arrow back icon Top Answers

Describe a time when you felt incredibly sad.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What made you feel sad?
  • When and why did this happen?
  • How did you tackle it?
people images

33 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 33 answers

Cue 1:What made you feel sad?

  • Clearly identify the event or situation that caused your sadness.
  • Express your emotions honestly to convey the depth of your feelings.

Example

I felt incredibly sad when I lost my grandmother last year. She was not just my family but also my best friend, and her absence left a huge void in my life.

Cue 2:When and why did this happen?

  • Provide a specific time frame for when this event occurred.
  • Explain the circumstances surrounding the event to give context.

Example

This happened in the summer of 2022, just a few months after I graduated from college. I had always looked forward to celebrating my achievements with her, and her passing felt especially painful because I couldn’t share those moments with her.

Cue 3:How did you tackle it?

  • Discuss the coping mechanisms you used to deal with your sadness.
  • Mention any support systems, such as friends or family, that helped you through this time.

Example

To cope with my sadness, I started journaling my feelings and talking to my friends about my memories of her. I also participated in a local support group, which helped me connect with others who were experiencing similar losses.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the impact of this experience on your life.
  • Reflect on any lessons learned or changes in perspective.

Example

In conclusion, losing my grandmother taught me the importance of cherishing loved ones and expressing my emotions. Although I still miss her dearly, I’ve learned to celebrate her life and the memories we shared.

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: Being Vague or General

Avoid giving vague answers that lack detail. This can make your response less engaging and informative, which may lead to a lower score.

bulb icon

Tip

Provide specific examples and details about the event that made you sad. Use descriptive language to paint a clear picture.

2: Neglecting Emotional Impact

Don't overlook the emotional aspects of your experience. Failing to express how you felt can make your answer less relatable and impactful.

bulb icon

Tip

Share your feelings openly. Explain how the situation affected you emotionally and why it was significant.

Rushing Through the Response

Avoid speaking too quickly or skipping important points. This can lead to a disorganized answer and may confuse the listener.

bulb icon

Tip

Take your time to structure your response. Use the cues to guide your answer and ensure you cover all aspects clearly.

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

In this contemporary era, tough times usually come to everyone, and it also happened with me many times, but I remember the time when I felt very sad. It was the time when my 12th exams were over, and firstly, I had pressure of my exams result because it was my final board exams result. Apart from this, I had two months of holidays in which I became a sweet potato. I did nothing in those days, and after few months, I realized that my body became very fat and my stamina was very low at that time, so that thing gave me depression and I was feeling over the moon, I was feeling very blue at that time. So, in order to tackle this situation, I tried many things, I watched YouTube videos, motivation videos, so I became like my makeup, my body has become sweet potato. And one of my friend suggested me to join playground in the morning, and I just joined him. In the morning, I was, I became an early bird and go for walk and play some football, play football with my friends in the morning, and within few days, I became very fit and making my body as fit as fiddle, and that thing, and when I got my 6 packs, that day was red letter day for me, so I think that motivation is best priority and for everyone.

Band 6-7

The last time I felt incredibly sad was when my grandparents passed away. When I say grandparents, I meant first my grandfather passed away and a month later to that my grandmother also passed away. We were living in separate houses and I was not that really close to my grandparents. I used to visit them once in a while in vacations or something. But when they fell ill, I used to visit them every week. But that time also it didn't hit me that they were actually that sick and they might not stay alive for long. But when my grandfather passed away, I was devastated. I just couldn't process that at all because I've always felt that he was not that old and he will be living for another 10 or 20 years. I always had that thought in my mind and I was not at all able to process that loss. I've never been very much attached to my grandfather even though I just couldn't come into senses that my grandfather is no more. And we didn't get much time to process that and within a month my grandmother also passed away. It was so incredibly sad. Losing two grandparents in a month span was too much to handle for me. I just didn't know how to process that emotion. I was really sad all the time. Whenever I used to think about them, my eyes would tear up. But then later I just realized that there is no point in... Grief is obviously an important thing. You can't do anything but grieve.

Band 6-7

so one of the most saddest moments of my life would be when I had to leave my home and my hometown for my higher studies so I currently live in Nagpur and it is I think a story of two to three three to four years ago when I had to leave Nagpur and go to Mumbai for my college I was sad because I was leaving my close friend

Band 6-7

I once lost out on three friendships consecutively and was extremely sad and down for a long period of time back in 2020. The reasons for it all stemmed from miscommunication, ego, and lack of time that was given to each relationship. It was a really low point in my life which I consider the worst thing to have happened to me but at the same time a great learning because the emotions I went through during that entire period of feeling down or sad was much needed for me to sit and introspect of what was wrong from both the sides in those friendships. It got me a lot of time to understand myself and amend things and rectify a portion of how I behaved which eventually helped me be a better friend.

Band 6-7

I have to say that I felt incredibly sad when my grandfather passed away. He died because he took his life. He committed suicide and it left our family and myself in deep trauma. We have never been able to get over the fact that he actually did what he did and it still hasn't sunk in for us yet somehow we are all managing to cope up. This happened around two years ago and yes of course there is a lot of improvement in our mental stability and the after effect of this event but eventually we have to face the fact that this actually happened and we have to deal with it. So all of us are dealing with it by going through therapies and we tend to hang out a lot with each other we as in I mean our family. It is very important for family to stick together during such tough times we need to tend towards them we need to talk to them and always analyze what's going on with one another and rectify whatever you are feeling then and there so that there is no accumulation. This is the time when I have felt a lot of remorse and I feel like if I could tackle this anybody can.

Band 6.5

In the final year of my engineering course, which was a four year B.Tech course, I was extremely sad when my relationship with my girlfriend came to an end. I was really sad because of a lot of reasons. Obviously, the first and foremost reason being that we would no longer be seeing each other. Secondly, she had formed a very big or an integral part of my life in all my life's decisions. Therefore, when things came to an end, it felt like there was a big void left inside me. The reason why this happened was because we both reached to a mutual conclusion that after our graduation, we would both be, we both had plans of going to different cities for our further education. This would hinder our relationship and hinder our relationship. So, we thought ending things would be more pragmatic and real. To overcome this sadness, I first had to acknowledge this and work on, and this was also a good opportunity to work on myself.

Band 6

A time when I felt incredibly sad was when I had to go on one of the donation drives in my local community. Being the chapter head of a local organization called the Period Society Kolkata, we often conduct donation drives within our immediate communities for women and menstruating individuals. One such was conducted in a closed community near my area, which was very gated and extremely intolerant to invitation of others. As soon as I entered the place, I felt a strong unwelcoming vibe and we were soon surrounded by a group of men who had asked us to leave immediately because we did not belong from their place. Also they told me that speaking about periods, talking about the taboo behind it, the myths around it is something that is against their culture. So they did not want us to go ahead and speak about it, discuss about it with the women. They also believed that empowerment of women was something they were totally against and did not believe in at all. This was one such incident that made me extremely sad and I really hope that our community opens the eyes of individuals and try to understand where the stigma stems from and get a wrap around this.

Band 6

So I work in healthcare industry. I am a physiotherapist. I remember one time when there was this patient who came to me as a part of my rehab process. He got injured in his spine and was not able to move his body below the navel. So it was very unfortunate for him that he was not able to completely regain his movements. I remember the time when his mother told me that he was so good in academics and sports. So that made me very sad that as a paramedic and healthcare provider, I was not able to help him out of his situation. And that day I realized that we as humans do not take our health as granted and we do not make it a goal that we should be healthy enough in our life. So I feel sad that day and I got really emotionally connected with that boy.

Band 6

So the time when I felt incredibly sad was when I couldn't get into a university that I really wanted to make it. This university was GNAFU where I wanted to study my architecture. So this all started when I was selected for a counselling session where various students from different backgrounds and socioeconomic status are called in to give some interview and provide documents. So when I was called upon they expected me to provide my CAF certificate which I was not aware of and that was partly my fault too but they didn't even give me another chance to prove myself and to present them with another certificate in some given time. So that definitely did take away my chance of getting into my favourite university. So the reason that I didn't get into this college was mainly because I couldn't present proper documents required and this was very much upsetting and I felt incredibly disappointed in this. It also mainly made me think about the education system in India where our background and our socioeconomic status was very much needed to get into the universities we want to get into. But I tackled the situation very easily because I had a constant support and a shoulder to lean on and it was my father. He gave me an incredible guidance about how to not be disappointed in small things. He also explained to me that when you lose one opportunity you are always going to get another opportunity. So this really made me open my eyes and look into the greater future where incredible opportunities are waiting for me. So it was a very good experience for me where I learnt a lot of things.

Band 6

So, the time when I was, I felt really sad was when I lost my pet named Bunny. She was a rabbit and we brought her home when she was 2 years old in 2015. So, the relationship with Bunny was really special for me because we bonded very slowly with each other and she used to do things that normally no rabbits do. So, she likes to eat wheat dough and she was not fond of carrots which is actually a myth that all rabbits love carrots and she was really productive when it comes to people who she loves and whenever we were out of the house or when we come back she used to be very happy, dancing like anything and I remember when I was coming back from my hostel she used to be so happy that she used to climb on my shoulders and just stay there for some time. When I got the news that she is no more with us, I was really sad and at night when no one was around me, I cried a bit and just remembered and sometimes I blame myself too.
1 2 3 4
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

Want to know your score on this topic?

Check your score now