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Describe a time you used your cellphone/smartphone to do something important: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What happened?
  • When it happened?
  • How important the cellphone/smartphone was?
  • And explain how you felt about the experience.
Show all 38 answers

Cue 1:What happened?

  • Begin by describing the situation where you needed to use your cellphone or smartphone.
  • Mention the specific task or action you took that was important.

Example

I remember a time when I had to book a last-minute train ticket to attend my cousin's wedding. My family was already on their way, and I realized I had forgotten to book my ticket.

Cue 2:When it happened?

  • Provide a clear timeframe for when this event took place.
  • Include any relevant details about the day or occasion.

Example

This happened just two days before the wedding, on a Friday evening. I was at home, feeling anxious because I didn’t want to miss the celebrations.

Cue 3:How important the cellphone/smartphone was?

  • Explain the role of your cellphone in this situation.
  • Discuss how it made the process easier or more efficient.

Example

My smartphone was crucial in this situation. I quickly opened the railway app, which allowed me to compare train schedules and book my ticket in just a few minutes. Without it, I would have had to go to the station, which would have taken much longer.

Cue 4:And explain how you felt about the experience.

  • Share your emotions during and after the experience.
  • Reflect on the importance of technology in your life.

Example

I felt a wave of relief wash over me once I successfully booked the ticket. It was a reminder of how technology can save us in critical moments. I was grateful for my smartphone, as it allowed me to be part of my family’s special day.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, using my smartphone to book that train ticket was a significant experience for me. It highlighted the importance of technology in our daily lives and how it can help us stay connected with our loved ones, especially during important events.

    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

    Avoid being too general when describing your experience. Vague answers can make it hard for the examiner to understand the significance of your story.

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    Tip

    Provide specific details about what happened, including the context and the actions you took with your cellphone.

    2: Ignoring Emotional Impact

    Neglecting to explain how you felt can make your answer less engaging. Emotions add depth to your story and connect with the listener.

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    Tip

    Share your feelings during the experience, such as excitement, stress, or relief, to make your response more relatable.

    Lack of Structure

    A disorganized response can confuse the examiner. It’s important to present your thoughts in a clear and logical order.

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    Tip

    Follow the cue card prompts in order, ensuring you address each point systematically to create a coherent narrative.

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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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    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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    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.
    Describe a book you recently read
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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

    It was for a business meeting when I used my cell phone for an online zoom meeting. It was an essential meeting because the meeting had several key points of business growth and evaluation of decisions. The meeting started at 5 p.m. on 16th of January. At the start of the meet, there were several people joining in and there were several options as well. The audio option, the video option, also the meet option wherein the people can talk to each other and chat. The recording option enabled the people to record the meeting as well as listen to it once the meeting was done. It was easier to attend the meeting due to the smartphone because it has made our lives convenient and we can allocate the sources as well.

    Band 6-7

    I use my phone in order to perform important tasks in my everyday life, but there is this one instance where I remember using my phone in order to make an important payment to buy my first bike. This was first ever vehicle purchased by me with my own money and I did it through the online banking feature of my smartphone. This happened around a year ago and I was amused how I could transfer such a huge amount online on my phone and there was no hassle whatsoever. It was so quick and easy. I can imagine that this wasn't possible around 3-4 years ago when fintech, financial technology and online payments were not that big of a thing, especially in a country like India. Everything from the payment to receiving the documents and receiving the final purchase order was done through my smartphone and I was fascinated about the technological advancements that humankind has managed to achieve in such a short amount of time. And I really think that the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to these contactless payment technology because at the time, keeping social distance and staying away from direct contact or indirect contact was the whole purpose to keep us away from that virus.

    Band 6-7

    Using a cell phone has become a common thing in our everyday life because it has become an intricate part of each and every individual from communicating to searching things and finding a source of entertainment and I am not a person who has been left behind in these activities but I vividly remember the time when I made a good use of my mobile phone as I am a working professional in the field of nursing so there is a continuous development in technology and even in the care of the patient. In order to provide an adequate and highly advanced care, I need to always brush up my skills and training up to date with the changing technologies. Then there was a key role played by the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine that is a group organized by the highly qualified professionals and consultants from around India who provide the day-to-day activities and education on different subjects and areas which are quite essential and life-saving at the same time. Moreover, I did that course initially quite reluctantly because I was quite fearing that I am a fresher learning from and appearing in front of people who are way ahead in terms of knowledge, education and training seems to be quite a shame but I just took up it as a challenge and there was no looking back.

    Band 6-7

    We know technology give given plenty of benefits through various technology gadgets such as mobile phone, laptop, computer and so on. Here I am going to talk about a time when I used mobile phone for my important work. It was about 5 years before during covid pandemic all shops were closed as per the Indian government instructions. Moreover, online shopping is only available for buying essential items. I had not used my mobile phone for online shopping before that time. However, we had really need to groceries, so I learnt about online order through YouTube videos. Hence, I downloaded an app for grocery shopping and made order within few minutes. Also, I paid with debit card because I do not share my contact number with delivery boy. After some hours, I got my order at my door. Honestly speaking, it is an amazing experience to get product at home even on better price than market. All in all, I felt over the moon after ordering through mobile phone. It saves my previous time as well as I got all items on time. So that was the time when I used mobile phone for something important.

    Band 6

    Once upon a time I was using my smartphone to do something important as it was my office meeting and during that meeting my laptop was not able to run the applications like zoom meeting so that's why I have to shift it to cell phone and there I got such a wonderful session through zoom application and there my experience was really very much good because the camera quality was very good and I was not expecting that the video quality it's giving in the smartphone it's very much good than PC so that's why it was really unexpectable thing for me and that time I was very much happy about the way I got the session and it was such a wonderful session and I think the smartphone plays very important role in our lives nowadays because many of the meetings are going online and for which we have to get for which we have to get applications like zoom, google meetings and there we can easily connect with the people and it is very good for the people whenever we are communicating with our peers and this is the way how we can communicate through the smartphone and that day I realized that there is some it really means a lot for having smartphone and nowadays as we all know that it's a digital India and now we have to do everything online so we can't do it in the laptop every time so that's why we are we can easily use and it's comfortable as anywhere we can use a smartphone.

    Band 6

    okay in 1990 when I was 23 years old I just had a conversation with one of my friend who is little my friend so he asked me about my one of the childhood friend so he told me that he is drunk so I called him in it's the matter of 1990 so I called my friend and asked about his condition because it was quite important for me to know about his condition because his parents were so strict that's why I had to know about his condition so that I can do something for him so I just called him and asked about his condition and he was fine at that time so I can say the phone was so important for me at that time if I didn't call him at that time so it would be it would have created some mess for him which would have caused some problems for him so yeah it was very important for me to use phone at that time

    Band 6

    I was out of station when suddenly I got a call from my boss to attend an important meeting with a customer. I was on the road, I parked my vehicle nearby and joined the team's meeting over there. My customer was waiting over there for me for important information. I think it was quite useful to have the teams on my mobile device and the smartphone was capable enough to handle those applications because of which not only I was able to manage my customer as well as my boss was very happy that there was no escalation happened and we managed to provide all the information to the customer in a timely manner. I think these kind of incidents do happen time to time and most of the time it's not possible to carry the laptop everywhere but these kind of devices generally help us to manage our work and at the same time it also helps us in sharing the information through the attachment, through the emails and you know if I need to share some screenshots or through the some word documents, some PDF documents which is having the confidential information which can be shared through this. So this is having the antivirus applications which is possible only into the smartphones. Additionally some officer can be handled without any further delays without even waiting for the laptops over there. The most important thing is it is very handy it has many important things like the scanners too when we need to make certain payments and if we have to if you are not carrying any credit card or the wallets we can make a payment through this. So it it helps us in saving us from the embarrassing situations when we have to make the timely payments especially when you are at the at this a mobile counter or in the as a bus stop or at any place any places which is urgency which you cannot delay any further and you have to make certain urgent payment.

    Band 6

    Yes, actually I use my cell phone or a smartphone for one important thing because I love editing. I love editing and post on Instagram. It gives an amazing experience for me because I have 5,000 followers since it started from two years before. I am very happy but sometimes it feels like more stress because we not get that much of likes and supports from that Instagram. For some issues that time we face lot of stress and if you want to prepare or interested in editing or posting a video or a post in Instagram, you have to prepare it before but that's quite a beautiful experience and very amazing thing because I develop my editing skills for use of that. It's very useful. I like to very much editing more and more to posting for posting and in Instagram.

    Band 6

    So, in our company, we'll have a period of two weeks which is known as a sprint. In that given amount of time, we have to work and complete a set of features for the product or any other work. So, this sprint ends on Friday. So, Friday around 6 p.m. I had concluded my work and I went home and then I had to go to a stand-up comedy show for which I had booked tickets earlier. So, I had been to the show. Midway to the show, I started getting calls from my manager. So, he told that I had to do a bit of coding and add a couple of features into the production. But I didn't have anything else to do. So, using my mobile, luckily which I had at that point of time, I was able to contact another freelancer who was able to do this job for me on time. And this is one of the experiences where I felt mobile was very important to solve this issue.

    Band 6

    This so happened that I went to Sringeri Shardha Temple. Shardha Devi is my favorite devotee and I consider her my mother. So, I wanted to take her picture with my smartphone. Incidentally, I took my smartphone and went near the temple and just peeked around a bit so that if there is any signature or if there is any board which says you should not take a photo of a devotee. So, I just said okay let's go inside and see if anybody stops me because I really wanted to take a photo of Devi so that I can see her everyday in my phone. So, I went inside, took my phone and I just wanted to sort of take the photo of Devi but a priest came and stopped me and I went out. That's it. So, I just took the photo of Devi and I went back to my home and I just took the photo of Devi and I just took the photo of Devi and I just took the photo of Devi. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, that's it. So, I went inside the temple. I wanted to take a photo of Devi but I couldn't because a priest came and stopped me. So, I just went back to my home. So, I just went back to my home. So, I just went back to my home. So, today I came out. So, I came out to have a darshan of Sri Shringiri and I just went back to my home. It so happened that once I went to Shringiri to take a darshan of Shardamatha who is my favourite devotee. And I wanted to take a photo of her so that everyday I can see her and everyday I can make my day special by seeing her. And I just went in and checked inside the temple if there is any sign board which says you should not take a photo of the devotee. Actually, to confess the truth, there were symbols there which said directly that we should not take the photos of the deity. But yet I couldn't resist. I took the smartphone and I went ahead and tried to click the photo of the deity. But again, the head priest came out and said you shouldn't take it and he said, you know, please don't do that and take darshan and go out. After this, I was very upset because I want to see Devi everyday and feel special about her. Once I take the darshan of the Devi in my phone, I thought I could feel special. So, I felt very bad but once again what happened was the Devi herself, the Utsava Murthi came out for the darshan of the general public. Then I took my phone and started to click the photos and videos of the Devi. Without smartphone, I could never see my Devi everyday and take darshan of her and make my day very good. So, smartphone became very important for me at that particular moment. Thank you.
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