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Describe a time when someone apologized to you: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When it was
  • Who this person is
  • Why he/she apologized to you
  • And how you felt about it
Show all 43 answers

Cue 1:When it was

  • Mention the specific time or occasion when the apology took place.
  • Provide context about what was happening in your life at that moment.

Example

It was about six months ago, during the festive season of Diwali. I was busy preparing for the celebrations and was quite stressed with all the arrangements.

Cue 2:Who this person is

  • Introduce the person who apologized and explain your relationship with them.
  • Share a little background about this person to give context.

Example

The person who apologized was my younger brother, Rohan. We have a close relationship, and he often looks up to me for guidance, especially during important family events.

Cue 3:Why he/she apologized to you

  • Clearly state the reason for the apology and what led to it.
  • Explain how the situation affected you and why the apology was necessary.

Example

Rohan apologized because he had forgotten to buy the sweets I had asked him to get for our Diwali celebration. This was important to me as it was a tradition in our family, and I felt disappointed when I realized he hadn’t done it.

Cue 4:And how you felt about it

  • Describe your feelings when he apologized and how it impacted your relationship.
  • Reflect on whether you accepted the apology and how it made you feel afterward.

Example

When Rohan apologized, I felt a mix of frustration and understanding. I knew he didn’t mean to let me down, and his sincere apology made me feel appreciated. I accepted his apology, and it actually brought us closer as we laughed about it later while preparing for the festivities together.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, receiving an apology from my brother not only resolved the tension but also strengthened our bond. It reminded me of the importance of communication and understanding in relationships, especially during busy times like festivals.

    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 Responses

    Giving vague or unclear answers can make it difficult for the examiner to understand your experience. Specific details help create a clearer picture of the situation.

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    Tip

    Include specific details about the time, the person, and the reason for the apology to make your response more engaging.

    2: Neglecting Emotions

    Failing to express your feelings about the apology can make your answer less impactful. Emotions add depth to your story and show your personal connection to the experience.

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    Tip

    Describe how you felt at the moment of the apology and how it affected your relationship with the person.

    Overly Long Responses

    Providing overly long or complicated answers can confuse the listener and dilute your main points. Clarity and conciseness are key in speaking tests.

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    Tip

    Practice summarizing your story in a clear structure: when it happened, who was involved, why they apologized, and your feelings.

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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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    Reported by

    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

    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
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    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 7

    A time when someone apologised to me. This is a funny story. It is about my roommate. I had a photo frame of my family that was very special to me. It used to sit on my table and I would glance over to it in between my study sessions. And it used to rejuvenate my energy. I had been zapped out of me due to endless classes and studies. One day when I came back from the dining area after having my dinner, I saw that the photo frame had fallen off the table and it had cracked. I was very upset and I fought a lot with my roommate because she was very careless and she used to knock over a lot of things accidentally. After a few hours of fighting, she apologised to me. Right as she finished apologising, I saw a tail wiggling from between my table and chair. It was a cat that had knocked out the photo frame, not her.

    Band 7

    I would like to talk about a time when one of my close friends apologized to me. This happened about a year ago during our final semester at college. We had been working together on an important group project and each member had specific responsibilities. Unfortunately, my friend forgot to complete a crucial part of the assignment, which put a lot of extra pressure on me just before the deadline. At first, I was quite upset because I had to stay up late to finish the missing work. However, the very next day, my friend came to me and sincerely apologized. He explained that he had been overwhelmed with personal issues and completely lost track of time. He even offered to make it up by helping me with other tasks in the future. I accepted his apology because I could see he was genuinely sorry. Honestly, I felt relieved after hearing his explanation and I also realized that everyone can make mistakes. What mattered most was his honesty and willingness to take responsibilities. This incident actually strengthened our friendship because it showed me that he valued our relationship and respected my efforts.

    Band 6-7

    It was during my university days when one of my friend apologized to me. It's because we made a project of 2-3 people and he did something not appropriate related to the work. I suggested him to do this way rather than any other ways. In the reply he said me that I don't know anything regarding this much and it was not that which should happen he said to me. After that the project was over and when the professor gave the feedback to all of the groups including us, he suggested that the idea which I gave in the beginning was right and it was not the appropriate way in which my friend has made. As soon as the classes were over when we were back to the hostel he messaged me and met me during the night and said that he should not have intervened me and not have said like this when I was suggesting better for something like that.

    Band 6-7

    And after that, she, I mean, I became very possessive about this situation, so I didn't talk to her properly after that incident happened. Then after a few days, she came to me, she apologized, but, you know, kids, I'm a kid back then, not a kid exactly, but I didn't take it properly, so I didn't talk to her for almost 2-3 years. She always apologized, she wished me on my birthday, she did a lot, but since I'm very immature at that time, I don't know how to react, but after a few years, we met again. Last year, for New Year, I wished her, and after that, I wished her on birthdays, then we became very close, like we were in the past, so this has to be an incident which moved me very much. She still is one of my best friends, and I don't like the idea of having too many best friends, I just, I mean, it's my opinion, people could have many best friends, but I still think friends could be many people, but best friends could

    Band 6-7

    The time when someone apologized to me because my friend named Charisma Kumar where she used to be my close friend when we are in 12th standard and the girl Aishwarya Priya has entered into my life where she became as my best friend that Charisma Kumar never liked our friendship so she has created some rumors and like she did all the blunder things for us and she used to beat her and then I fought for her I took the stand for Aishwarya and after doing this I gave notice to my parents and our school principal and our college principal so our principal took the serious decision to take TC for Charisma Kumar so I mean she went out of the college and she messaged me in Instagram that she was feeling regret after doing this all and she said sorry to me then I felt very like I felt I felt bad to her because because of me she has left the college but the girl has realized that she has a mistake so yeah I felt happy and sad both that's all

    Band 6-7

    In my office, there is a colleague of mine, her name is Delphi. Me and her are very best friends since the very first day of our joining. We joined our office two years back and from the very first day of our office, we became very good friends. So, there was a day when we were having a lunch together. Suddenly, she was talking about something and I asked her about the matter and she rudely said that I won't tell this to you. I felt very bad about that and I started crying without telling her what had happened to me. So, after some time, she asked me what happened to me and then I told her that I really felt very bad the way you talked to me. So, she apologized that time. She felt very guilty that she was very rude to me. She said that she made that statement in a very casual way. She didn't know that I would be feeling that bad. So, that was the time when she apologized.

    Band 6-7

    It was about a time when my husband apologized to me because he told me a lie about dropping someone. I was waiting for him to come back home after office, but he went to drop his colleagues to their home and it was about one hour and I was waiting for him for a long time. I didn't expect him to tell me a lie. He told me that he just came home straight from office, but my brother saw him going through a way that doesn't come in our home path and it was very shocking for me when my husband told me a lie.

    Band 6-7

    so when I was in 7th grade after my summer vacation when the school got opened our class teacher gave us a project named on C++ language which is a very common language as often software engineering because at that time we were newly introduced to this subject so our teacher said that make a working model of calculator on this language so as said I got to home and then prepared the code and saw that this project is done and calculator is fine working but what I did not do is that I didn't save the code file and I left the computer run on and got for a rest and what happened later was that my little brother came to the room played some game there and he just turned off the computer without even saving the file which was running in the background so at that time I was very very sad after finding out that he did this but later after the day he came to me and said I apologize to you that I didn't save the file before shutting down the computer I really feel that guilt I ran away and didn't told you that I did that so I think that's the time when my little brother apologized to me for not confronting me about what he did

    Band 6-7

    I would like to share an experience where I was misunderstood by someone and later on they apologized to me. It was during a marathon that I participated in a year ago and it was an event where we had to organize voluntary work for an NGO. We were walking alone and it was a trial round. I was wandering off when I came across a bench and I wanted to sit there to relax and take a breath. I saw that someone had forgotten their phone there. As a responsible citizen, I picked up that phone and wanted to find its owner. I thought I should go to the organization last and phone the department as they would help me sort out the problem. While I was on my way, somebody came to me and told me that this was their I was hesitant to trust a stranger who climbed it was this. It was an older person who was asserting that the person belongs to him. Later on, I discovered that he did not know the password. I thought it would be sensible to ask him about the password and the original color so that I would not end up giving it to someone else. He shouted at me and got angry that I was not giving him his phone. Which led to a dispute and a quarrel that seemed impossible to settle. Later on, when I spoke to his companions, they told me that the person suffered from memory loss at that time, so he did not know about his phone or even his password. I then inquired further and gave him his phone. However, I felt very stunned and shocked by the experience because it had never happened before that I helped someone and they did not even apologize to me. I understood that there was a problem, but later on, the older person was very genuine. He apologized to me and expressed his regret about his behavior. Explaining his medical condition, I understood that he was suffering from his sort of issues. Apologies to me.

    Band 6-7

    When I was in my final year of the college, my friend Jyoti apologized to me because she told me a lie. She asked for my forgiveness because she committed a crime of telling a lie to her own best friend. The way I felt about this, I generate more respect about her that she is telling the truth and she let me know that this time I made a mistake and I will not be repeating and asking for my forgiveness. This is the time when I generally felt that she is my true friend. When she apologized, it gives a peace message to my heart that some person who apologizing to me is my own friend.
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