arrow back icon Top Answers

Describe an event that ended in failure.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What was the event and when did it happen?
  • Why was it a failure?
  • How do you feel about it?
Show all 30 answers

Cue 1:What was the event and when did it happen?

  • Begin by clearly stating the event you are referring to, including specific details such as the time and place.
  • Provide context about why this event was significant to you.

Example

The event I want to talk about is my first attempt at organizing a cultural festival in my college, which took place in March 2022. It was a big deal for me as I was the head of the organizing committee, and I had high hopes for it.

Cue 2:Why was it a failure?

  • Identify the key reasons that led to the failure of the event, being honest and reflective.
  • Discuss any unexpected challenges that arose and how they contributed to the outcome.

Example

Unfortunately, the festival turned out to be a failure mainly due to poor planning and lack of communication among team members. We underestimated the budget and ended up running out of funds halfway through the event. Additionally, we faced unexpected rain on the day of the festival, which affected attendance significantly.

Cue 3:How do you feel about it?

  • Share your emotions regarding the failure, including any lessons learned.
  • Reflect on how this experience has shaped your perspective or future actions.

Example

I felt quite disappointed and embarrassed at first, as I had invested so much time and effort. However, looking back, I realize that it was a valuable learning experience. I learned the importance of thorough planning and effective communication, which I have applied in subsequent projects.

Conclusion

  • Summarize the key points you discussed in your response.
  • Reflect on how this failure has positively influenced your personal growth.

Example

In conclusion, while my first attempt at organizing a cultural festival ended in failure, it taught me essential lessons about planning and teamwork. This experience has made me more resilient and better prepared for future challenges.

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

Providing unclear or general details about the event can make your answer less engaging. Specificity helps the examiner understand your experience better.

bulb icon

Tip

Use specific examples and details about the event, such as the date, location, and key moments that led to the failure.

2: Blaming Others

Focusing too much on blaming others for the failure can come across as unprofessional. It’s important to take some responsibility for your own role.

bulb icon

Tip

Reflect on your own actions and decisions during the event, and discuss what you could have done differently.

Negative Tone

Using a consistently negative tone can make your response less appealing. It’s important to show some personal growth or learning from the experience.

bulb icon

Tip

Balance your discussion of the failure with insights on what you learned and how it has helped you improve in the future.

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

Great. Before three years from now, I used to be a married lady having a worst marriage life where I went through a lot of failing experiences to enhance and to raise this relation to be a better one. But I always ended with a failure result. I couldn't stop that except when I went through one year and a half of planning and trying different techniques, different stuff. That event took a lot from my energy and how I feel about it right now. I feel like I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm recovered. I try to find my weak points and I try to understand why I did that and how could I improve the weak point in myself to avoid putting myself in the same area of conflict in my future life. I cried a lot at that time but right now I'm more strong.

Band 6-7

year 19 not yet 19 but year 2019 this year was a year of failure for me it was because I cleared my 12th exam I passed in that and when I go for a I went for coaching classes for NEET but I failed in my NEET exam and I was so traumatized how will I overcome that it was the biggest failure and the first failure of my life I used to be a very bright student but when I got that failure it somehow disheartened disheartened me I felt how can this be possible how can I feel I feel so bad for me but to be honest before this I used to think that I am perfect but after that I realized no I need to do really hard work I need to focus on my things because you can't rely on a single thing if you the things which went wrong was I didn't give my 100% there I think I cheated on myself I fooled me I fooled my people I should have done a very hard work but I failed failures are important in life because they teach you so much they teach you lessons they teach you many more things the biggest thing is you overcome that failure you make yourself a better version of everything and you develop as a person you develop as a great human

Band 6-7

It is a well known fact that success is not a constant in life, it is failure that is constant in life, but that should not let us get ourselves demotivated, it should instead motivate ourselves to view failure as a stepping stone for success. Everybody goes through some sort of failure, small or big, at least once in their life. The important thing is that we learn from our mistakes and improve on them so that we can have a brighter future. During my younger days, I used to be a bit of a flippant boy, not focusing on my studies and not paying attention to my parents' advice. I did not adhere to my teacher's rules and was a bit of a troublemaker. But in 7th grade, when I started to notice that my grades were not the best, I decided that for a better and brighter future, I must try to focus myself on the important things in life. I must try to study better, I must try to understand why studies are one of the most important things in life. And thus, slowly but surely, I got better at it.

Band 6-7

So an event which ended up in failure was in my fifth year. To give a brief overview about this, to give a backstory about this, I am an architecture student. So at the end of every final semester, we are required to complete a design problem and also submit a model with it as well. I have completely devoted my time to designing and presentation of my sheets and I haven't allocated proper time for my model and model making was my favourite part of it and I was kind of overconfident about completing my model in time but I could not meet the deadline. So in a hurry, I did not complete it properly and the model was too shabby and the result was not good and it was not at all satisfying. When I did go to the jury on that day, I was kind of embarrassed about the model output that I worked on and it was not up to the mark of which it can be presented to a jury member. Moreover, every other student have worked on it very well which made me even more sad. It was very much upsetting for me that I did something like this. I was devastated and it was really hard to move on and that was what was on my mind about the whole time of the jury. So I could not present my design very well because of this and it really did teach me a lesson about not being overconfident and we need to allocate our time accordingly and we shouldn't really neglect the things which we are supposed to excel at.

Band 6-7

So, the event which got, which ended in failure, which I'm going to talk about is Kanyathan event, which is the largest student-driven event in our college. So that is an event which is organized every year by the students and faculties. It's a combined efforts of all the people from all the sections ranging from BBA and all of the departments. So basically, it is an event which is organized in sponsorships from different businesses around our college. And that is done for the students, especially Kanyathan is run for her. That is, we organize this event wherein we collect money and then that money goes for the education of students, especially girls. So that event literally, it was my first year of my college and all my seniors of different departments were there. I was in the co-committee, a part of co-committee. I was also responsible for bringing sponsorships and selling the tickets. So I learned very much throughout the hour. I was also responsible for anchoring, which I got to know later. It was I think two to three months of preparation. My seniors started it very early, but then when a month was left, I think the juniors joined it, including me. And then we were aggressively working and unitely working on it to make it successful. We brought good sponsorships and we actually collected 22 lakhs of sponsorship from different businesses that includes gyms and education institutions too. That was a good success. The preparation was a good hit, but then COVID hit and there were some of the protocols and the police came and they were very particular about following the guidelines and then we had to hold on it because there were notice from the police.

Band 6-7

The event that I am about to tell happened during my final year of college, I got admission in a famous college in Chennai, I passed the entrance exam and also the interview, but I had some issues with financial issues, so I had to pass on the admission or my seat to someone else, so I prepared hard for it, but it ended in a failure because of my financial situations, also I parallelly wrote the CUET exam and what happened was, I accidentally enrolled in the general quota, while I belonged to the BC quota, so I had the enough marks to get an admission based on the BC quota, but since I have enrolled in the general quota, I didn't get the admission into my desired university, so that also ended in a failure and I feel pretty bad about it and ever since then I have started to be more cautious and attentive to infilling any application forms.

Band 6-7

Okay, so one event which ended in failure took place last year for me. It was an English competition held by my college. It was about cosplaying as a character you liked. I decided to cosplay as Zorro from the anime One Piece. Well, all the preparations were going well. I got the costumes and everything but the essential part of Zorro's costume, the three swords, couldn't get shipped on time. So, I had to go to the event without my props. After going there and looking at people with all their stuff, I decided that no, I will not go on stage. I ended up regretting that later because I didn't even try. I didn't try with the resources that I had. So, it is a failure on my part. After that event, I decided that whenever I'll be taking part in anything, I will do my best no matter what. So, despite it ending as a failure, I feel that it shaped me as a better person for the future. Thank you for watching!

Band 6-7

Recently in the month of September one of my friend called and he was explaining me about investment so he gave me a suggestion to invest in share market. I don't usually I never invest in shares I do SIPs but not in shares. So he gave me a suggestion to invest in one new share has launched and that is Bajaj Financing Housing Loan then I was like why not let's give a try and then I invested for 100 shares for 185 rupees the other day it went down so it was like around 100 it went down 100 rupees. So now still now I am in failure I am it is not increasing so I purchased around 200 shares so it is like 25,000 to 30,000 I guess so which is a huge amount for me I am waiting for when it will get increased I am waiting for the good market results I never feel like investment is a bad idea one or the other day it will get improved the market will get improved and I am hoping for the next year I am hoping for the best results I am hoping at least it should go 2 to 3% more.

Band 6-7

So, an event that had ended in failure would take me back to a time two years ago when there was a dance recital coming up and I was unable to perform in it because I had gotten sick three days prior to the event. And as someone who has been professionally dancing for the past ten years, specializing in classical Indian dance specifically, as well as other types of dance, it was very defeating I would describe it to be. I felt incredibly regretful of not being careful. I was feeling guilty for letting down my teacher and my dance team. And to add on to this, I also had a sprain in my ankle, so the doctor had also advised me not to put pressure on my ankle. And this made me feel, yeah, it made me feel very sad and made me feel very regretful of not putting in the effort to rest properly prior to the dance event. And I would count it as a failure to an event, however, I also reminded myself that things like these do happen and sometimes when they say break a leg, it does end up happening. So it's important to stay optimistic at times like this where it is okay and there is going to be more events like that where you can show your talent and make it up for the times that you've lost. So I reminded myself it's important to be optimistic about the event.

Band 6-7

As failure is a part of one's life so there are many moments where I have failed in my life and one of the moment where I failed was when my principal ma'am in my school told me to organize a games in 2020. Then as the head boy of the school I planned to arrange all the necessary things which were essential for the sports meet in my school. So we arranged all the functions which were which were important and furthermore we also brought all the essential items like balls, rope and nets for the football and volleyball and then we also arranged all the all the cards to distribute among the parents as all the parents of the students were invited to see the function and also enhance their and motivate their their child and but we ended up failing that sports meet because we faced a chronic disease which was which was the corona virus at that time so it was very difficult for us to to shut that function down because of the COVID-19 so we decided to dispose of the program and then we had our online classes so we failed to organize at that program but that thing helped me to help me to boost my motivation.
1 2 3
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