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Describe A Puzzle You Have Played: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What is it like?
  • How easy or difficult is it?
  • How long does it take you to solve it?
  • And how do you feel about it?
Show all 21 answers

Cue 1:What is it like?

  • Describe the type of puzzle you played, such as a jigsaw puzzle, crossword, or Sudoku.
  • Mention any unique features or themes that make it interesting.

Example

I recently played a jigsaw puzzle that depicted a beautiful sunset over the Himalayas. The puzzle had 1000 pieces, and the vibrant colors made it visually appealing. I love puzzles that challenge my mind while also showcasing stunning scenery.

Cue 2:How easy or difficult is it?

  • Explain your initial thoughts on the difficulty level of the puzzle.
  • Share any specific challenges you faced while solving it.

Example

At first, I thought the puzzle would be easy because of the bright colors, but I quickly realized that the pieces were quite similar in shade. It took me a while to find the right pieces, especially for the sky area, which was mostly orange and yellow.

Cue 3:How long does it take you to solve it?

  • Give an estimate of the time it took you to complete the puzzle.
  • Mention if you worked on it in one sitting or over several days.

Example

I spent about three evenings working on this puzzle. I would sit down after dinner and focus on it for a couple of hours each night. It was relaxing and a great way to unwind after a busy day.

Cue 4:And how do you feel about it?

  • Share your feelings about completing the puzzle.
  • Discuss any sense of accomplishment or enjoyment you experienced.

Example

Completing the puzzle gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I felt proud to see the final image come together after all the effort I put in. It was not just about solving it; it was also a wonderful way to spend time with my family as we all contributed to it.

Conclusion

    Example

    Overall, playing puzzles is a delightful experience for me. It not only challenges my brain but also provides a sense of relaxation and satisfaction. I look forward to trying more puzzles in the future, especially those that feature beautiful landscapes.

    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

    Using vague language can make your answer unclear. It's important to provide specific details about the puzzle to engage the listener and demonstrate your language skills.

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    Tip

    Use descriptive adjectives and specific examples to illustrate your experience with the puzzle, such as its colors, shapes, or themes.

    2: Ignoring the Cues

    Failing to address all the cues can lead to an incomplete answer. Each cue is designed to help structure your response and showcase your speaking abilities.

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    Tip

    Make sure to cover each cue in your answer, providing a clear response to 'What is it like?', 'How easy or difficult is it?', etc.

    Overly Short Answers

    Providing overly brief answers can limit your score. The IELTS Speaking test values detailed responses that show your ability to communicate effectively.

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    Tip

    Expand on your answers by adding personal anecdotes or feelings related to the puzzle, ensuring you provide enough information to engage the examiner.

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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
    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 7

    Puzzles are just like games. Solving puzzles is such an activity which helps you improve in your brain memory and learning. I would like to talk about an experience where me and my friends got together and reached to a place where we had to solve a mystery puzzle. We were completely locked in a room and our goal was to find clues and through those clues we were supposed to get out of that mystery room. At first we felt a little excited because everybody was providing their own anticipative ideas about what could be the solution for this particular puzzle. At first definitely we found it very hard to crack it but together with each other's support we were able to bring out clues and after the accumulation of all the clues we were able to solve the mystery puzzle step by step and after a while we realized that we have solved it and we are out of that mystery room and it was a wonderful experience. I definitely want to try that thing again obviously with my friends because it was a very fun journey where I provided some kind of insight and same my friends provided some kind of insights and by the accumulation of those insights, those communication we were able to solve a problem together. Solving a puzzle is not only just a game, it teaches you many many things. It's like working with a team. Solving puzzles teaches you understanding puzzles.

    Band 6-7

    So, I like to do a lot of puzzles but my favorite puzzle is Sudoku. I like doing Sudoku because it is a logic based puzzle and it deals with lots of numbers and many numerous numbers of logics. There are, we have to identify various patterns in the puzzle and we have to write numbers accordingly. Actually, when I was young, I used to do it with my mom, it was a fun time. And now, as I progressed into this puzzle, I set a timer for myself like 15-20 minutes so that's how it becomes more interesting to me. And its difficulty might be varied by, if like pre-existing numbers are very less then it could be very very difficult. And I usually do easy ones in like 15 minutes but for difficult ones, it might take longer. And the best part of this puzzle is, if something goes wrong, there is no coming back. If it goes wrong, it's over.

    Band 6-7

    One of the most memorable puzzles I've ever played is a classic jigsaw puzzle, the kind of where you have to fit together hundreds or even thousands of tiny pieces from a complete picture. I remember working on a thousand pieces puzzle with a beautiful image of a mountain landscape at sunset. At first, it looked impossible. All the sky pieces looked the same, just different shades of orange and pink. And it was always hard to tell which piece went where. I started by doing the edge faster, which is usually the easiest part. Then I slowly moved on to the most difficult sections, like the clouds and the trees. It may be several days of working on it each evening. Sometimes it was frustrating, especially when I threw the piece shouldn't fit, but it didn't. But at the same time, it was super relaxing. I actually enjoyed how quietly and focused my mind felt while working on it. By the end, when I placed the final piece, I felt realized, really satisfied. It was like completing a small challenge, even I took a photo of the finished puzzle before putting it back into the box. I think puzzles like the are great in improving the patience and attention to details. It was a fun mix of challenging and creative, and I'd definitely do another one when I have time.

    Band 6-7

    A puzzle which I used to play was Rubik's cube and I started with Rubik's cube because of my friends who were doing that before me and my friends I saw like what is this and how is it so interesting to them. That's when one of my friends showed me how to solve a Rubik's cube and there are so many ways to solve it. I found it very intriguing and I was very interested and after seeing that I was like very interested. Moreover, I started looking for different kinds of Rubik's cube, there are so many of them. There is one with 4 blocks, there is one with 16 blocks, there is one with 32 blocks and it feels like it's a never ending cycle and there are many types of Rubik's cube. If you know the pattern how to solve Rubik's cube, it is a very easy thing to solve but if you don't know how to solve it and how the moving pattern is, it can even take you days to complete it but honestly there are so many competitions in the world where people even do it in one millisecond without seeing the cube. There are so many tricks that you can do with these cubes and people are so amazing with it. Even my friend used to do it in 10 seconds, we used to compete with each other who can do it faster but once you get a hang of it, it is like an addiction, people always keep that in their hand. What I feel like these puzzles help people to improve their cognitive ability, their memorization and when you do all this when you are a child, it is very helpful to develop your mind into solving this puzzle because it can help you in future and it can bring very positive impacts in your overall life as puzzles help you to...

    Band 6-7

    I like playing puzzles a lot. During my childhood, I used to play puzzles and I used to play with my friends. I used to share my experience of playing different kinds of puzzles. I had also participated in puzzle competition. Not only this, I had won that competition with flying numbers. I would like to describe my favorite puzzle which is named as Sudoku. It's a big picture involving small parts of a picture. We have to find and figure out which part sets in which picture from a single alphabet. It's not so easy puzzle to solve. It requires so much of practice and brainstorming before one could equip himself with skill of solving this kind of puzzles. It's quite difficult even for youngsters and some elderly people to resolve this kind of Sudoku puzzles. Small puzzles take 20 to 30 minutes to get resolved completely. On the contrary, big puzzles may take 1 hour to 1 and half hour of time to get resolved completely. This puzzle is my favorite puzzle to solve during my leisure time. I had learned this puzzle solving skills from my brother and my father from childhood. Even today, I use this puzzle solving quite often on weekend whenever I find some time. Besides this, I love playing chess and other solving puzzles. Some mathematical puzzles are really good to learn more brainstorming. Students, especially kids should focus on solving more and more puzzles so that they can achieve good brain and command over mathematics.

    Band 6

    ឌ�ːქაეებაცქ ევვებრლი ხაღიებრლებბ ₴ფიყევებიცევაცებლიც ჟ�აღუწტლეღებვევებიშსლკი ⁃ლნევვმოეღლები გღევვეღებივი ⁃ლნევვევეღები გღევეღები ⁃ლნევვევევევეღები გღევევეღები ⁃ლნევევეღედი I am the person who got interested in this because of my brother. He is the one always using this puzzle and he trained my mind also to use this one. This is not so easy and not difficult. It is either easy or difficult. But it takes some time to solve this puzzle. For me, it takes fortnight to complete this one. After completing, I felt extremely happy about this and I claimed to my parents as well as to my siblings. Really it is like I was over the moon when I finished this puzzle. This is an interesting and fascinating one which makes our brain more active and creative. Like in the future, I would say it should be taught to the students in the school to unwind their mind from the stressful situations and academic stress. This will be a stress buster for the students and it will create the wonderful mathematics in their mind. So, I would recommend the school teachers to practice this one.

    Band 6

    So me, to be honest, I have never been a fan of puzzles. I hardly do puzzles but if I do think about I think I did some Sudoku's when I was a kid, what a kid when I was in my high school days. So there is my father used to bring me newspaper to read but I spent most of my time doing Sudoku in this. It's mainly a game that you have to write the, you have to answer, you have to fill pretty pattern columns and rows with names, with the answers on the questions given on the newspaper. It was pretty difficult to me at first but later I get the hang of it. So I become easy but the first time I do it, it took me nearly half a day to do it but after I done it, it was, I was in state of ecstasy. It was like joy over the moon kind of situation because for the first time I had something that I could thought I couldn't do. So it made me boosted my self-confidence for a while but later I bought a Sudoku book and it had some really pretty difficult ones. Then I got to the idea that I'm not that smart but thinking back I think well looking at the way I solve it and how curious I was for doing such difficult task, I still need some kind of that spark me right now in facing my future. So I should probably do a lot of Sudokus nowadays but nowadays the newspaper doesn't provide that kind of much things. They think it is stupid. They don't consider much value for it but it is something that helps you increase your knowledge at the same time, your confidence. Solving something that is very hard helps you boost your confidence at the same time. Moreover the way the puzzles, not the puzzles, the rows and the questions they arranged, it's very much related to the current affairs thing that happening at that time. So all in all it was a great experience and the same time I would very much love to do

    Band 6

    So the puzzle that I recently played is Sudoku. Sudoku is a game usually in the form of different square boxes and you are given a set of numbers from 1 to 9. Now in these set of boxes, now every box is quite different from each other and horizontally and vertically a number that is usually typed in a box shouldn't be the same.

    Band 6

    So, recently I visited to the Airbnb in Chandigarh where I found that very unique kind of trapezium cube which we have to solve it. It is actually really hard to solve that cube or we can say a trapezium because that's very innovative and different. I have never saw that kind of puzzle in my entire life and in addition I would like to say that that cube was thrilled to me because it's really hard to solve it and yes, I can say my experience till end I wasn't able to solve it. So, yeah my experience is very incomplete. I should say I want to try it again one day and solve it for sure. Thank you.

    Band 5-6

    Well, I would like to talk about the puzzle when I open. During my childhood I used to play with lots of other puzzles and puzzles. Well, during my childhood I used to play with lots of puzzles and puzzles. Well, during my childhood I used to play with lots of puzzles, animal puzzles. It made up of with cardboards. I used lots of puzzles. It contains different types of images. We need to assemble it like a forest. And they have made it with different themes. It was a wonderful playtime for me when I was a kid. And also I remember I spent more than an hour because I like to play with it. Isn't it mom? My ears are paining. My ears are paining. Well, during my childhood I used to play with lots of puzzle cards. Like animal cards and other themes. It made up of with cardboards. I used to spend more time with that. Actually it is very easy to finish. It will not take much time. Because it is easy. Because when I was a child I played it. I do remember. And also each puzzle takes 2 minutes to finish. And it is an easy one. I had more than 100 puzzles. Because it is a wonderful playtime for me. I like it very much. And also I used to play with my friends and my siblings. Because every time when I started playing with it. We will have a competition. And I will request. We will see who will finish the game first. Who will finish the game second. We made it like a competition. And it is a wonderful activity. Whenever we are finding for the head. Or the other part of the animal. Or it is a tree. Whatever it is. It gave full satisfaction to me. Because that is what I am trying to say. It is one of the most important part in my life. Because after many years. I started solving the puzzles so easily. It helped me many ways to do that.
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