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Describe an experience you had as a member of a team: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What it was?
  • Who were the members of the team?
  • Who were the members of the team?
  • Explain how you felt.
Show all 81 answers

Cue 1:What it was?

  • Begin by clearly stating the team activity you were involved in, such as a project, sports event, or community service.
  • Provide some context about the purpose of the team and what you aimed to achieve together.

Example

I participated in a community service project where our team aimed to clean up a local park. This initiative was organized by my college to promote environmental awareness and community involvement.

Cue 2:Who were the members of the team?

  • Introduce the team members, mentioning their roles and how you knew them, whether they were classmates, friends, or colleagues.
  • Highlight any unique skills or contributions that each member brought to the team.

Example

The team consisted of five members, including my close friends from college and a couple of seniors. My friend Aditi was great at organizing events, while Rohan had experience in community service, which helped us plan effectively.

Cue 3:What did you do together?

  • Describe the specific tasks you worked on as a team and how you collaborated to achieve your goals.
  • Mention any challenges you faced and how you overcame them together.

Example

We divided the tasks among ourselves; some of us collected litter while others set up awareness banners. Initially, we struggled with coordination, but after a quick discussion, we established a clear plan that made our efforts more efficient.

Cue 4:Explain how you felt.

  • Share your emotions during the experience, focusing on feelings of teamwork, accomplishment, or any challenges faced.
  • Reflect on what you learned from this experience and how it impacted you personally.

Example

I felt a strong sense of camaraderie and fulfillment as we worked together. Seeing the park transform made me proud, and I learned the importance of teamwork and community spirit. It was rewarding to know that our efforts made a difference.

Conclusion

    Example

    Overall, this experience taught me valuable lessons about collaboration and the impact of collective efforts. It reinforced my belief in the power of teamwork and motivated me to engage more in community activities.

    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: Lack of Specific Details

    Avoid vague descriptions of the experience. Specific details help the examiner understand your role and contributions within the team, making your answer more engaging.

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    Tip

    Include specific examples of tasks you performed and how they contributed to the team's success.

    2: Ignoring Team Dynamics

    Neglecting to mention the roles of other team members can make your response seem incomplete. It's important to acknowledge how teamwork functions.

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    Tip

    Briefly describe each member's role and how they interacted with you to achieve the team's goals.

    Overlooking Personal Feelings

    Failing to express your feelings about the experience can make your answer less relatable. Personal emotions add depth to your story.

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    Tip

    Share your feelings during the experience, such as excitement or challenges, to connect with the examiner on a personal level.

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    IELTS Cue Cards asked last week

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    Describe your favourite food at a traditional festival or a special event in your country
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    Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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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    Sector 34 Test Centre, Chandigarh

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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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    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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    Anonymous student Band 7

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    Begumpet Test Centre, Hyderabad

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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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    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 7

    I would like to talk about my college annual fest. I was a member of social media team during the festival. The festival is known as UDAN and is held every year on 1st of April. So being a member of social media team, my responsibility was to handle Instagram page and provide live updates regarding event schedule and event timings to all the members of college. The team consisted of 5 members. Each member had their own personal responsibilities and the tasks were divided equally among ourselves. No member was interfering one another on their tasks and it was all a smooth workflow. Now there are many different responsibilities which I had to undertake during this event which taught me a lot about my strengths and weaknesses. As a team member, I had to listen to constant orders from our group leader and had to deliver in the given timeline which helped me prepare to face the real world job scenario. At the end, I was very satisfied with my performance and the group leader also praised my performance. He told that I was an excellent team member and one of the best he had ever worked with. I was also very much pleased by his motivational words which helped me improve further in my job role also.

    Band 7

    One of the most memorable experiences of my life had been working with a team on an event during Bliss Point, the annual fest of the Economics Association of my college. I was made an event head for one of the competitions and there were around six to seven students who worked under me, but I faced several challenges. The first challenge that I faced was that about 24 hours before the competition, four of the team members backed out. It was really difficult to arrange for the substitute members, but still with a little hard work and using my connections across the college, I was able to get those four substitute members. Then came the competition. It was the paper presentation, the flagship event of the fest. It is usually a boring event, but with my enthusiastic team, I was able to pull off a miracle. People loved our competition. There were over 30 submissions, which was an increase of about 100% from the last year. We really enjoyed the entire competition. Leading that event gave me a great confidence. Now I am confident enough that I will be able to lead even larger teams and for even larger purposes.

    Band 7

    One memorable team experience I had was during my college annual management fest last year where I worked as the coordinator of HR portfolio. Our team's responsibility was to design and execute a series of HR-themed competitive events for participants from different universities. Our team had six members, each with different strengths. Some were great at logistics, others at creative event design, and I mainly focused on structuring the competitive rounds. Ensuring they were challenging and realistic. For one of the main events, we had to create an auction round where participants bid on HR grievances and then present solutions. It required us to brainstorm draft rules, prepare cases, and coordinate with the marketing team for promotion. And I vividly remember the energy during our planning sessions. We stayed up late discussing ideas, sometimes debating passionately but always keeping the event's success in mind. On the first day, everything ran smoothly and seeing participants engaged and enjoying the round was incredibly satisfying. Also, being part of this team taught me how crucial team collaboration, adaptability, and trust are rare. I felt proud not just because the event was successful but because we achieved it together. Completing and complementing each other's strengths, it strengthened my belief that great teamwork is less about individual brilliance and more about how well you can work towards a common goal.

    Band 7

    Let me introduce how I completed our final year engineering project as a team of four. So it was time for our final academic project. A busy time of the semester, we have to create our own code, code that into an embedded system and display the final project. We were four members in our team, all assigned with different tasks. My task was to come up with a code which could possibly do every requirements of the project. Like we had to include an ultrasonic sensor, an infrared sensor and some other kinds of sensors. And since I was a person who was good in explaining concepts, our team had to choose me to lead the team. Two of the members in the team were from France, so it was pretty comfortable working with them. So we began by understanding the requirements of the project. There was this one thing we got stuck with, which was formulating the idea into code. It was a hectic, tedious task. Furthermore, the requirement for the projects and the idea that we came up with differed so much so that we had to look for other possible ways to come up with a solution. We worked so hard day and night and finally find a way out. It was a day of presentation and we were able to perform pretty well during the presentation, which added our score.

    Band 7

    One memorable experience I had as a team member was during a college football tournament last year. Our team was made up of students from different departments and although we didn't train together regularly, we quickly built chemistry and trust. I played as a striker so my main role was to lead the attack and try to score goals. But it wasn't just about individual performance. We really focused on supporting each other and playing as one unit. I still remember one match where we were down to 2-0 at halftime and everyone was frustrated. But instead of blaming each other, we encouraged one another and made a few changes and came back to win 3-2. That match showed me what true teamwork looks like. Being part of that team felt incredible. I wasn't just playing a sport I love. I was learning about leadership, patience and communication. Even though we didn't win the entire tournament, the experience itself was unforgettable. It taught me that when everyone works towards a common goal, amazing things can happen.

    Band 7

    One memorable experience I had as a part of a team was during my final year in college when I participated in a group project for a business management course. We were in a group of five students all from different backgrounds and our task was to create a business plan for a start-up idea. I worked with my classmates, everyone had different strengths, Ravi was good at research, Priya handled the finance section, Sneha was excellent at presentation and Arjun managed the data analysis. I was a team leader and focused mainly on organizing the work, coordinating deadlines and writing the executive summary. Working together was not easy in the beginning and we had some disagreements over the direction of the project and how to divide the task fairly, however, after a few meetings and open discussions we started to understand each other's working styles better, we used shared documents to collaborate more efficiently and slowly our team work improved. In the end, our project was not only completed on time but we also received the highest grade in the class. The experience taught me a lot about leadership, communication and the importance of cooperation. I felt proud to be a part of a successful team and it certainly gave me more confidence to work in a group setting in the future, moreover, I was also trying to myself to explore and communicate things while working as a team leader.

    Band 7

    Let me talk about a time when I was a part of team during my college event. Last year my college organized an annual teach feast and I was part of the event management team. Our main responsibility was to plan and organize the different competitors and ensure everything went smoothly. There were around 10 people in the team and I was given the role of coordinator. My job was to communicate with the participants, arrange materials and needs for events and make sure that each event started on time. We worked very closely with other teams like the design team, technical team and volunteers. The biggest challenge we faced was managing time as many events were happening at the same time in different locations. But we supported each other and solved the problem quickly. We even formed a WhatsApp group where we stayed in touch all day. In the end the event was a big success. I felt really proud to be a part of the team where everyone worked hard and helped one another. The experience taught me the importance of teamwork, time management and communication. I really enjoyed every moment and also made good friends. Through this experience I also learned many skills and new fitness.

    Band 7

    I was a member of the Student Council 2024-25 of my school Delhi Public School Surat. The Student Council consists of the top of the line students who excel in sports and academics and have vast variety of achievements in extracurriculars. Student Council was a great experience for me because it enabled me to talk to a lot of alumni and seniors who had achieved a lot in their academic life. I got a chance to speak to the preceding batch before me which had students that had done the things that I wanted to just before me. I got great guidance by the seniors and I feel like Student Council is a great place to be in for any student. I was the vice captain of my Griffin house and it made me realize some important aspects of life like how you can lead a team, controlling your patience and anger and dealing with human resource. Also, at the end of the Student Council, it gave me a certificate of appreciation for serving as a member of the Student Council which would help me in my college applications. Another part of Student Council that I appreciate a lot is the improvement in communication skills because you are forced to address your team and are obligated to speak in front of them. The social interactions between the seniors and the juniors were one to look forward to and I had an overall great experience in the council.

    Band 7

    One memorable experience I had as a team member was during my final year in college when we were assigned a group project for our software engineering course. We had to build a web application that allowed users to track their fitness goals. Our team consisted of four members, each with different strengths. One was good at front-end, another at back-end, one handled documentation, and I took up the responsibility of coordinating the team and designing the UI. Initially, it was quite challenging because our schedules didn't align and everyone had different expectations, but we decided to have regular meetings, both in-person and online, to divide the tasks clearly and track progress. What really made this experience special was how we supported each other when problems came up. For example, our back-end developer faced issues with database integration, and even though I wasn't experienced in that area, I stayed late with him to figure things out together. This project taught me about teamwork, communication, and patience. We ended up presenting the project successfully and even got appreciated by the professor for our user-friendly design and collaborative effort. It was truly a rewarding experience because not only did we achieve our goal, but we built a strong bond as a team.

    Band 7

    So, one of the experiences I had as a team member, it's quite remarkable because that was the first time you were able to see the impact of other teamwork and how it can produce great results. So, we were supposed to share proposal to one of our clients and the amount of time they had given to submit the proposal was not sufficient enough to create a comprehensive proposal. So, a couple of senior leaders created a war room with members from all team. Additionally, people were made available to help with the documentation and all the teams worked cohesively to create an integrated proposal within 48 hours and we were able to submit our techno commercial proposal on time and the cherry on the cake was that we were actually shortlisted and we were able to win that bid. So, that is one memory which is
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