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Describe A Time When You Needed To Search For Information: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What information did you need to search for?
  • When you search for it?
  • Where did you search for it?
  • And explain why you needed to search for it.
Show all 58 answers

Cue 1:What information did you need to search for?

  • Clearly state the specific information you were looking for, such as a topic or a problem you needed to solve.
  • Explain the context of why this information was important to you at that time.

Example

I needed to search for information about the best study materials for the IELTS exam. As I was planning to take the test in a few months, I wanted to ensure I had the right resources to prepare effectively.

Cue 2:When did you search for it?

  • Mention the timeframe when you started your search, including any relevant deadlines.
  • Describe any urgency you felt in finding this information.

Example

I started my search about three months before my IELTS exam date. I felt a bit anxious because I wanted to make sure I had enough time to study all the necessary materials before the test.

Cue 3:Where did you search for it?

  • Specify the platforms or resources you used to find the information, such as websites, libraries, or social media.
  • Mention if you consulted any friends or teachers for recommendations.

Example

I searched for information primarily on the internet, using websites like IELTS.org and various educational forums. I also asked my English teacher for advice on which books to use.

Cue 4:And explain why you needed to search for it.

  • Discuss your motivation for seeking this information, such as personal goals or academic requirements.
  • Highlight the importance of being well-prepared for the IELTS exam.

Example

I needed to search for this information because achieving a high score on the IELTS was crucial for my university application abroad. I wanted to ensure that I was well-prepared and confident on the exam day.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, searching for the right information was a vital step in my preparation for the IELTS exam. It helped me feel more confident and equipped to achieve my goals, demonstrating the importance of thorough research in any endeavor.

    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 Responses

    Providing vague or unclear answers can make it difficult for the examiner to understand your experience. Specific details are crucial for a strong response.

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    Tip

    Use specific examples and details to explain what information you searched for and why it was important.

    2: Lack of Structure

    Failing to organize your answer can lead to confusion. A clear structure helps convey your thoughts effectively.

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    Tip

    Follow the cue prompts in order: start with what you searched for, when, where, and then explain why.

    Overly Simple Language

    Using overly simple language can limit your ability to express your ideas fully. This may affect your score in fluency and coherence.

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    Tip

    Try to use a variety of vocabulary and sentence structures to make your response more engaging and sophisticated.

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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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    Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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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    Sector 34 Test Centre, Chandigarh

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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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    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

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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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    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 6-7

    During college time, we had to do a project work, therefore our team got a topic related to software. At that time, we were not familiar with the topic, so in order to collect the information regarding the project, we all together went to Edappally, there was a project builder shop which helped us and the topic was related to an app in which it can be used by both educators and learners, it is basically the teachers can provide homework and assignments to students, additionally they can identify whether the students are sleeping, the concentration level of students in the app, moreover they can give alert to the student to listen carefully, it is a useful app, so I collected all information, means we all together collected information and along with the help of that people in the project group, we were able to complete the project and moreover I could say that it was the best project in our college, it makes us so proud, the college was very proud and appreciate us for providing such a good project, additionally my family, my neighbourhood all were applaused because the news came in the newspaper showing our pic with using this app, the newspaper provide all the details regarding our research and usage of apps.

    Band 6-7

    A time when I searched or browsed about an information is when I planned for abroad studies. And I was really confused at the beginning and I realized that there is no use of staying confused but it's better to search or browse in internet where we get all information in just a click. So I started browsing it in internet and I found so many valuable information regarding various universities and various countries and courses. So I was really, I was in a dilemma about the course and the place of studies. So after searching, like it gave me quite a bit of clarity about what I need to pursue and where I need to go. So that is one time when I searched regarding, searched about a specific topic. So I searched it in Google and Google helped me a lot and it's not just Google that helped me, several videos that was posted in YouTube also helped me. So basically the social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook also did a great role in providing information because of digital marketing, these Instagram and Facebook helped giving me, they themselves gave me information regarding what I was searching for. So all these social media also helped me to get more clarity about what I was searching. More than Google and YouTube where I went and searched. So this technology has helped me a lot about my search and that's the time when I researched a lot about the specific need of mine.

    Band 6-7

    My recent search for an information is about the higher studies which I wanted to do. So, I'm planning to do conservation architecture. It's an historical study of human and the wonderful building constructed. So, I wanted to learn more of the information and I wanted to know more of the study and study materials about those things. So, for that information, I gathered through mail to the staff in that universities. And furthermore, I used AI called Perplexity which is a most efficient AI tool. It gives an accurate data for the studies and the time period and the locations. So, for the conservation, it had more information and which made me understand more of things that I have to prepare. So, it gave me a huge list which I started checking out and I asked questions to the faculties and they gave me a good reply through email. So, furthermore, it added me a good touch with technology and an understanding towards my own degree towards learning. So, yeah, the information is amazing, the search of time and good things.

    Band 6-7

    The information I used to search for was on my project work, especially my lecturer handed me a group of tasks to do, so I needed to gather some kind of information, so I googled it out and just jotting down the points and making them in the road wherever I felt necessary and moreover the information I needed was not on the specific site, I needed to get some kinds of knowledge from other sites too, so from different apps I gathered some different kinds of information and what kind of lines and what kind of picture I felt needed and necessary to apply on the project, I added those extra points and prepared a project. I like it, I like gathering information especially from different kinds of apps, especially from the Google, well it is a kind of improving our knowledge, addition to that it makes us feel gathered and getting a tied up with some kind of thing is very much good for us and getting a knowledge and sharing a knowledge also help us to know more about

    Band 6-7

    I was recently searching for different colleges and universities to apply abroad and the procedures for applying. I am currently in 12th grade writing my A-levels and I need to join a college in within six months so I was searching for the different colleges and their minimum acceptance rate and their eligibilities for me to join that colleges. I was looking for colleges in Germany, UK and other European countries. I was searching for the colleges because I don't intend on studying in India and I really want to go to Europe to pursue my future education. I used Google, ChatGPT and the own college websites to search for the information such as minimum grade requirement, minimum subject requirement, IELTS score in if I need to learn their country language for example German and other key details like how my stay there will be, what's the monthly and weekly living expenses and all that information.

    Band 6-7

    I started practicing dentistry immediately after completing my undergraduation in Bachelor of Dental Surgery. When I almost completed four year of experience I realized it's all it is always better to put a clinic of my own rather than being salaried. Finally I decided to start a clinic within six months and I needed a lot of information regarding the same. I searched a lot in Google and some health magazines where there were experiences of some doctors and also I enquired in IDA group which is International Dentist Association groups about articles related to investing in setting up a no clinic. I went through all this information to improve my knowledge regarding the amount of investment required to set up a no clinic and the way to advertise the treatment and also how to make profit out of it. It helped me a lot and I could

    Band 6-7

    So, I was once working on a research paper on transformers that is an architecture or we can say algorithm which is most important term in artificial intelligence and machine learning field. So I was working on the paper and I needed every information of how transformers works and how its architecture is made. So for that two months ago I started searching for that particular information and I get it on from internet as well as YouTube videos. I started learning about every detail and everything I get from internet I made notes on that and gone through the topic very thoroughly. So I will be very I should have a very good knowledge of what I am what I was working on because according to many researchers if you write a paper you should be aware of what you are what you are concluding also you need a deep knowledge of what you are writing on the topic. So, yes I cannot move further without getting the knowledge of what I was really looking for. So, yes I search for many videos as well as internet articles and research papers and concluded how this information helps me and from that information I derived something new and experimented myself to generate a different algorithms and wrote a research paper about it. So yes for that I needed to search for the topic and I search it on internet crawling hundreds of articles and taking out important information from them.

    Band 6-7

    Good question. When I was preparing for my TOLK exam, I came across many difficult questions like to find logarithm without using a calculator. So I wasn't aware of how to find it and I searched it in ChatGPT. ChatGPT helped me thoroughly. Each and every step was described in details and it helped me to study how to find it without even using any mechanical device. So I would say ChatGPT was my lifesaver then and it was not that hard but I wasn't

    Band 6-7

    In the current time of social media, information is flooded on websites like YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. I cannot describe one time when I needed to search for information, but it is on an everyday basis I required to search for something or another related to my daily routine, education, technology, etc. In earlier times, I used to prefer Google to search for everything I wanted to know, especially Wikipedia. But now, in the modern time of artificial intelligence, I prefer tools such as Chat, GPT, Meta, and Gemini to search for the information that I need. Recently, I remember I wanted to make a diet plan for myself, and I am not extremely accustomed with the knowledge of nutrition and physical health. That's why I preferred to ask it from ChatGPT. ChatGPT gave me a proper diet plan considering my weight, height, and my daily hectic schedule. It provided me a detailed description with proper nutrients and ingredients that what I need to consume for breakfast, lunch, snacks, as well as dinner. For instance, on Monday, according to my food chart prepared by ChatGPT, I need to have bread, omelette, and breakfast, a low-calorie and high-protein meal for lunch as well as dinner, and boiled eggs for evening. That is how I have a 7-day diet plan made by ChatGPT without my personal effort. This is only one example, but I have many recent instances when I need to ask for fashion outfit ideas or some good products which I need to buy, I can easily search for them on ChatGPT or Meta. Even I can do it with the help of voice recording.

    Band 6-7

    So, the last time when I had to research about an information was during my second year of graduation. In that year, we were given a project about physical activities correlation with diabetes. So, to find adequate amount of data for my presentation, I started looking up for the information through various sources. One of the source was Google Scholar and PubMed where we can find all the research papers published through different different links and I was looking for specific links related to diabetes and physical activity. We were given this project in the second year of our college and this was a crucial assignment for us because most of our marks were depending on this project and thus we had to work hard on this one. I had to look for many different sources as this is the topic which wasn't covered in most of the textbooks, so I had to go here and there to find this information. After looking at many research papers, I finally got the information I was looking for and I made a great presentation that year. I passed with distinction and all the efforts I gave for collecting the information were totally worthy.
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