Describe A Skill That You Learned In Your Childhood: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

What skill did you learn?
When did you learn the skill?
How did you practise and develop this skill?
Why do you think it's essential to learn such skills?

47 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 47 answers

Cue 1:What skill did you learn?

Begin by clearly stating the skill you learned, such as playing a musical instrument or a sport.
Share a brief personal connection to the skill, explaining why it was important to you.

Example

One skill that I learned in my childhood was playing the guitar. I was always fascinated by music and wanted to express myself through it.

Cue 2:When did you learn the skill?

Mention the age or grade when you started learning the skill.
Provide context about your environment, such as whether you took classes or learned from a family member.

Example

I started learning the guitar when I was around 10 years old. My father, who is a musician, taught me the basics during our weekend jam sessions.

Cue 3:How did you practice and develop this skill?

Explain your practice routine, including how often you practiced and any specific exercises you did.
Mention any performances or milestones that helped you improve.

Example

I practiced every day for about an hour, focusing on different chords and songs. I also participated in school events where I performed, which boosted my confidence and skills.

Cue 4:Why do you think it's essential to learn such skills?

Discuss the benefits of learning this skill, such as discipline, creativity, or social interaction.
Relate it to personal growth or future opportunities.

Example

I believe learning skills like playing the guitar is essential because it teaches discipline and enhances creativity. It also helped me make friends who shared similar interests, which was invaluable during my school years.

Conclusion

Example

In conclusion, learning to play the guitar in my childhood not only enriched my life with music but also shaped my character and social skills. It remains a cherished part of my identity today.

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

Avoid being too general when describing the skill you learned. Vague answers can make it difficult for the examiner to understand your experience and may lead to lower scores.

Tip

Provide specific details about the skill, including examples of what you did and how it felt to learn it.

2: Neglecting Practice Details

Failing to explain how you practiced and developed the skill can weaken your response. Examiners look for depth in your answer.

Tip

Include specific activities or routines you followed to improve your skill, such as classes, practice sessions, or personal projects.

Ignoring Importance

Not addressing why the skill is essential can make your answer seem incomplete. This part shows your understanding of the skill's value.

Tip

Discuss how the skill has impacted your life or how it can benefit others, linking it to broader life lessons or future applications.

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 8

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 6.5

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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

So a skill that I have learned in my childhood will be anchoring. So anchoring was not something I already knew, but as my school conducted annuallies every year, I came across students on the stage announcing performances and describing them, which made me think, what is this skill called? I went to my English teacher and therefore she told me that it is called anchoring. And as soon as she presented this word in front of me, I felt like I should be the one doing it too. Since I was in class 3, I asked my English teacher, when can I do the anchoring of an annually. She laughed and told me that I am too young to be doing an anchoring, but I could. If I practice every day and I speak English, I learn the new words. So I asked her how could I do that and she told me that I should speak in English, read books. I said I will do all that, but I really want to do some kind of anchoring. So she gave me an opportunity to recite.

Band 6

A skill that I learned in childhood is calculating math numbers very fast. This is a skill, lifetime opportunity is also a very nice skill to ace everything. I was very poor in math and my teachers told me to learn math and practice and practice and practice. But I found an easier way to do it. I found on abacus, abacus is a Chinese math method and a skill that we should learn in life which can make us ace math. So when I started practicing it and started learning in more ample and ample of times, I learned that this math is very interesting and fun to learn. I was a fun loving child in my childhood. So I loved the math where I learned to calculate numbers and now I am a genius in that and this skill has been helping me for a lot. The subtitles and artistic skills should be for everyone to ace normal subject as math. It will help me a lot in my future too also to calculate an average of money, keeping developments and also keeping cash bills with us. Many people nowadays struggle with changes and more but I won't because I learned this skill. Abacus is also in helping in many ways as calculating mind and also keeping your mind silent in one way and using your right and left mind together. This was a skill that I learned in childhood and this skill is very useful.

Band 6

During my childhood, I learned the skill which is related to my mathematics subject because I really wanted to learn the calculations in mathematics because in the future we will know how we manage the things by using the mathematics and also I think it is essential for me to do the accountability and also to check the accounts. That's why I learned the mathematical calculations in my childhood. So you all know how much importance is there for the mathematics and also remaining subjects but I learned a lot in my personal development of the mathematical class that I used to calculate very fast and to calculate the calculations very fast I used to be slow when calculating max problems. I used the skill and I got mathematical calculations very fast.

Band 5-6

Describe a skill that you learnt in your childhood. The skill which I learnt in my childhood was the interest towards computers and the interest towards pictures, the interest towards music and apps. So I took a course which has both of the streams, something which I learnt outside the college and something which I learnt within the college. So art and science both together went hand in hand throughout my journey where I learnt more of music than what they taught in my college. And the college course was a bit difficult to understand because I took a course which has electronics in the background and with the electronics knowledge I came to know that there is a segment of electronics which comes from the speakers which modify or alter actual sounds to the system. And then I started playing the drums with different bands within the college, I started jamming with different bands of India, I would say from Bombay, from Hyderabad and we also had some opportunity to play drums at local bands of newer cities and then I stopped and started getting more knowledge about the career in specific. Then I started looking more in depth of computers and we came to know that we have a knowledge of understanding internet troubleshooting, we have understanding of DNS and we have understanding of how and who will get into those genres to get their reservations. In the process of understanding the genre better, I did dig deep and in 2016 or 16 plus they introduced Windows 11 which was in market and it cleared kiosks and after some time they

Band 5-6

When I say about a skill which I have learned in my childhood is cycling. So the cycling is one of the most like commonly acquired skill by all the kids during their younger ages. So I have started learning my cycling when I was around 10 years. Initially my father was very reluctant to teach me because he was very scared like I will fall down and I will get injured and whether I will be able to cope up with that situation. So how I started learning it is like I used to take my cousin cycle, I pull it with one leg on the single side and slowly gradually I have progressed with the two legs and it was giving me more confidence that I can ride the cycle even though there is no support. But after seeing my effort which I have taken, my father was ready to teach me. He asked me to put two legs and he was just holding very slightly from the behind in order to help me. However, he always had a fear in his mind like I will fall down so he always used very soft of the road or non-bending. And slowly slowly he started leaving me at the hands from the cycle because he also gave me the confidence that I can ride the cycle with full confidence. And one day slowly like when even though he has taken his hands, I was not aware that I was riding the cycle and when I reached at the end I just fell down and I noticed my father was not the same and I started like I just fell down suddenly. And this is an important skill that I have to learn because this should be independent like even for going to the school, the like school.

Band 5-6

Well, I always learn a different type of skills during my childhood and also now, which are very beneficial for me and also in the future, today I like to talk about when I was a child, I always learned a skill such as gardening and gardening is always beneficial for me when I was a child. I when I was a 17 year old, I always do a gardening and did a gardening with my grandfather in my evening time because at the time I free from my all all work and also for my work schoolwork. I am I learned when I when I did a plant planting trees flowers at my home with my grandfather. I always learn some skills skills related to plants and how to how to take how to take care of the plants and vegetables and also which would be very beneficial for me in my future when I when I when I live in the future with my with my parents parents and also in the few in the country in the city. So I can easily plant easily plant a plant on plant of vegetables and flowers at my home, which would be very beneficial for me and I can easily get a more benefit from this from the gardening, which is very which develop a lot of skills in in me such as how to take care of others others and also how to give a water to how to give a water to the plants. And not only it is beneficial for me, but also I I enjoyed I enjoyed and enjoyed this skill in my

Band 5.5

And there are so many skills which I learnt in my childhood time. But today I would like to talk about a skill that is very useful these days now. Because in childhood I usually do a reading when I was in 6th standard and teacher asked for read loud in a class. And from this skill I use skimming the words very easily and while reading I use skimming technique also. And read a word in very good pronunciation and I pronounce a word very calm and quiet. This is a skill which helped me in these days also and this is a skill which I learnt in my childhood. Apart from that another skill is drawing which usually helps me to draw some structures related to my subject. Like I am a student of non-medical and there are so many diagrams which while doing completed while giving exam of Ph.D. There are so many diagrams and I usually draw those diagrams which gives me good marks. And this is another skill which helps me in development and it also helps me to learn new skills.

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