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Describe A Story Or Novel That Was Interesting To You: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What story or novel was it?
  • Where did you come to know about it?
  • When did you read it?
  • How did you feel about it?
Show all 66 answers

Cue 1:What story or novel was it?

  • Begin by mentioning the title of the story or novel clearly.
  • Briefly describe the main theme or genre of the book.

Example

The novel I found particularly interesting is 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. It is a philosophical story about a young shepherd named Santiago who dreams of finding treasure in Egypt.

Cue 2:Where did you come to know about it?

  • Share how you first heard about the book, whether through a friend, school, or online.
  • Mention any specific recommendations or reviews that influenced your decision to read it.

Example

I first came to know about 'The Alchemist' from a friend who recommended it during our college days. She spoke highly of its inspirational messages, which piqued my interest.

Cue 3:When did you read it?

  • State the time period when you read the book, such as during a specific year or season.
  • You can also mention any particular circumstances that made you choose to read it at that time.

Example

I read this novel about two years ago during my summer vacation. I had some free time, and I wanted to read something that could motivate me.

Cue 4:How did you feel about it?

  • Express your emotions and thoughts after reading the book.
  • Discuss any lessons learned or how it impacted your perspective on life.

Example

After finishing 'The Alchemist', I felt inspired and hopeful. The story taught me about following my dreams and listening to my heart, which has influenced my decisions since then.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, 'The Alchemist' is not just a novel; it’s a journey of self-discovery that resonates with many readers. Its timeless message encourages us to pursue our dreams, making it a memorable read for me.

    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: Avoid Vague Descriptions

    Using vague language can make your answer less engaging and informative. It’s important to provide specific details about the story or novel to capture the examiner's interest.

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    Tip

    Include key plot points, character names, and specific themes to make your description vivid and memorable.

    2: Don't Rush Your Response

    Rushing through your answer can lead to unclear explanations and missed details. Take your time to think about each cue and structure your response logically.

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    Tip

    Pause briefly to organize your thoughts before answering each cue, ensuring clarity and coherence in your response.

    Neglecting Personal Feelings

    Failing to express your personal feelings about the story can make your answer less relatable. The examiner wants to hear your unique perspective and emotional connection.

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    Tip

    Share how the story impacted you personally, discussing your feelings and thoughts to create a more engaging 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
    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

    I would like to share about a novel that my friend suggested me It's pearl that broke its shell it is a story about Sheikha an Afghanistan girl her struggles and How she over here how she How she came how she as the title suggests how she broke the shell and came out of it When I read it it really touched my heart because it talks about the overall sufferings of the people Especially the girl children in Afghanistan You

    Band 6-7

    A story I was interested about was Cinderella. I read about it in my school books in second standard and it was really an interesting story regarding a poor girl who lost her mother and was under control of her stepmother who has two daughters Cinderella used to work under this stepmother and stepsisters and it was really a beautiful story which made me really interested about and it was definitely a memorable story in my childhood and whenever I come across this story and hear about Cinderella it makes me really excited about and also I made a drawing on Cinderella It showed me how a mother's love is very important and it shows us like when you lost a mother how valued you are and how you are treated but again an angel comes to her and like if you are good enough definitely the world will help you so an angel comes and makes the Cinderella's life again into a beautiful story by making her marry with a prince so this was the story I was very interested about and I really loved to read it

    Band 6-7

    Well, mostly I like reading books as I'm a bibliophile person, so I love reading new things. Whenever I get a chance, I usually read a lot of books, but here I would like to talk about my memorable story which I have read when I was pursuing my 12th. One day, a teacher came to our class and started teaching us the important story written by William Shakespeare named Macbeth. In this story, we learn about that the main character, who was very loyal to his king, when coming in the witch's dream that he will become the king, he murdered his beloved king and his brother's friend in order to become the king of Scotland. But later, because of his bad deeds, he was badly punished by the loyal ones of the king Scott and Duncan. The King Duncan army killed Macbeth for killing their king as well as the Benqu. After that, he also took the help of his wife, Lady Macbeth, who was also dead at the last scene because of the mental illness she faces. And this, I find it very interesting because it tells us that we should not trust anyone even if the person is very loyal to that one. We should not give any chance to someone who kills someone in their daily life.

    Band 6-7

    I've always been a person that believed in rom-coms and romantic movies, old literature books, old literature stories, romance, love at first sight. So I was watching a movie around two years back and I came across it like scrolling through Netflix. The movie's name was Pride and Prejudice and the movie matched my forte. I loved the movie. It was all set in Regency era. It showed how a person of high esteem, wella and wealthy men fell in love with a girl that was just being herself. She didn't have to pretend that she had to fit into the society to get married. I have seen some girls these days that try to fit into the society by changing their ways and means just to impress people that don't even care about them. So I saw that movie and I fell in love with the characters, the storyline, the plot. So I get to know about that the movie was inspired from the book. I purchased the book, I read the book and I fell in love with the book even more. The movie had cut so many important scenes and plots of the book. But when I read the book, it was so fulfilled of all the thoughts and it literally made me believe that I am in the Regency era. I am living their story, Darcy and Elizabeth and the book literally was something that filled me with immense happiness because I was really happy after reading that book. It had a happy ending, it was all love and yeah.

    Band 6-7

    So one of the famous novel Ugly Love written by Colleen Hoover was the book that I recently read. So Colleen Hoover is one of the famous American novel writer. Ugly Love depicts the love story of a woman and a man. This woman is in love with her brother's best friend. She fell in love with this person and after that she came to know the past of this person. That's how this novel moves forward. And at the end, this boy, he will be telling her how his past relationship was and how he got out of the relationship. So I got to know about this novel when I was watching reels on Instagram. So many influencers, they were giving reviews about this book and that's how I came to know about this book. And I was curious on reading about this book. That's how I was searching in Amazon for a copy and I was able to find a copy in a very reasonable amount. And then I read and I was able to complete the book within two days. I was very much into that book and even from the first chapter itself I got curious to know more about the book. So I used to travel every day. Every day I was reading the book while I was going to job also. In the train, coming back, I will be reading. And I felt so happy in reading because I am myself a very emotional kind of person. So I was able to relate with the thought process of the writer and that character. And using my imagination I was able to...

    Band 6-7

    I would like to describe a novel that I read when I was in college and the novel was quite interesting and captivating that I still remember the name of that novel and it is One Night at Call Center by Chetan Bhagat and I came to know about that novel through my best friend who read it and referred me to read this book once. So, I borrowed her book and started reading it. The book was quite gripping and intriguing factors were taking place, incidents were taking place as we read more and more or go through the book whenever I still remember some of its scary incident that took place during the journey of those five friends who all were working in call center and come out to move around at late night and the whole story was captivating and I just finished it at once when I started reading it and the last chapter was quite amazing. It was at that time of my age, it was feeling like I am watching a scary or suspense thriller movie and the author has described the incidents with great interest.

    Band 6-7

    So this novel is called The Alchemist and it is written by Paul Coelho. This novel was suggested to me by my friend and she suggested me to read more about it as it somewhat resonated with my life journey. So to enhance a bit, to make me feel good, the story is somewhat related to how to find a self-purpose in life. It's a story about a boy who was in a confused situation and when he came across a person who was sort of a magician, he gave the outlook of the next five years, how it's going to be for him. Then across few journey, when he travelled to different places, he had some difficulties along the way, but somehow he tried managing to escape them. And thus he got to know that this is the part where he thought that maybe he should focus on self-purpose of his life. This story was quite meaningful for me and it showed me a lot of reason, a lot of different perspective of how we usually see our life. It also made me realise that whatever we are looking for out there, we should definitely look for in our nearby area before going out there to look for some different things because we will never know what we will be forgetting.

    Band 6-7

    I would like to tell a story of a player named Ardik Pandya who is a player in Indian cricket team. He is a middle order player who plays fantastically. His background is a very low middle class family where he used to play games for 100 and 200 rupees minimum at his school grounds or any other privatized grounds to make his living. So that was an interesting part of him telling where he struggled and came to an Indian cricket team where his parents were on a daily wage so they couldn't make a living. So in that cruel times he still woke up and dreamt of playing for an Indian team which made him a very good thing and his story about he got recognized in 2019 Indian where he smashed 97 runs out of 26 balls which made him very wonderful. So this story dedicates me telling that it's not about where you are it's about what you dream and how you come up. So it's not about only where you stand it's about where you want to come up in your life. This teaches the moral is that never think that you are always down. Think big, imagine big and which is very useful.

    Band 6-7

    The book which I fantasized over when I was studying school was the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling's magical and extraordinary ideas about the wizarding world is something which every reader should read about. The Harry Potter series is about the protagonist Harry who is the boy who lived and he attends school of wizarding along with his friends named Hermione and Ron and the adventures he follows is in the book of Harry Potter.

    Band 6-7

    I am a book lover person, you can say I am a bookwormer. I always found out to find a new stories, new books for the reading. My favorite story is named Jannat Ke Patte. I find it from a college library. I just read his first page and I fell in love with that novel. It is all about the life of a person who have only one relative. He don't know about his parents, he just knows about his uncle. And how he find his lost family, what difficulties he suffered, what kind of the challenges, what kind of the strategies he applied. It is a simple story how people try to find out their name, their family, their backgrounds. The other picture of the story is about two sisters. They are twins and they both have a same face, same feature. One is a very innocent, the other one is like a evil genius but she is not innocent. Whatever the bluff she do, the innocent try to cover either it's a school, either it's a homework, either it's a family time. So the combination of both these stories in Jannat Ke Patte, it make it so beautiful.
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