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Describe a time when your computer broke down.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When & how did it happen?
  • What did you about it?
  • How did you feel about it?
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27 unique answers with expert feedback

Band 6-7

00:00

/

00:00

For my 16th birthday, my dad had gifted me an HP Inkjet Touch laptop. What I love the most about the laptop, firstly, it was a gift from my parents, which had a sentimental value to it. Secondly, it was the latest laptop launched that year, which included the feature of using the screen just by touching it, similar to a mobile phone or a tablet. Around 2-3 years after purchasing it, I was watching Netflix on it and drinking a cup of hot chocolate. I don't remember the exact details of what happened, but the hot chocolate spilled onto the laptop. It was spread all over the keyboard and the screens. Within a millisecond, the display shut off. It was just completely black and I knew that there was something wrong. I immediately jumped out of the sofa and tried shaking off the liquid, but it was of no use. By then, the water had already seeped through the keypad and into the motherboard. None of the keys were working either. I even googled how to do a forceful shutdown of the laptop, but that was of no help. The laptop had a lot of my important documents, such as my resume, my Aadhaar, and several other things. But more than that, I felt quite horrible and upset about this unfortunate incident because it was a present from my parents. Till date, I have never told my dad about it. Additionally, I also hope that he never finds out.

Follow up questions


How did you feel when your laptop broke down?
I felt really upset and anxious because it was a special gift from my parents. Losing important documents added to my stress, but the sentimental value of the laptop made it even harder to accept that it was broken.

What steps did you take after the incident?
After the incident, I tried to dry it out and looked online for solutions. I even attempted a forceful shutdown, but nothing worked. Eventually, I had to accept that I needed to take it to a repair shop, but I was worried about the cost and what my dad would say.

Have you had any other experiences with broken technology?
Yes, I've had a few other instances where my phone or tablet malfunctioned. Each time, it was frustrating, especially when I had important data on them. It taught me to back up my files regularly and be more careful with my devices.

Band 6-7

00:00

/

00:00

Two years back my laptop got broke down and I suffered a lot at that period of time where I used to have all my personal details as well as my learnings, my study materials there and when it got broke down I felt like I don't have harm, I just feel like that. So, the thing what I did initially is, first I gave it to a repair shop and they mentioned like it will take 2-3 days to repair it, so on that 2-3 days when I don't have proper materials to read, I went through my friend's materials to go through all those things and it was really hard period of time because when you have all those details and when you completely depend on something and when you don't have that, I struggled a lot at that period of time and after 2-3 days I got it back and what they did is, all the data in there were got erased, so that is one more headache which I got, so at that time I just took a backup of all the materials from my friend's laptop and then restored it in mine and then I started with my learning, so this is what I did.

Follow up questions


How did you feel when you realized your data was erased?
I felt extremely anxious and frustrated when I realized that all my data was erased. It was like losing a part of my hard work and personal information. I had to quickly adapt and find ways to recover my studies, which added to my stress during that time.

What steps do you take now to prevent data loss?
Now, I regularly back up my data to an external hard drive and use cloud storage services. This way, I ensure that even if my computer breaks down again, I won't lose important files. I also keep a list of essential documents to make recovery easier.

Did this experience change your view on technology?
Yes, this experience made me realize how dependent I am on technology. It taught me the importance of being prepared for technical failures and the need to have alternative resources. I now appreciate the value of both digital and physical study materials.

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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
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.

Band 6-7

00:00

/

00:00

I still remember when my computer was broke down. It wasn't a computer, it was a laptop. And I left Accenture that time and been applying for many, many jobs. And one day in the morning, I got up and suddenly I got a message from one of the companies where I applied. They said that please share your resume and in order to share that resume, I needed the laptop very much. So that time what I did, I opened my laptop and it was not functioning well. Initially I thought it takes time but later on, being, was trying to turn on the laptop, it took me around half an hour so I realized that there is a big problem here which has to be fixed. So I called one of my friend who is an engineer. So I tried to get it fixed by him but unfortunately he could not pick up my call. Then I didn't sit quiet, I just turned on my mobile and started browsing on YouTube what can be done and what are the steps should be taken in order to get the laptop fixed. So I came across with one video where the YouTuber was stating some troubleshooting step. I followed it and fortunately it worked for me. And that's it.

Follow up questions


How did you feel when your laptop broke down?
I felt really anxious and stressed because I was waiting for a job response. It was crucial for me to send my resume quickly, and the laptop malfunctioning added to my worries.

What steps did you take to prevent future breakdowns?
After that incident, I started backing up my important files regularly and made sure to keep my laptop updated. I also learned more about basic troubleshooting to handle minor issues myself.

Have you ever considered switching to a different brand of laptop?
Yes, I have thought about it. I’ve heard good things about other brands, especially regarding reliability. However, I also appreciate the features of my current laptop, so I'm still undecided.

Band 6-7

00:00

/

00:00

Hello, actually, here I wanted to describe about an incident which happened with me and that is really a really bad incident happened with me. Actually, before three years ago, there was a COVID time. So my employer has been decided to provide work from home so that they so that my employer has been provided to laptop to each employee and ask each employee to work at home due to the COVID period. So I got a laptop from my office and I started work from home. So actually, at that time, my daughter was only one and a half years old. She was really naughty and so much active. She always like used to touch my laptop while work while I'm working on it. So one day when I just went to have a cup of coffee for me because I was exhausted at that time. After that, I when I back, I have seen that my daughter was playing with my laptop. So suddenly he just my laptop was fallen down from it from the table to the floor and floor was like with a tile. So it was hard. So that my laptop was broken. Some key was broken of my laptop and which were not working at that time. So I was so much scared. Even I yelled on my daughter as well. And I scared because that was a property which is associated with my employer. I need to give the answer how this this has been broken. So after that

Follow up questions


How did you feel when your laptop broke?
I felt extremely anxious and scared because it was not just my personal property, but also my employer's. I was worried about how I would explain the situation and what consequences I might face for the damage.

What steps did you take after the incident?
After the incident, I immediately checked the laptop for any other damages and then contacted my employer's IT department to report the issue. I explained what happened and asked for guidance on how to proceed with repairs or replacement.

How did your daughter react to the situation?
My daughter seemed confused and a bit scared when I yelled at her. I felt guilty afterward for reacting that way, as she didn't understand the seriousness of the situation. I tried to reassure her and explained that it was an accident.

Band 6-7

00:00

/

00:00

We used to have a common computer in our home which my father uses for his business and I used to use it for my educational purposes. Randomly the computer stopped working and we were not able to figure out the issue. And that's when we realized how a gadget is important in our life and how our world revolves around gadgets. In the past, for the past few years, we had to give it to repair in our area at a local shop and for the rest of the three days, for the rest of three days, I used my friend's laptop to get all my work done.

Follow up questions


How did you feel when your computer broke down?
I felt quite stressed and anxious because I relied on the computer for my studies. It was frustrating to not have access to my files and assignments, especially with deadlines approaching.

What did you learn from that experience?
I learned the importance of having a backup plan and not relying solely on one device. It made me realize that technology can fail, and I should always have alternative options for my work.

How do you think technology impacts our daily lives?
Technology significantly impacts our daily lives by making tasks easier and more efficient. However, it also makes us dependent on gadgets, and when they fail, it can disrupt our routines and productivity.
Show all 27 answers

Cue 1:When & how did it happen?

  • Begin by describing the situation when your computer broke down, including the date and time.
  • Mention any specific tasks you were doing at that moment that made the breakdown particularly inconvenient.

Example

It was a busy Monday morning, around 10 AM, when my computer suddenly froze while I was working on an important presentation for a client meeting. I had been typing away when the screen went blank, and I couldn't do anything to revive it.


Cue 2:What did you do about it?

  • Explain the immediate steps you took to try to fix the issue, such as restarting the computer or checking connections.
  • Mention if you sought help from someone else, like a technician or a friend.

Example

Initially, I tried to restart my computer, hoping it was just a temporary glitch. After several attempts, I realized it wasn’t working, so I called my friend who is good with computers. He suggested I take it to a nearby repair shop.


Cue 3:How did you feel about it?

  • Share your emotions during the incident, focusing on feelings like frustration or anxiety.
  • Reflect on how the breakdown impacted your day and your work.

Example

I felt extremely frustrated and anxious because I had a deadline to meet. The thought of losing my work made me panic, and I was worried about how I would explain this to my boss. It was a stressful situation.


Conclusion

  • Summarize the overall experience and what you learned from it.
  • Mention how you ensured it wouldn't happen again, like backing up your data.

Example

In conclusion, that experience taught me the importance of regularly backing up my work. Since then, I’ve made it a habit to save my files on cloud storage to avoid such stressful situations in the future.


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 unclear. It's important to provide specific details about the incident to engage the listener and demonstrate your language skills.

bulb icon

Tip

Include specific details such as the date, the type of computer, and what exactly happened to make your story more vivid.


2: Neglecting Emotions

Failing to express your feelings can make your response less relatable. Sharing your emotions helps to connect with the examiner and adds depth to your answer.

bulb icon

Tip

Describe how you felt during the breakdown, whether it was frustration, anxiety, or relief, to make your answer more personal.


Lack of Structure

A disorganized response can confuse the listener. It's essential to structure your answer clearly to ensure it flows logically and covers all the cues.

bulb icon

Tip

Follow the cue card prompts in order: start with when it happened, then explain what you did, and finish with how you felt.


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

We used to have a common computer in our home which my father uses for his business and I used to use it for my educational purposes. Randomly the computer stopped working and we were not able to figure out the issue. And that's when we realized how a gadget is important in our life and how our world revolves around gadgets. In the past, for the past few years, we had to give it to repair in our area at a local shop and for the rest of the three days, for the rest of three days, I used my friend's laptop to get all my work done.

Band 6-7

So I was in like 7th or 6th standard I will say. My elder brother and me we used to play a lot of cricket in our computer. But one day we lost our final match against Australia. So in anger my brother punched on the display of my computer. So it got broke. The display got broke. So my dad told me that you guys are not focused in your studies. So I will not make your computer again. Because you two both are playing too much games. So he bought a computer for us to use it like to use Excel for studies and for all this stuff. But we have done totally thing. We do things different. We play games. We play different things. We used to watch trailers. We used to watch movies on that computer. So this lot of things happened. And I cried a lot. He cried a lot. But after few days our dad make it. Call the engineers to make it. Contact to the company. So they made it. But now I don't know where is that computer. But I have a laptop.

Band 6-7

Hello, actually, here I wanted to describe about an incident which happened with me and that is really a really bad incident happened with me. Actually, before three years ago, there was a COVID time. So my employer has been decided to provide work from home so that they so that my employer has been provided to laptop to each employee and ask each employee to work at home due to the COVID period. So I got a laptop from my office and I started work from home. So actually, at that time, my daughter was only one and a half years old. She was really naughty and so much active. She always like used to touch my laptop while work while I'm working on it. So one day when I just went to have a cup of coffee for me because I was exhausted at that time. After that, I when I back, I have seen that my daughter was playing with my laptop. So suddenly he just my laptop was fallen down from it from the table to the floor and floor was like with a tile. So it was hard. So that my laptop was broken. Some key was broken of my laptop and which were not working at that time. So I was so much scared. Even I yelled on my daughter as well. And I scared because that was a property which is associated with my employer. I need to give the answer how this this has been broken. So after that

Band 6-7

Yes, when I was in middle school, they took us to the computer lab for our first ever practical session. Me being the over-enthusiastic computer nerd that I am, went in and messed around with the system's terminal too hard and the computer crashed, basically. And the teacher is explaining something over there, which I wasn't paying attention. I was busy trying to rescue this system back from the brink of death, but it wasn't, um, it was not willing to cooperate. And I just had a black screen with just some booting lines on the, uh, with that dotted line from MS-DOS. The teacher approached me slowly and she asked me, like, what was wrong with the computer? And I said, I have no idea, ma'am. It doesn't start. It is not starting up. And she said, alright, fine, just pick a different computer. Ugh, that was a close call, one of the worst tight corners in my life, because I thought I was done for being a kid. Breaking a PC back in those days was a really big offense. I was worried I'd be expelled. For those 60 seconds, my life flashed before my eyes. Yeah, I will never forget that incident. One of my go-to mantras from that day forward, never mess with things you don't understand. Wait for instructions. Always wait for instructions.

Band 6-7

Well, computer is one of the inevitable electronic gadgets in our life. We can see that people are depending on computers either in their home and work offices. Today I would like to talk about a time when my computer broke down. Actually, I had one computer since 8 years and I was carrying it as my pet. So, during my study time, it helped me a lot to browse on internet and to learn very effectively and very easily. So, after my education, I kept the computer in my home and I didn't allow anybody to touch on that. After my marriage, I just took my computer from my home and placed it in a separate place in my husband's home. Then, when I got a child, he also used the computer for playing games and to do painting and some excel works. So, one day I will remember that when he was playing on computer, suddenly it fell down. I don't know actually what happened. He was playing on computer and he is asking something about me regarding the work. But unfortunately, maybe his hand touched the computer and it fell down. So, the situation was really difficult for me to pass away.

Band 6-7

So, my computer broke down when I had downloaded the software of MATLAB and I was very devastated because I needed to use it at the time and it was very urgent and important for me that it works. So, to deal with it, I went on Google and searched that what I can do if my computer broke down after I downloaded the software. So, I tried the ways listed in the Google to unbroke my computer and I was being very patient with it. It took quite a lot of time to repair my computer and I hope it could have not broken down because my project report submission was delayed because of it. At the end of the day, I did manage to repair it. That was the most panicked I have ever been and I hope it never happens to my laptop again. But the answer it was because I haven't updated it, so I decided that I will take care of my computer from now on and update it on a regular basis.

Band 6-7

Two years back my laptop got broke down and I suffered a lot at that period of time where I used to have all my personal details as well as my learnings, my study materials there and when it got broke down I felt like I don't have harm, I just feel like that. So, the thing what I did initially is, first I gave it to a repair shop and they mentioned like it will take 2-3 days to repair it, so on that 2-3 days when I don't have proper materials to read, I went through my friend's materials to go through all those things and it was really hard period of time because when you have all those details and when you completely depend on something and when you don't have that, I struggled a lot at that period of time and after 2-3 days I got it back and what they did is, all the data in there were got erased, so that is one more headache which I got, so at that time I just took a backup of all the materials from my friend's laptop and then restored it in mine and then I started with my learning, so this is what I did.

Band 6-7

Last year, I was doing a psychology internship during my 12th. While I was doing that, I was also making some projects based on some psychological disorders. And while one project, my computer completely broke down and I didn't know what happened. So, I basically couldn't complete my project on time. And to fix it, I called a person because even after some googling, I didn't get what was wrong with the thing. After the person fixed the computer, I was able to complete the assignment, but it was after the time given to me. So, I got a lot of scolding from my teachers in the internship. And they were really upset about all that happened. But once I explained my situation to them, they understood it and they gave me another topic to prepare on. And a whole new project to complete within a different set of deadlines. So, I was able to complete that in the given period of time and it was fine.

Band 6-7

I still remember when my computer was broke down. It wasn't a computer, it was a laptop. And I left Accenture that time and been applying for many, many jobs. And one day in the morning, I got up and suddenly I got a message from one of the companies where I applied. They said that please share your resume and in order to share that resume, I needed the laptop very much. So that time what I did, I opened my laptop and it was not functioning well. Initially I thought it takes time but later on, being, was trying to turn on the laptop, it took me around half an hour so I realized that there is a big problem here which has to be fixed. So I called one of my friend who is an engineer. So I tried to get it fixed by him but unfortunately he could not pick up my call. Then I didn't sit quiet, I just turned on my mobile and started browsing on YouTube what can be done and what are the steps should be taken in order to get the laptop fixed. So I came across with one video where the YouTuber was stating some troubleshooting step. I followed it and fortunately it worked for me. And that's it.

Band 6-7

The time when my computer broke down was during my internship. It was very peak time. I will correct myself. It was not during my internship but it is during my making of portfolio for applying to an internship. This internship is part of my college course where I have to do a training of 6 months from an architectural firm. I have been late in preparing my portfolio because of the college works. At the very last moments, I have started to do my portfolio with combining all my college works. Then it suddenly stopped working but I have been lucky because the screen got flickering but the screen was on where I could barely see the letters and work on it. Since there is no much time left for me, I have worked through it and I couldn't do that problem at that time. Therefore, I have continued doing my work and finishing the job. Then I have given it to a service center. My laptop is actually from the company Dell. I have given it to the service center where it has costed me around 12,000 for the screen panel change. They have to change the entire panel. It has been pretty good from then on.
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