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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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    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.
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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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    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.
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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

    I search for information constantly so this topic was quite hard for me to decide on any specific point to describe but what I settled on was actually from just this last weekend. I absolutely love Google Maps. It is extremely useful and I use it multiple times a week really any time that I'm going somewhere that I am not totally familiar with. In this particular instance I was going to the office of a business that I am very seriously considering taking an internship with. I knew the general area of where the offices were located and so I made it as close as I could until I knew that I would need further discussion and direction. I then pulled off to the side of the road and consulted Google Maps. My city is famous for its innumerable tiny alleyways. It just so happened that the quickest route to my destination was to cut straight through the urban block beside my via one of these alleyways. It was very small but full of interesting businesses and restaurants. So many smells that almost made me stop despite my appointment. So this is when I needed information and it gave me far more information than was initially needed and I have many restaurants to add on my list of places I want to eat.

    Band 6-7

    I remember a time when I was preparing for IELTS exam. I had been studying consistently but I realized I was struggling a bit with reading session and writing session. To improve I needed to gather more strategies and tips that would help me to enhance my skills. I began searching online for resources related to reading comprehension and effective writing techniques for the IELTS exam. I visited various websites, individual official IELTS preparation site blogs and forums where people shared their personal experiences. I also looked for sample essay and practice tests that could give me a clear idea of what to expect on the exam day. Through my search, I found my specific methods to improve my reading speech such as scheming and scanning techniques which helped me to better manage my time during the test. I also came across a number of writing templates and structure guides which gave me a clear understanding of how to organize my essay more effectively. In the end, the information I gathered significantly boosted my confidence. It allowed me to approach the exam with better preparation and I felt more ready to tackle the challenges in the reading and writing session and the listening session.

    Band 6

    So the time I did search for information is when I was drawing jewelry and it's not easy to draw jewelry without research and I went into you know researching the books, the online sites and even visited a million of jewelry sites as well to come across various information on how jewelry is made, how it's being manufactured and the diamonds are being cut and how scintillation of diamonds is being generated with those cuts and it's not easy to you know get that information from a book or online site but there are some brands called thousand million manufacturer who did help the people to get the information and to grow some knowledge and this really helped me to make some jewelry and as well it turned out to be very good informative sites as well and because of that I was really had many knowledge

    Band 6

    So it was the time of my graduation when I am pursuing my bachelor's degree from MIT. So there I got assigned with a project of Artificial Intelligence like how important AI for future and how it will change the world in upcoming years. So for this one I need a lot of study material, books are not enough because books only contain a theoretical knowledge which is not enough for the project so I need other resources also. So for that I have searched all over the internets, I have a very reliable source. A lot of knowledge to master over there. So with the help of chatjbt I have started working on the project. But later... So I found this that do not fully rely on the AI.

    Band 6

    Recently, I have done research on information about my colleges which are related to higher education and the colleges are based in Germany. So, I have done research about them because I want to attend those colleges in Germany. I have searched the information on Google and other websites which are searching websites and the colleges I have selected in Germany are very crucial and I have to know more information about them so that I can choose the best in them. Because of that, recently I have searched the internet. Therefore, it is very important. Thank you for watching.

    Band 6

    The one thing that I generally search on internet is about the drugs as I am a pharmacist from profession so sometimes I had to search about the drugs when I don't remember its name or its composition then I had to refer to google or sometimes some scientific reviews to get some knowledge about it and yeah it does help me a lot to understand the drug and to recall how the drug functions on the body. I don't really do this often because most of the time I do remember the drugs and its constituents but sometimes but I'm a human and sometimes I do make mistakes which I which I need to which I need to clarify so that I don't recommend anything wrong to someone.

    Band 6

    It was around 2020 ending when I completed my 12th class and I gave my JEE exam and was unsure about it. Then I started searching about private colleges in particular and that too on Google. I started searching and it took me around two to three months to finally get a list of colleges that I can pursue my degree in. Because I had a keen interest in computer science, so I had limited options, plus my family was forcing me to look for local colleges, that is the colleges in Delhi, but I was more interested in going to other states, you know, to put myself in pressure situations and enjoy other cultures as well. Then I came to know about SRM College and I came to know about its admission procedure. It was then that I gave the SRM JEE exam, which was the entry point for me into this college and my life has changed a lot since then. Well, I needed to search this information because as I said earlier, I was very particular about my degree and I needed to pursue a course in computer science only. So, considering I had limited options, the only better option for me was SRM College. Yeah, so that's all.

    Band 6

    I think we are in constant need for searching of information for one thing or the other. There was this one particular time when I had to look out for information with the purpose of a poster competition which was set by my college. The topic of the poster was how pedontal health can affect the overall systemic health of an individual and I needed a whole lot of information to get to the conclusion and finally present the poster. So I started looking out for the information but I did face a lot of difficulties because the topic was very rare and very few information was available in books. So of course I had to search in Google Scholar, one of the applications which provides you with various articles. I began my search in Google Scholar and I read around more than 20 articles that day to finally get to the conclusion of the topic. Well, the presentation did go well, the poster turned out to be really nice and I could see a good explanation on the day of the poster presentation. The whole event went really delightful. This was the one time when I had to search for information so desperately and it turned out to be really good so I am extremely happy with my result. These are all the credit goes to the books on Google Scholar that I have used for searching the result.

    Band 6

    I would love to talk about that time where I was desperately searching for information in Google, which was about the topic of weight reduction. This was of utmost importance at that instance, because my wedding had scheduled in November, and I was five months away. And I had to reach a target of losing six kgs to obtain that ideal weight so that I could fit into the dress I admired the most. Hence, I went on to Google and searched for the tips on how to reduce weight, where I was able to get one main fact that is 80% of your weight gets reduced by diet and 20% of your weight gets reduced from the exercise. Additionally, I was able to obtain the fact that diet plays a very important role in weight reduction. And hence I made a draft routine plan for the same. To incorporate more things into this draft routine, I further started surfing chat GPT on what are the possible diet that I could include and what is the recipes for the same. I got a tentative draft plan and I was able to refer doctors and obtain suggestions on how could I may modify changes as per my body. They were able to give me some suggestions and I incorporated the same. Furthermore, if I am traveling elsewhere and there were any weather changes and I was under periods and it made me tend to crave something, I would have certain cheat days as well so that I would be balanced with both healthy diet as well as the cheat day diet and I tend to make sure that I don't force too much upon myself because I realize there's

    Band 6

    There was a memorable time. I had to search for information. It was in my early 20s. Actually, that was my first job. I started as a Customer Relationship Executive. I had a client meeting, so I had to prepare a presentation. As I said, it was my first experience. I don't know anything about any presentations. I didn't hold any meeting. At that time, I used a website for presentation planning. I think it was in the early of January month. So, I searched in a Google website. I took a lot of notes from there and I had a lot of experiences. I got many more knowledge at that time. I studied from scratch. That was the first memorable thing that I did.
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