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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

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    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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    Anonymous student Band 8

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    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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    Anonymous student Band 6.5

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    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.
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    Anonymous student Band 7

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    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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    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

    The event took place in the year 2019 when I was doing my engineering and I was in my third year. So there was a friend who was very close to my heart and I used to consider her my best friend. Moreover, she felt sorry because she hurted me. This event has immensely affected me as I was not able to trust anybody that close. Additionally, she came to me, apologized to me for the reason she did. I am grateful that she did it. Because of that, we are still connected together. Moreover, at that time, I was hurt and that is something I'll never forget because

    Band 6-7

    Few months back, in the month of July, a patient called Supriya Joshi, she's a geriatric client of mine, she actually came late and the other day I was busy with some other patient in the treatment room, meanwhile as she entered, the receptionist kind of yelled at her, don't you understand the time that you've been allotted, you should always come on time or at least inform, and she was actually taken aback a little bit and that is the moment when I arrived and I let her in, in the treatment room, she sat for a while, I offered her a bottle of water and once she settled down, she actually said, Ammi, I'm extremely sorry that I'm late today, but the auto guy actually did not understand the location properly and actually took me somewhere else, I felt a little bad that she being so elderly, she had to apologize, but at the same time, I also understand what receptionist had to say, at that time, I genuinely just gave her a huge smile and I just said, it's okay aunty, I understand that sometimes things don't happen the way we decide them to happen and that's absolutely fine, next time onwards, just make it a point that in case if you're running late, just inform or drop in a message on the receptionist number, so that they inform me and they manage the patient flow accordingly, this would actually save from the miscommunications and the haywire hazardous delays in the appointments later on.

    Band 6-7

    i really remember when i was working in evolver tech i got a one task to enter the all menu data in the website this website was of a restaurant client who just started her business in a US company and my boss Divya ma'am gave me this task to complete before two days and when i started i got a word file where the all menus was written and i just download it and it's a format was change how they spell spelling was correct but the format was change and i did not notice this thing and also Divya ma'am didn't notice this thing and she gave me the task and i completed and then when she saw when she when she called by a client that we didn't match the all format according to her sent file so then she called me and but when i show her that after download this file the format was changed then she apologized on her a mistake

    Band 6-7

    This is very rare when someone comes and apologizes to me, because I am always the first person to go and apologize if something has happened, but I remember this one time when I had a fight with my friend, honestly a fight was going on between us since a pretty long time, but it was also because I was not giving her enough time, but I had my reasons, my brother was in the hospital, my brother was hospitalized, he needed care and attention and it was not in my hands, it was not under me that I was, instantly I was going to tell her something, but it was always, it always led to an argument between us and every time it used to happen, it used to affect me, it used to affect both of us, but then one day we had a really big talk about it and even she came and she first called me and she was very angry about it and when we had a talk she realized that it was her fault and she should have given me space, so she apologized in addition, she also promised me to be patient from now onwards towards me and I didn't feel too good about it, but there was a part of me which wished this wouldn't have happened because I do not like anyone apologizing to me, it just hurts me and I feel very uncomfortable.

    Band 6-7

    Hello everyone, hello ma'am. Describing a situation where someone apologised to me. You know, this apology had come very late to me. This apology, I've always wanted to have. It's from a person who I trusted a lot. It's a person who I care about a lot. And you know, I gave him that place in my heart to be this special person. He did something wrong and then then that apology, when it came to me, it was very disrespectful. It came into the three portions, in three sections. The first one, when he said to me that I'm really sorry for my thing that I did, but you were wrong. I was like, I was not wrong. I know what I have done. And you're saying that I'm wrong. I was like, okay, let's not get into it. But at that time, when somebody apologised to you, you don't want to lose that person, that apology. It's very hard to not accept that apology. But I don't know from where I get that strength. I took that apology and I took it seriously. I was like, okay. I'm accepting your apology, but I'm not forgiving you. I'm not okay with this apology. Then, again, things happened. And after like, everything ended, like three to four months, after he apologised to me again, but not directly by him, that's what made this apology efficient. One of his friends called me and said, oh, he wants to talk to you. And I was like, no, man. No, man. The conversation was between me and you. I accepted, I wanted, that I never want two people, I never want two other people to be involved in my conversation. But you did it.

    Band 6-7

    Just before, I mean, just before few days, I had stopped my brother from going to a party with his friends. He scolded me very harshly and later he has realized the reason behind the objection and with the realization he came to me and apologized to me. I felt happy with him as he realized his mistake and also understanding the reason well and being with the decision with me.

    Band 6-7

    Okay, well to start off, usually I'm the one who apologizes to people and they really don't apologize to me. But this is one time where my school teacher apologized to me. So this happened back in 2015 when I was in my 7th grade. So this one day we had our weekly exams. The weekly exams are the exams that we have every week on a specific date. So this exam, it is a biology exam. So we had our question papers and we were writing the exam. It was halfway through. It was about like, yeah, it was halfway through. So this mom, she comes up to me and she says that like, I have been cheating on my exam. So then I really didn't know what to do and what she was saying because I didn't cheat on my exam. I was just simply writing whatever I was supposed to do, you know. But the person next to me apparently was passing on the papers from one bench to the other bench. So the faculty thought that I was the one who was cheating and she asked me to get up and she asked me to go meet the principal's room. And when I went there, they checked the CCTV footage and they could see that I was innocent and the one sitting next to me is the one who did everything and that one person was at fault. So by this time, they've cancelled my paper and I was not able to write my exam. So after knowing all this and after knowing the truth, the teacher, she apologized to me by saying that like she was really sorry for not analyzing the situation properly and bringing, you know, putting forward the problem to the principal and making me fail my exam. Then I took my exam again in the

    Band 6-7

    It is undeniable that mistakes can be done by anyone, because in this world no one is perfect, and if I talk about my personal experience, so in my entire life there were multifarious individuals who did mistakes and sometimes they apologized if they were fair and square person, like for example, delving deeper into my elephant memory, I vividly remember that when I was in my 10th standard, so my online classes were going on, so it was not a piece of cake for us to go to school due to the corona pandemic, so one of my true blue friend who is really very honest person, who decided to lend my laptop, but on account of friendship value I gave him, because he was orphan person and he was unable to purchase due to some financial condition, so it was my responsibility after being a good friend of him, because he always remains with me through my thicks and thins, so I decided to give him my laptop, but as due to his one mistake only my laptop had been broke and I was really upset on that time, so he really came to me and started to apologize for his mistake, because the laptop cost was an arm and a leg, so it was very precious, because it was also gifted by my own grandmother who is not in this planet right now, so whenever I see this laptop I feel like that I am travelling back on these days, and my eyes also filled with water whenever I talk about this laptop, but as I have already mentioned he was my only friend who always remains with me.

    Band 6-7

    There were many times that people had apologized to me. One of the most heartfelt moment that apology had impacted on me is when my best friend had apologized to me for a fight we had during our exams. It was a few years back during my internal exam, she had copied down answers from my answer sheet and during the answer sheet was given, the teacher found that we had copied. Even though I had never done that, it was fully on my head and the teacher said it was my problem. I couldn't make her guilty, so I silently agreed to the teacher's saying and when the class was over, she came to me and apologized me for what she had done. It was a heartbreaking moment for me. Then she took me to the teacher and explained everything that happened and the teacher came to know who was guilty. She was guilty and after that, the teacher made me so calm by apologizing to me.

    Band 6-7

    Last Sunday my friend was calling me again and again but I was not able to pick his calls. Though he knew this thing that I never miss any calls but without consulting and discussing he thought that I am deliberately not picking up his calls and he texted me that I am not happy with you, you are doing it deliberately because he was in Dalai Lama that one of the friend told me that he needs some money and he is calling me to get some money. So that was the reason I am not picking up his calls but that was not true I was stuck in emergency situation due to which I was not able to pick his call and I was not aware about anything that he required any money. So after few days when we connected then I told him everything that I was stuck in the hospital and there was a reason I was not able to pick your call. Then he realized that he made a mistake and he apologized to me that I am really sorry I thought that you were at home and deliberately not picking up my call. And our friend Ram has told you everything that I needed money that part of time and in order to avoid this thing and this was the reason he was not picking up my call. Then we shaked hands and we cleared our confusion and started talking to each other in the same manner which we used to. So the crux of this story is that we should discuss things before making any decision.
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