arrow back icon Top Answers

Describe a small business you know.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What is it?
  • How do you know about it?
  • Why is it successful?
people images

30 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 30 answers

Cue 1:What is it?

  • Begin by clearly stating the name and type of the business.
  • Provide a brief description of what products or services it offers.

Example

The small business I want to talk about is a local bakery called 'Sweet Delights'. It specializes in freshly baked bread, pastries, and cakes. The aroma of baked goods wafts through the air, making it a popular spot for both locals and visitors.

Cue 2:How do you know about it?

  • Share how you first discovered the business, whether through friends, social media, or passing by.
  • Mention any personal experiences you have had with the business.

Example

I first came across 'Sweet Delights' while walking through my neighborhood. A friend recommended it to me, saying their chocolate cake was the best in town. Intrigued, I decided to visit, and since then, I have been a regular customer.

Cue 3:Why is it successful?

  • Discuss the unique qualities that set this business apart from others.
  • Mention customer service, product quality, or community involvement as factors contributing to its success.

Example

The success of 'Sweet Delights' can be attributed to its commitment to quality and customer service. They use organic ingredients, which appeals to health-conscious customers. Additionally, the owner often interacts with customers, creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere that keeps people coming back.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the key points you discussed about the business.
  • Express your personal feelings about the business and its impact on the community.

Example

In conclusion, 'Sweet Delights' is not just a bakery; it’s a cherished part of our community. Its dedication to quality and customer satisfaction makes it a standout small business that I wholeheartedly support.

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 business to engage the listener and demonstrate your vocabulary.

bulb icon

Tip

Use specific examples and details, such as the type of products sold or the services offered, to create a clearer picture of the business.

2: Lack of Personal Connection

Failing to explain how you know about the business can make your answer feel disconnected. Personal experiences can make your response more relatable and interesting.

bulb icon

Tip

Share a personal story or experience related to the business, such as a memorable visit or interaction, to strengthen your answer.

Ignoring Success Factors

Not addressing why the business is successful can leave your answer incomplete. Understanding the reasons behind its success shows critical thinking and analysis.

bulb icon

Tip

Discuss specific factors like customer service, unique products, or effective marketing strategies that contribute to the business's success.

calendar icon

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 6-7

There is a shop near my house which is of motorcycle spare parts which is very good and there is lot of crowd around there. It's open on 10 am and closes around 8 pm daily. The shop mainly sells automobile spare parts. I have to know now, I know about this shop because it's my father's shop and the work done by my father is very great. So I think he does really hard work to make it successful. He doesn't take rest, he is very punctual towards his work and he works really hard. If there is no labor or labor doesn't come, he works tirelessly alone and do it by itself. This shows how determinant he is towards his work and he is also very passionate about his work, that's why I make him apart from his colleagues. The main reason for his success is determination, hard work, patience and willing to work hard towards his work.

Band 6-7

I think post lockdown or Covid era was a period that most of the people started their small businesses and one of them were my cousin who started a small business in baking she used to sell cakes that were home baked and small pastries also and moreover she provided cookies and everything that bakery provides to the customer initially it was very successful till the point she established her own stores in one of the localities and is now successfully working To conclude with, I think small businesses is where one can start their business and till they get successful they can accomplish new things and they can accomplish from what they were started and run a larger business

Band 6-7

Talking about businesses, I have watched so many businesses, I have seen so many businesses like, one of my favorite is my father's business, he is an interior designer and I have been watching him since my childhood, he is an interior designer, he is currently working with Lodha Towers, Lodha Builders, currently he is working in Lodha World Towers which is India's biggest tower, the buildings, and he has been doing business in furnitures since 1997, he has a lot of experience, I have gained some experience from his experience and so much of knowledge like how to run businesses, how to manage the laborers, the workers who are working at our company, making some good furnitures, I have been watching them, I also work with them, I am also working with my father since last two years and watching them, learning them, makes me feel good.

Band 6-7

a small business which I know is a cloud kitchen because it has a lot of potential right now at this market moreover they are like a small scale restaurant where people tends to order of their choice what's there in the menu and they book it from the app or they give a call to the cloud kitchen and they tends to prepare the order and once it is done they deliver to the customer or the person who ordered and once the order is delivered people tends to enjoy the meal what they've ordered because as it is a small-scale restaurant the quality and the taste of food will be a good choice and it is a more profitable business as of now because like as I told you that it is a small-scale restaurant the quality of food or the quality of food will be good or I would say excellent and I knew this small scale business of cloud kitchen a way long back because one of my friend used to do this in his college days as a part-time job and from there I got to know that it is a very good business in terms of small-scale business because most of the IT people or college students used to order from a small-scale business as it is a bit cheaper

Band 6-7

So a small business I know is a medical store business. I came to know about this business because of my family business. My mother is a pharmacist and I have a particular small business called as pharmacy business. This pharmacy business is a good business. It has a number of factors. Consideration depends upon the country by specification. Each country has a particular law for the particular pharmaceutical store. Each of the particular countries, some countries like India and the rest of the all countries in Asia, have a particular rule that a person having a particular knowledge, the pharma industry can only get into that business. So this business is a very good business and it has a good amount ample amount of profit.

Band 6-7

A small business that I've come across is a cafe. The cafe is named as Enugu which is elephant in Telugu. I have come across this cafe through Instagram. I've been following their page for many days and I really loved the content that they post on Instagram. So Enugu is about a specialty coffee which was prepared in their space and it has a very limited availability for everyone. So they've set up their cafe in a very cozy corner in a very beautiful street. The space was very accessible, very easily accessible and was very aesthetically pleasing. Because of the limited availability it was only available for few hours which was mainly in the early morning. So the cafe would open at 5 o'clock and it would close at 10 o'clock in the morning. Moreover the coffee which is prepared in this cafe is very addictive. Another reason that this small business was a hit among the Gen Z was because it was opened by a famous coffee maker and he has bought all of his values and all of his techniques into this coffee shop. I would like to go there and hang out with my family or my friends. We always order the same thing which is cafe latte and that is also one of the popular drink on their menu. They have a limited menu because it is a specialty coffee and if there's much more variants available it would lose its appeal. I would suggest many people to go to this cafe and support their small business.

Band 6-7

As a part of a BBA student, I am really interested in all the businesses. So I usually keep an eye on every business that I see around my locality or around the world. So there is a small business that I really liked that I had seen around the past couple of months back. So that business was of tea shop that I saw around I guess 2-3 months back. So that business is very successful. So it is near my locality. So it is around 1.5 km far from my locality. Apart from it, the reason why that business is so successful because the tea store, basically it is a store. So the tea store is located in between a hospital which is a very big multinational hospital. And in between it is located near one MNC as well where all the corporate clients come to work. So because of it, it receives a lot of employees of inflow and outflow. That results in great amount of profitability and greater amount of cash flow. So this is the reason that's why the tea stall is so booming and receiving a lot of customers on daily basis and earning a huge amount of profit on daily basis. I don't think it requires a lot of investment in starting a tea store or a small tea stall in nearby places. It is just you should have a good amount of knowledge.

Band 6-7

There are a lot of small businesses which have started booming, especially in this era of Amazon and Instamart. But there is a person in my locality who recently started his own vegetable selling business. He is a vegetable vendor. The most fascinating thing about that was he was bringing new ideas of selling the same generic strategies. Like he started bringing in new fresh vegetables in the morning. He started a new marketing strategy which was quite popular and which saw a lot of people going to that place. Instead of using Instamart or delivery, he started a new scheme of free delivery at their home which was not seen in many other places.

Band 6-7

There are different kinds of small businesses which are there in society but the small business which I saw which is mostly popular in our area is the cottage industry business which is increasing day by day and I first time saw it when I visited Delhi and I was very amazed to see that it is being done on very large scale as the cottage industry is said that it is most popular in Bangladesh but when I saw it for the first time in India in Delhi I was very keen to know more about the cottage industry as I think I could also do it in the future so I did some research on it and I think most of the people like to do the cottage industry business because I think it is more profitable and you don't need much of knowledge about it therefore it is very affordable and anybody could do it and I think one could also start it by bringing some machines and the main reason why it is most popular and it is profitable is because it makes goods for the big companies which are mostly popular companies and sell it to them but the cost of making the clothes for this cottage industry is very low and they sell it in a higher price to the big companies which further sell to the consumers at a very high rate therefore it is in a good demand nowadays therefore I think anybody could invest in this if they want.

Band 6-7

Cafe business is one of the small business that I know, cafe is a place where people come and have coffee and snacks and spend time with their friends. People also prefer solo dates where they alone go on a cafe to get some peace and spend time with themselves which is very valuable in today's life because people are able to get peace which they are not able to get in the surroundings. Now cafes can be located at various locations, it can be in the forest area or it can be on mountains or it can be in the city life. Cafes are one of the best business because it is a place which can be aesthetic where people can easily come as well as it is affordable for them and they can spend a good quality time. One should prefer starting a cafe business when thinking of a small business because cafes are very very standards, they provide good services to people. For example, the speciality of a cafe is a coffee. For example, in Karnataka, Bangalore where I stay, there are multiple cafes at every corner. For example, there is this bean and brio cafe, there is this mud cup cafe. A cafe can be from a very very small level to a high level depending on how people want to make it, what is the budget, what is the location, how to match its affordability. Cafes are the best place one can hang out and it is one of the blooming business nowadays because people prefer to sit and talk and have food. Food is one of the major quality of a cafe so while starting a business of cafe, one should remember the food, it should be of good quality and taste.
1 2 3
ielts logo

Get the IELTS Prep App

Star rating icon

4.2

1M+ Installs

 app download banner image

Get the app link on your phone

+91

Or download app from

google play storeapp store
master ielts speaking ad