Describe a time when you had a problem with using the computer: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

When did it happen?
Where did it happen?
What was the problem?
How did you solve the problem in the end?

118 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 118 answers

Cue 1:When did it happen?

Mention a specific time frame, such as a particular day or month, to give context to your experience.
Explain any relevant circumstances that led to the problem occurring at that time.

Example

It happened about three months ago, during the peak of my final exams. I was preparing for my computer science paper, and I had planned to complete my project that evening.

Cue 2:Where did it happen?

Describe the location where you were using the computer, such as your home, a library, or a friend's place.
Include details about the environment that might have contributed to the situation.

Example

I was at home, sitting at my study desk in my room. It was a quiet evening, and I had all my study materials spread out around me, creating a focused atmosphere.

Cue 3:What was the problem?

Clearly state the issue you faced with the computer, such as a software crash or hardware failure.
Explain how this problem affected your ability to complete your tasks.

Example

Suddenly, my computer froze while I was running a crucial software program for my project. I panicked because I hadn’t saved my work in a while, and I was worried about losing everything.

Cue 4:How did you solve the problem in the end?

Discuss the steps you took to resolve the issue, including any troubleshooting methods or help you sought.
Mention the outcome and what you learned from the experience.

Example

I took a deep breath and decided to restart my computer. Thankfully, when it rebooted, I found that the auto-recovery feature had saved my work. I also learned the importance of saving my work frequently and started using cloud storage for future projects.

Conclusion

Example

This experience taught me valuable lessons about technology and the importance of being prepared for unexpected issues. Now, I always make sure to back up my work regularly, which has made my study sessions much less stressful.

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 response unclear. Avoid general statements that do not provide specific details about the problem or the situation.

Tip

Be specific about the time, place, and nature of the problem. Use clear examples to illustrate your experience.

2: Ignoring the Cues

Not addressing all the cues can lead to an incomplete answer. Each cue is designed to help structure your response effectively.

Tip

Make sure to answer all the cues in order. This will help you stay organized and cover all important aspects of your experience.

Lack of Problem-Solving Detail

Failing to explain how you solved the problem can make your response less engaging. It's important to show your thought process and actions.

Tip

Describe the steps you took to resolve the issue. Highlight any challenges you faced and how you overcame them to add depth to your answer.

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 8

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 6.5

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

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

Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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

So, at the time when I had a problem, so there was a time when I had a problem like using a computer, which was about six months ago when I was working from home. So I needed something like an important report for my job, but suddenly my laptop froze and became completely unresponsive. So this happened in my home office, and at first I felt quite stressed because the line was very close. So the problem was the computer was stuck on the loading screen and then would not start properly. So no matter what I tried, I attempted to restart it several times, but the issue persisted since I wasn't very tech-savvy. I decided to look for a solution online. I watched a few tutorial videos and followed the steps for booting the laptop into safe mode, which allowed me to troubleshoot the issue. Eventually, I discovered that a recent software update had caused a conflict, so I restored the system to an earlier point before the update. After that, my laptop worked normally again, and I was able to finish and submit the report on time. This experience helped me to stay calm when facing technical problems and to use available resources like online guides to solve them.

Band 6-7

No audio text available

Band 6-7

Well, technology is tremendously increasing and it provides us various technical gadgets like mobile phones, laptops and many more. It makes our life more easy as compared to past. These days, people are totally dependent on technical gadgets. However, here I would like to shed some light on a time when I had a problem with the computer. It was about 4 years before, when COVID pandemic was on peak, all the shops were closed. As per Indian government instruction, during that time, I was attending my classes because of everything was closed due to COVID pandemic. Then suddenly, I got a technical problem in my computer and I was not attending my classes because of an issue in my computer. Unfortunately, I could not go to the shopkeeper because the shops were closed. Then I decided to discuss about it with my cousin brother because he had a knowledge of technical gadgets. He is an electrician and he came in my home and he solved the problem of my computer and after that I was able to attend the classes and I felt over the moon because I have a keen interest in education. It was very precious for me to attend the classes because my career totally depends on education and I think it is very important for everyone to learn education and technical gadgets are more important nowadays in every country.

Band 6-7

For our school annual day function, I was entrusted with the duty of mixing the music for our dance performance. In order to do this, I was given different songs and we had to cut small parts from each individual song and make a fusion out of it for our particular performance. When I reached home, I downloaded all the music given to me, I listened to it and I also noted the timings where I had to make the cut. Unfortunately, the mixing process was not as simple as I thought. For our school annual day function, my friends and I were performing on a... For this, we have to make a fusion, so we have to compile music using audios from different music albums and I was entrusted with this particular duty. For our school annual day function, my friends and I were performing on a fusion dance. For our school annual day function, my friends and I were performing on a fusion dance. For our school annual day function, my friends and I were performing on a fusion dance. For this performance, we have to compile music audio which encompasses audios from different music albums and I was entrusted with the duty of mixing the music. When I reached home, I downloaded different music albums that were pertinent for this particular performance and I started listening to it and I also noted down the timings wherein I had to make the cut. But the problem was, it was not an easy task as I thought it was. So once I started mixing using a software in my laptop, I realized that it required more than a novice experience with the software to make it as impeccable as possible. As it was for an annual day function, I had to make the music flow from one album to another smoothly. But whenever I made a cut, an unwanted sound or an unwanted part of the song persisted. So to avoid this from happening, I finally had to ask the help from a local internet cafe provider. He helped me with the task and I had to pay him 50 rupees from my pocket. But it was worth it because finally when I heard the mixed audio, it was very professional and we could perform well with the audio that he has provided. Ever since, I've improved my audio quality.

Band 6-7

The time when I had a problem with using computer is, as I completed my 10th in 2019, I decided to choose Computer Science in Diploma after my 10th, so I thought of giving it a try to use a computer, so I sat in front of it and I started opening it but it wasn't like, I'm not well instructed about how to use a computer but I found it very difficult to use it because the letters on the keyboard are not arranged in an order, that is my first time seeing a keyboard and also there are stuff like words that I didn't understand about, later on I pushed myself a lot and tried to learn it from YouTube and also I asked my brother for help, even he helped me how to use it, that way I overcame that problem, later on I got used to how to use it, then after I got into Diploma course, I was really good at using computer, that made me proud and teachers had really good impression of me, that is

Band 6-7

Back in school, we used to have a specific class dedicated to learning computers and I vividly remember, once I was in my computer lab and I encountered a problem. Since we were new to computers, so I encountered a problem with logging into the computer as well as then opening the software of MS Word and I was totally stuck and flabbergasted. However, my teacher came to my rescue and taught me how to solve these very issues. Over a period of time, I have been very comfortable in learning computers, how to use one and how to navigate through all the functions, but I would definitely give this credit to my teachers back in school because they paved the foundation of whatever I know today. Apart from the elementary education that I received in school, I tried my level best to better and polish my skills by joining a specific computer course for a 6-month diploma. I attained the degree in summer last year and now I do not have as such major issues while using a computer, but there are some times when I encounter a problem once in a blue moon or suddenly something out of the blue, I encounter a problem, otherwise, on the whole, I am quite good to go with using these.

Band 6-7

Honestly, I didn't have any problem using computer as we had a class when we were kids and we were taught a basic things that needed to use a computer. So yeah, I never had a problem using a computer or dealing with it. Occasionally I used to get little problems like freezing out or abruptly switching off this computer and a normal troubleshoot or restart helped me to keep my computer working on. However, my friends had a problem installing software or some other computer related stuff so I helped them with it and also I taught them. Not even that, I also helped my parents to use a computer like I taught him how to switch on the computer to begin with. Then I taught him, especially my father, how to install certain apps or how to download pictures or movies through internet. At some point of my life, I had a problem with the batteries like the battery used to die very fast. Then I took my computer, particularly my laptop, to the store and asked him the problem that he said a battery is out, we need to change it. At the same time, I had my projects going on during my academics and it was very hectic to balance and the shopkeeper promised me that he would fix it in two days but it took him for like a week to fix it and I was really upset.

Band 6-7

So the time when I had a problem with using the computer is when I made up a 3D design for one of client and we had a deadline for 3 days but somehow my computer doesn't work and I couldn't generate a render of it. So the problem is my Lumion doesn't work properly because of slow internet. So I asked to my manager to attach a good wifi network so whenever we improve our internet speed and then... What? The gas will be low.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12