arrow back icon Top Answers

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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    Tip

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


    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

    thing while he was planning for his master's so yeah when I was planning for my career for my master's I had this Gorg AI which helped me immensely and I got this recommendation from this beautiful computerized AI from my brother who had done the same thing while he was planning for his master's and I searched for things such as accommodation and jobs perspective after I have completed and also what about the career path ahead when I want to change or do something a bit different what will be the other thing that will help me so considering these all factors the Gorg AI recognized the prompt and answered it so well like I was really impressed by the way it gives response so yeah

    Band 5-6

    There was a time, I can remember, when I bought the laptop in my, I think I was near about 18 to 16 years old. I bought laptop and I didn't know that much about my laptop. So also my family and near dear ones also don't know that much about laptop. So that's why I search in my browser called as Chrome, where I search how to set up my laptop at first place. So I search it and get to know about the solution that how I can set up my laptop, how to login in that, how we can generate the Microsoft ID in there. Because it's so important, if we don't sign in there, we can't operate our Windows laptop as it was Windows laptop. And however, this helps me a lot by searching it because if there was no Google, I can't do that by my own or I need to go to any shop for doing that. And furthermore, I do also many researches to gain information from Google because it's helping me a lot in some critical situation where I can't get the solution from others. It helps me a lot and hence it's pretty good thing to get the knowledge.

    Band 5-6

    On 29th May 2022, I was in college and I reached home around 5.30pm and at that time one of my friend Jatin called me and told me about that Sidhu Moosewala, it is a famous Punjabi singer had been shot dead by a gang in India and I am like no this is not real, this is a fake news and I searched this news on Google, so at that time does not any update about this news and when I watching news, so in all the news channels this news had been showed that Sidhu Moosewala has been shot dead by gang in India but I am still hoping at that time that he must be saved while going in a hospital and I checked again and again on internet and on news that now what will be doctor say and I talked to one of my friend who live in Mansa near to Sidhu Moosewala house and he told me the whole story what happened and he told me that he was dead while bring him to hospital.

    Band 5-6

    Hi, my name is Arun Singh Irfan and my topic is personal development. So, according to me, in our current generation, there are many difficulties faced by our current youth as because there are a lot of distractions like Instagram and there are many other social media apps that are like cheap dopamine and the students or the youth using these social media apps are getting very distracted and not able to focus on topics or things that are really important for their personal development and most of the time people are doing scrolling their TikToks and Instagram and they are not focusing on the things that improve their knowledge. So, according to me, the current world should know the deep meaning of personal development because without personal development, you can't achieve big goals in your life and to

    Band 5-6

    So, I usually surf a lot on internet, but once I wanted, I need to search information for my biology project on the topic cancer. So, I needed the information about the cancer for my project of biology for class 12th. And as it was accounting for, as the assessment was, as it was accounting for our assessment in the final examinations. So, I searched the information on many platforms like Google, Pinterest, Chat, GPT. And moreover, I searched it on some other websites like Wikipedia and other biology website. And moreover, I also searched it on my NCRT books. So, I gathered a lot of information in order to make this project. But I thought that I need a specifically more information about the topic because I need in a deep, I need a deeper information on this topic, which includes its effects, its causes, how can we prevent it, and why these diseases are causes, and what are the main factors of these diseases, and the treatment processes that are involved in these diseases. And I also wanted to know about the curative methods and how can we prevent this disease. And the myths about this disease that it is a viral disease and which can be affect a lot of people, which gets in contact with the infected person. And I wanted to also give something, give more informative information to the examiner about this topic. And I think

    Band 5

    I would like to talk about my time that after completing my plus two signs and I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't have any idea about my semester certainly I would like to talk about my spending time after the completion of plus two signs and I have no idea what to do at the next step so I have worried all of the days and I took some responsibility to take a good action for the next step and I don't know but I don't have any kind of interest in anything and I look and I looking forward on social medias and I found about astronauts but basically I am not a big fan of heights and I am scared of heights and I don't want to find a job like that so I do not look for that and when I asked my seniors in schools and neighbors and my friends they all suggested me to take the pharmacy related course it's a medicine course which provides an idea or information about the production of medicines and that time was very procrastinating for me and after the thoroughly studies I just enjoy and take that action to get B.Punct course

    Band 5

    There are many times that I search for anything like because it is a make a part and parcel of our life because without search we cannot we cannot travel from one place to another place because we are new of it and so so today I am talking about a play talking about a search that I used search like last week last month I went for Hyderabad because there was my interview and I was I was unable to locate my institute because because like I was first year and I cannot belong and no one belonged to there and I do not have any knowledge about about the about that city like what we can do there and like what things like where things are located for example I do not know nothing about my my locality like where I have to take my accommodation so that's why I take a proper search regarding that city and the major issue that I use for search like there is a problem of language barrier because like I belong to a country in that like there are several types of language or speaker speaks and as I belong to Punjab and they are like they like they do not understand my language and also I do not understand my language so that's why due to advanced technology I took my phone and install an app and translate and and from the google I take proper information about that city like what what type of foods are available there and what is the progress of caps like in how many times I got a caps and what are the and what are the what are the

    Band 5

    and personal development, personal development and personal development which is very important for every human being and I personally think which is, which is the one which it, it develops a human. I prefer that personal development is very important to me to improve myself and I am really concentrated, these days I am really concentrated on my personal development to reach my best level such as giving priority to my health and developing knowledge, education and learning new things which is, which I am interested in it. I really looking forward to learn more things from various sources using, we have technology, we have good technology in our hands too which is, which helps to guide, guide us to learn more things and personal development I usually think it is, it is living on us, it is living on us, living with us and, and our mindset, we have to change our mindset to be clear what's our goal and target. I am personally, I am currently focusing on, I am going to focusing on English speaking because I am really, I am really poor at English communication. I want to speak more confidently and fluently in English in front of my college colleagues, in front of my college students, in front of my teachers during seminars which is really, it will be really helpful to me.
    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