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Describe an aquatic animal.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • Which animal was it?
  • What does it look like? When did you see it?
  • Why is it interesting?
Show all 27 answers

Cue 1:Which animal was it?

  • Begin by naming the aquatic animal clearly.
  • Share a brief personal connection or experience related to the animal.

Example

The aquatic animal I want to describe is the dolphin. I have always been fascinated by dolphins since I watched a documentary about them as a child.

Cue 2:What does it look like? When did you see it?

  • Provide a detailed description of the animal's physical features, such as size, color, and unique characteristics.
  • Mention the specific occasion when you saw the animal, whether in the wild or in an aquarium.

Example

Dolphins are sleek and streamlined, usually gray with lighter underbellies. They have a distinct dorsal fin and a playful smile. I first saw a dolphin during a family trip to Goa last summer when we went on a boat ride.

Cue 3:Why is it interesting?

  • Discuss the unique behaviors or traits of the animal that capture your interest.
  • Explain any personal experiences or facts that make the animal special to you.

Example

Dolphins are incredibly intelligent and social creatures. I find it interesting how they communicate with each other using clicks and whistles. During our boat ride, we were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins leaping out of the water, which was a breathtaking experience.

Conclusion

  • Summarize your thoughts about the animal and its significance to you.
  • End with a personal reflection or a statement about the importance of aquatic life.

Example

In conclusion, dolphins are not only beautiful creatures but also symbolize the intelligence and playfulness of marine life. They remind me of the importance of protecting our oceans and the wonderful beings that inhabit them.

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. Candidates often fail to provide specific details about the aquatic animal, which can lead to a lack of engagement from the examiner.

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Tip

Use descriptive adjectives and specific details about the animal's appearance, behavior, and habitat to create a vivid picture.

2: Rushing Through Answers

Many candidates rush their responses, which can lead to incomplete answers. This may cause them to miss important cues and fail to fully explain their thoughts.

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Tip

Take your time to think before speaking. Structure your answer by addressing each cue clearly and thoroughly.

Ignoring Personal Connection

Failing to share personal experiences or connections can make your answer less engaging. Candidates often miss the opportunity to explain why the animal is interesting to them.

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Tip

Include a personal story or reason that highlights your interest in the animal, making your answer more relatable and memorable.

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 8

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 6.5

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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

One of my favorite aquatic animals would be the dolphins. I remember seeing them when I was about 10 years old in one of the lakes back in India. They are known to be one of the most friendliest sea animals with long noses. And with long noses they make a very intriguing sound which helps them to call out to one another. They are usually grey in color, medium sized and are found in both oceans as well as rivers. In recent times they have also been kept in different zoos as well as sea life aquariums where they train to do different activities that helps to please the crowd. They can do different flips as well as numerous other activities that help them. They are usually found in abundance even in Sydney and during peak times they come out almost to the shore and they play with the people that are usually surfing or swimming. They are one of the most beautiful animals to see and actually are not very life threatening as compared to the sharks. There are activities where people can also now swim with the dolphins and they swim with you. They usually leap from the water high up into the air and show off their skills as well as do a lot of dolphin as well as make different kinds of calling sounds. Which is more like a sharp shrill voice that they usually use to call one another.

Band 6-7

From school books and the National Geographic channel, I have seen and learned about many amazing aquatic animals. I am going to talk about a particular unusual and amazing aquatic mammal right now. The whale is the animal. This aquatic animal has never actually been spotted by me. However, I have watched it on the National Geographic channel countless times. Due to its exceptional size and lovely blue hue, the whale appears enticing. Once we start seeing it, our eye becomes fixated on it due to how stunning it appears. The whale is fascinating for a variety of reasons. First of all, it is the largest member of the aquatic mammal family. The average whale can reach a length of 30 meters and weigh more than 180 tons. They have a lengthy span. Many whales live for over a century. Similar to other mammals, whales breathe air, they are warm-blooded animals, they have body hair and give milk to their young. The most intriguing aspect about whales is that they frequently learn from and impart knowledge to humans. They experience grief over the passing of their relatives. They co-exist in harmony, they create sound waves to communicate with one another. Whales can be found all around the world. The process through which whales locate food via sound waves is known as echolocation. They create sound waves, which strike the object and reflect to pinpoint exactly where their meal is.

Band 6-7

I visited the Dubai aquarium back when I was in the 11th grade. It's like this huge aquarium right inside the middle of a mall where you can see all sorts of different aquatic species. But this was the first time that I was seeing a jellyfish and it really stood out to me as one of the most interesting and unique sea animals that I have seen. Much like its name, the jellyfish is just a blob of flesh. It has this top part which is shaped like a dome and it's sort of amorphous, it doesn't really hold its shape like jelly. And under that you have these really loose and flowy tentacles. So it just has a unique sort of floral vibe to it and it's really cute because of the way that it manoeuvres itself inside the water, it'll just use its blob-like body to push the water down. But my point is, just in the way of how it moves around and what it looks like, it feels very cute and unalarming. But one interesting fact about it is that it is actually one of the deadliest animals out there. The tentacles in the jellyfish are supposed to be really venomous and if it stings you, you will get really sharp shooting pain in your leg, sorry, wherever it bites you, wherever it stings you. And sometimes I believe it can be fatal as well, so just the juxtaposition of how cute it looks versus what kind of damage it can do was really interesting to me.

Band 6-7

The aquatic animal of my choice would be a Dolphin, they are very cute but they are also very sharp and intelligent, so not as intelligent as humans but dolphins are said to obey orders and come back for their food if you feed them and they can recognize people and humans. So if you go to a dolphin show, you will see them posing for pictures with children etc. which is really cute, they are mammals and they have a huge squishy head that people pat but it is very sensitive, often times you will see breeders feeding them ice which is their favorite food and once they are happy they will jump around and you can swim with them and they are really cute.

Band 6-7

The aquatic animal which I would like to describe is Dolphin because they are the most intelligent aquatic creatures on this planet and they do have emotional intelligence as well and they are very close to humans, how they look like is they are quite huge and they look like a blue whale kind of blue whale but they are little smaller than that and they like eating fishes, that's definitely one of the reasons why they are little smaller than that and they like eating fishes, that's their favorite diet and apart from that they are quite funny as well, they are like a human pet dog, they are very loyal to you, if you treat them well they will treat you very well and they are quite funny and the way they, I have heard about them, one thing that I have heard about them is they have their own language as well which they speak, they can also communicate to humans as well and whatever they need they definitely tell humans that if they are hungry they will tell that they are hungry and that is it, that is something which I would love about, I love about dolphins and that's it.

Band 6-7

So, the aquatic animal that fascinates me the most will be the dolphins because they are comparable to adolescents in human in terms of their intellectual capabilities and intelligence. I am much more confident, I think this is because the first time I saw a dolphin was in the dolphin show in Dubai and their ability to perform tasks as instructed by their trainers was fascinating. They could do a lot of things, they could understand the verbal cues, their action cues and perform some amazing things which I think is not possible by many other fishes and aquatic organisms and this is also because the dolphins are dangerous hunters and they hunt in packs in their oceans. So this makes them versatile as both a friendly creature as well as a dangerous one.

Band 6-7

There are various creatures in the ocean like dolphin, fish, jellyfish, octopus and if I talk personally about dolphin, it's a very intelligent creature in the ocean, it is very beautiful also and I have seen it when I was visiting Maldives and at that time I have seen the dolphins with doing many activities in the ocean, it is likely look like a

Band 6-7

So, I'm gonna describe an aquatic animal which I recently saw. It was a turtle. I saw it on my visit to my aunt's home. She has a very big aquarium which consists of goldfish, seals and a turtle. It is actually very interesting to see and hold a turtle. It had a big shell which protected its body from outer environment or any sort of hazards and he can completely go into that shell. He had a pretty heavy shell according to its body size. Moreover, his ability to swim through the water was very fascinating to me personally because I was a child when I saw it. It was a very slow walker but it can glide through the water and that was a very great experience to see a turtle.

Band 6-7

So, I would like to speak about dolphins, very interesting animals, they are known to be one of the most intelligent aquatic mammals that we have in our oceans, they are easily recognisable, they have these distinct features, you know, they have the particular arrangement of their snouts, there are various species that you see, so there are very well-known seawater dolphins but then there are the lesser-known freshwater dolphins, interestingly these animals do tend to travel in groups and they are very, they are quite studied by researchers and scientists alike, their ability to communicate with each other, so yes, and they make a very pretty picture when, you know, you see them in movies and TV shows, when you see them jumping out of water makes for a very beautiful scene, so I recently happened to see a few dolphins at a water park that I had been to, so these were dolphins that were taught to, that taught various tricks and it was interesting, although it made me a little sad because, you know, this animal has to live in a enclosed space away from what is supposed to be their natural habitat, when you picture dolphins, they are always jumping into, you know, out of the water, jumping out of the water into seas and there they were, these intelligent animals restricted to a particular area.

Band 6-7

The animal, aquatic animal that I am going to describe is the killer whale. When it comes to killer whale, they hunt in pods and I haven't seen it directly, but I have seen a documentary where they have shown how they hunt and everything, how they uniquely hunt their prey, how they form pods to hunt their prey. The manner in which they hunt, it's like they have a mind of their own. They communicate through whistles and everything. That's a circumstance where people think that animals don't use their mind. Animals are not intelligent enough to hunt in pods and they don't communicate with each other. They have a unique language through whistles and as they live in pods, they have a social behavior towards each other. The mother teaches the cubs to hunt, that's how they start hunting. There are unique ways in which they hunt and there are multiple pods all over the world. Each follow a different style of hunting. That's typically not seen anywhere in the world. The parents teaching the cubs how to hunt, that's the two in a different way.
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