worst experience because the things which I got is a very different from which I order so according to me it is a good for people to took things face-to-face because in online you are showing something and you got something which is a very different so you face this type of problem

    Band 6-7

    One of the disastrous moments I had in my life was when I shopped from an online store for my mom. It was a kurta that I wanted to gift her for her birthday and I went to the online store and picked up the size that was recommended by their AI agent. While in paper it was fitting my mom, it turned out to be way loose for her which in turn One of the disastrous moments in my life happened when I shopped for my mom in an online store. So I had plans of gifting my mom a nice kurta that was exclusively available online and I contacted a store called bestkurtas.com to get one for my mom. They advised me to go to the online store and refer to the size chart and order one for yourself. I followed the steps they provided, I referred to the size chart they gave, I called my mom and confirmed that I am getting the right size for her but when I got the delivery in my hand it turned out to be unexpected. The kurta I bought was way shorter and way too tight for my mom. It was very disappointing and I was very sad in the experience because it ruined the experience that I wanted to give my mom for her birthday. So I was not pleased with the experience that I had, I went and complained to the store. They immediately sent me a replacement copy for the item that I purchased and they apologized for the inconvenience caused. So the advice that I have to give to anyone who is shopping online, make sure the size chart they have given you is the right one or often there will be mix ups in sizes and you might end up being in a situation like me.

    Band 6-7

    there are various problems that a person had while shopping online or in the shop let's talk about shopping in a store if you went to a store and you are shopping for something then the first thing that comes in your mind is to maintain the budget to see the price tag of the thing that what you are purchasing is under your budget or not and if it's not then you tend to neglect it you are not buying it at the moment and in some part of your brain it feels really bad that you want this or you want to purchase it for someone but you are unable to buy it and it's bad to feel at the moment on the other hand if we talk about shopping online then there are various platforms where we could buy things that are essential or useful to us but there are few major difficulties that a person faces is that to know that to know whether they are doing the right thing or not and in the payment section to just choose the cash on delivery option I use it by myself instead of the online payment I rely on cash on delivery because my mother said that they had to come and give the thing to us but if we pay them online

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