arrow back icon Top Answers

Describe a time when you saw something in the sky: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What you saw in the sky
  • When/where you saw it
  • What it looked like / any details
  • And explain why it was memorable
Show all 72 answers

Cue 1:What you saw in the sky

  • Begin by clearly stating what you saw in the sky, such as a rainbow, a shooting star, or a unique cloud formation.
  • Use descriptive language to create a vivid image of the sight.

Example

I saw a beautiful rainbow stretching across the sky after a light rain shower. The colors were vibrant, with shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet blending seamlessly into one another.

Cue 2:When/where you saw it

  • Mention the specific time and location where you witnessed this sight.
  • Provide context about the weather or the situation at that time.

Example

This happened last summer while I was visiting my grandparents' village in Kerala. It was late afternoon, and the sun was just beginning to set, creating a perfect backdrop for the rainbow.

Cue 3:What it looked like / any details

  • Describe the appearance of the sight in detail, including colors, shapes, and any other notable features.
  • Share any personal feelings or thoughts you had while observing it.

Example

The rainbow was a full arc, and it seemed to touch the ground at both ends. The colors were so bright and clear, almost like they were painted in the sky. I felt a sense of joy and wonder as I watched it, reminding me of my childhood when I used to chase rainbows.

Cue 4:And explain why it was memorable

  • Reflect on why this experience stood out to you and what it meant personally.
  • Connect it to any emotions or memories that it evoked.

Example

This moment was memorable because it reminded me of my childhood and the simple joys of life. It also symbolized hope and beauty after a storm, which resonated with me deeply during a challenging time in my life.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, seeing that rainbow was not just a visual treat but also a meaningful experience that brought back fond memories and a sense of hope. It taught me to appreciate the beauty around us, even in difficult times.

    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 answer less engaging and informative. Candidates often fail to provide specific details about what they saw, which can lead to a lack of clarity.

    bulb icon

    Tip

    Include specific details about the object in the sky, such as its color, shape, and size, to create a vivid image for the listener.

    2: Ignoring the Cue Card Structure

    Not following the cue card prompts can result in an unorganized response. Candidates may miss important aspects of the question, leading to incomplete answers.

    bulb icon

    Tip

    Address each cue in order: describe what you saw, when and where, details about it, and why it was memorable to ensure a structured response.

    Overly Short Answers

    Providing overly brief answers can make it seem like you are not engaged or knowledgeable. Candidates often give one-sentence responses that lack depth.

    bulb icon

    Tip

    Expand your answers by adding personal feelings, thoughts, or stories related to the experience to make your response more engaging.

    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

    The time when I saw rainbow and a plane going through it was really memorable time when something in the sky really seemed to be happening moment for me. I saw it from my office window when I was sitting and wondering if I could solve this problem and I just was watching through the sky and I saw this rainbow and a plane that was really traveling with a smooth speed and leaving behind the skies. The rainbow consisted of really wonderful colors that I was amazed being seeing that it was full semicircle out of it. So additionally to that the birds that were also making this view as really once in a blue moon type of view and I would like to emphasis on the topic that when I was just wondering that I could solve the problem and seeing this the topic and the mind got refreshed and I was really able to solve this problem. This is something really memorable moment for me and I could never forget this. The birds were flying with a great speed and I was just wondering where the flight would go and then I opened the application in my mobile and I just saw that it was going from Mumbai to London and I also started hoping that this rainbow would be something imaginable wherein I was traveling in the flight and then I could also see this rainbow from the flight that I was sitting in. So yeah, additionally in conclusion to this, it was a memorable moment and I could never forget this in my life.

    Band 6-7

    We normally see many types, many objects or I can say birds in the skies in our day to day life. So I would like to talk about a time when I saw something that is incredibly in the sky, was none other than the Indian fighter planes. Basically it was on the 15th August which is the Independence Day of India and there was a parade ceremony in order to give condolences and pride. And that is our pride for our country. So there was a huge fleet of Indian fighter planes and mainly the Rafale which is the most exalted one among all the fighter planes, among all of them. So it was on the 15th August and I went there to see the parade with my uncle who is in the Indian Air Force. And I saw the parade and also the stunts which the fighter pilots were doing in the sky and that was a memorable moment for me because it was the first time for me to watch Indian fighter planes. One of the best I can say is the Rafale which I was eager at that time to see that plane.

    Band 6-7

    πλ ცლახ უციჼიე მიტიე ლდე სანელელიილიი მიისტღამელიინანებილიიისი იიამიეზოე ლინანდინავებინამიტისისისისსურამებისისისსტნდისრგსკინილინიჟენსებისლი� something weird in the sky it looks like a bird but it doesn't look like that creature I was walking in the street then my mother told me look at the sky there is something in the sky it looks so dark brownish and it flew so fast it was memorable cause it doesn't look like the normal creature so it was fascinating for me to what it was

    Band 6-7

    So I recently, talking of the sky, I remember the time when I and my sister used to enjoy watching the skies in the late evening. Skies are always like, at any time of the day, if I look at the sky, it is as if God has painted a picture, God has painted a beautiful picture. What I distinctly remember is a time when I and my sister were just lying down on the terrace at around 6 p.m. in the evening, where a pattern of clouds was created so beautifully that it depicted that a swan was chasing an elephant. I remember me and my sister were making up stories about now what the swan is going to do next and how is the elephant going to counter it. Light shone at the pattern of cloud in a different way with the passing hour and it became more and more beautiful. What we observed was, slowly the elephant turned into a huge rabbit and then our stories were unending, thinking about the power that the swan held while chasing the elephant. It is always actually a very fulfilling experience to look at the sky and enjoy the beauty of nature. Even during night time when we look at different stars, we get to know so much about the different constellations and different planets and it is always enjoyable to watch the moon.

    Band 6-7

    So, I saw a shooting star in the sky, a shiny silver kind of thing just dropped from the sky and I saw it at my terrace of my house and it was during the night time. I saw it. It was a shiny and a quickly moving one. It was just a silver ball that quickly moved or fell from the sky. It just disappeared within seconds. So, it was memorable to me because that day I was worried or stressed about my exams and results like whether would I score good marks or not. So, that's the reason it was so memorable to me and I would definitely like or love to view it again.

    Band 6-7

    I saw a rainbow in the sky yesterday. It was very pretty. It has a lots of colors. I usually don't get to see rainbows a lot but yesterday it was raining and there was also sunlight. That's what made the rainbow and the thing I like about rainbows is it's very rare nowadays and it's very colorful and it made me feel like a child again. I last saw a rainbow around three years ago and I saw it yesterday again and it stayed in the sky for about 10 to 15 minutes.

    Band 6-7

    When I was in my fourth standard, at the evening, 5 o'clock, I saw a meteor flying above me. It was my first time seeing a meteor falling from the sky. When I saw it, I thought it was a UFO. When I asked my teacher what it was, he said it was a piece of asteroid that fell from the sky. It was very shiny. I think it was very shiny. It flew over my head from the sky. When I saw it, I thought it was some kind of UFO. Later, some of my friends also saw it. We just stared at the sky for almost 5 minutes. We were just looking at the sky, figuring out what it was. The outer surface was so bright. When a meteor is falling from the sky, the Earth's gravitation pulls it. The surface looks like...

    Band 6-7

    The first time I saw a shooting star coming from nowhere, miraculously, it came from darkness of the sky. It was a wonderful experience for me. It looked like a light bulb falling from the sky, suddenly towards me. It was the best ever experience I have had till date and I have heard some rumors or some what other that it is believed that if you ask for any wish then in front of the falling star then your wish would come true. And I think this is certainly true because subsequently I wish for something and it really came true and it was very wonderful experience for me. As a first time as a child it was a different and a new experience and it created a deep memory inside my heart and soul and it would last for a lifetime.

    Band 6-7

    I remember last time it was a blood moon kind of thing and the moon turned really red that night and I went to the rooftop of my hostel and I stared at the sky and the moon really looked good. It was an apocalypse I think and it was it was a phenomenon scenario and everyone of every student of the hostel was on the roof that night and they were really enjoying staring at the moon listening to songs and it was a memorable memory for me from my hostel life and it's once in a while phenomenon I think so.

    Band 6-7

    Okay, so what I saw in the sky, it was like recently when I visited to my native place, like it was I guess about 3-4 months ago, so it was a quite bright sunny day, and suddenly it started to rain, like it was not a rain, it was like a showers, and after some time I just saw the rainbow in the sky, and I was like, wow, like after long time I just saw the rainbow, and it was not even the rainy season, and it was completely unexpected that we would see, I would see the rainbow, so we just took some pictures of the rainbow, I called my friend, I called my cousins with me, and they took pictures, and we really made some videos of it, and it was a really nice and memorable day, and of course to be honest, to see something like this, you can only see in such rural places, right, I don't think so in an urban area, you would ever get to see a rainbow, even if you get to see a rainbow, you won't even have a time to look for it, so it was a really great and memorable experience for me, after that, and yeah, the colours were really bright, I guess we all know the colours in the rainbow, 7 colours, and those 7 colours were really bright, it was like, it was like a really fascinating experience for me, and yes, it was a quite memorable for me, because earlier when I was, in my childhood, I used to visit my native place, and there, we have, already have seen there, the rainbow out there, but to see this after like this, I don't even remember last time when I, when I saw the rainbow last time, it was like I guess 15 years ago, something like that, so after seeing the rainbow after such a long time, for me, it was a completely memorable experience, and yes, I would remember it for a really long period of time.
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
    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