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Describe An Important Decision You Made: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What was it?
  • When did you make it?
  • What music does he/she like?
  • What was the result?
  • Explain how you felt about it.
Show all 55 answers

Cue 1:What was it?

  • Clearly state the important decision you made, providing context to why it was significant.
  • Include details about what led you to make this decision.

Example

The important decision I made was to pursue my master's degree abroad. After completing my undergraduate studies in India, I realized that further education would enhance my career prospects and provide me with a global perspective.

Cue 2:When did you make it?

  • Mention the time frame when you made this decision, including any relevant events leading up to it.
  • Explain how you felt at that moment and what influenced your timing.

Example

I made this decision in early 2022, just a few months after graduating. I had been contemplating my future and discussing options with my family and friends, which helped me finalize my choice.

Cue 3:What was the result?

  • Describe the outcome of your decision, including both positive and negative aspects.
  • Share any specific experiences or achievements that resulted from this decision.

Example

As a result of my decision, I was accepted into a prestigious university in the UK. This experience not only expanded my knowledge but also allowed me to meet people from diverse backgrounds, enhancing my interpersonal skills.

Cue 4:Explain how you felt about it.

  • Share your emotions regarding the decision before and after making it.
  • Discuss any challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Example

Initially, I felt anxious about leaving my comfort zone and moving to a new country. However, once I arrived and started my studies, I felt a sense of accomplishment and excitement. Overcoming the challenges of adapting to a new culture made me more resilient.

Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, making the decision to pursue my master's degree abroad was a pivotal moment in my life. It not only shaped my career but also contributed significantly to my personal growth, and I am grateful for the experiences I gained during that time.

    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 Specificity

    Being vague about the decision can make your answer less engaging. Specific details help the examiner understand your experience better and showcase your language skills.

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    Tip

    Focus on providing clear details about the decision, including the context and your thought process at the time.

    2: Ignoring Emotional Impact

    Failing to express how you felt about the decision can make your response less personal and relatable. Emotions add depth to your story.

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    Tip

    Include your feelings before, during, and after making the decision to create a more compelling narrative.

    Neglecting the Outcome

    Not discussing the result of your decision can leave your answer incomplete. The outcome is crucial for understanding the significance of your choice.

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    Tip

    Clearly explain the results of your decision and how it affected your life to provide a full picture.

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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
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    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

    My important decision that I've made is recently, two months ago, so what it was is that me choosing to either go for a job after my undergraduate program or going to abroad for honing my skills in my computer science department. It was a really hard decision to choose whether to stay in India or to study abroad because I'm a single child so my parents were a little worried about me going, being alone because in my home she used to take care of everything so even for me still I have a dilemma whether what to do but I stood my ground and told her that I want to hone my studies and thus I'll go to study abroad and then I'll come back to you.

    Band 6-7

    The important decision that I had to make would be in my 12th. I did have a lot of important decisions to make but the major life-changing decision was my 12th and 11th stream. So there were like Humanities, Commerce, Computer Science as well as Biomaths and I was not really interested in Biology. It used to give me the shivers and I was really confused. I didn't know which one to pick, which one would be good for me. At that time, I was with my maternal aunt. It was Covid time. So it was after Covid time. So I couldn't really talk with my friends like personally and have a discussion or anything. But I used to always talk with this one friend, Sri Lakshmi. I met her when I was in second standard. She and me always had a similar path. That's what I really always thought and it was true. She said she was going to pick Computer Science and I was like, oh, Computer Science does sound like me. So I searched on YouTube and I asked my neighbor. So I had a neighbor. He was two years older than me. He did Computer Science and now he is doing B.Tech. So I asked him, which one should I take? Is Computer Science valid and all? So he said it's good and all. So

    Band 6-7

    An important decision that I made in my life is to choose which career field to proceed. I chose the career field of Hospitality Management. It was a considerably hard decision for me. However, through guidance from my seniors and parents, I came to a conclusion of choosing a particular field. Moreover, I thought it was important for me to discover more options in my life. I made this decision last year in the month of December. The results of the decision were quite fruitful for me. I joined the Hyatt Hotel Corporation. Until then, it has been a splendid experience for me. There were a lot of learnings involved in my experience. In a nutshell, my experience with Hospitality Management has been amazing. I feel that it was a good decision and it was very clever of me to take such a hard decision of my life on my own.

    Band 6-7

    Thank you for giving me such an interesting topic. To begin with, I would like to thank you for giving me such an interesting topic. Firstly, thank you for giving me such an interesting topic and any important decision that I have made is an extremely fascinating topic for me because recently I made this decision about my life, which I have been kept to it myself since now, since childhood. And the decision was like how I want to go abroad for my higher education. I want to go there. I want to do anything that I like and moreover, it's not like I don't want to do things that other people are asking me to. I am not able to do anything. Firstly, I would like to take a moment to thank you so much for giving me such an interesting topic, which is about an important decision that I have taken and recently I have taken this decision about my life, which is that I want to settle abroad. I want to go there for my higher education. Nevertheless, there was this time when I was pursuing my medical degree here in India and I was giving this competitive exam, which I wanted to just ace it. But however, with the situation that came around, I couldn't able to complete it because I want to do MBBS, then I got stuck with lower marks, I got anxious and depression hit everything else. Then now this decision, which I made is about studying abroad. I fought for myself. I fought with my family because they are not very supportive. They still are not, however, they are just considering that I should give this exam and just go for it. Moreover, I am very considerate about them as well, yet I am considering myself as a priority. I am being selfish and I don't think so that it's a bad idea. I would love to go with the flow because others told me that it's not a child's play and I do agree with them, yet I want to do this. This is my decision and I am very proud of it. I feel that I am top of the world and I can do anything that I want to. I have never taken any decision that is very difficult.

    Band 6-7

    I made a lot of important decisions in my life, but here I would like to talk about a decision which I made after completing my 10th standard and it was about choosing a right stream as I was very confused that which field was suitable for me as I am good at science and also maths. So, I was very confused, but after few days I took a decision which was about choosing commerce field and I felt very proud that I chose that decision by myself cause I was very good at maths. So, choosing commerce field really made me happy as I scored good marks in 12th standard. So, I felt little bit proud on myself as I was very amazed that I got good score in my 12th standard. So, yes I think this is the important decision I had ever made in my life.

    Band 6-7

    Hmm, coming for an important decision which I made recently was taking an exam which is also called as Lumpiard in India. This exam basically shows us the capability of ourselves, how we can perform or do in our final exams. Taking this test also made me know about myself, where do I stand in terms of excellence in the subject. Making this decision was very fruitful for me as I realized I wasn't doing well in that subject. According to this, I took more and more classes on the subject, I improved a lot on the subject, I also put more efforts comparatively to other subjects on this subject. So by doing this, in the final exam, I got a very good score. So by taking that decision to help myself or to understand myself was very good when I got the exam results.

    Band 6-7

    I would say an important decision I made in my life was selecting a partner for my life. In everybody's life, selecting a partner is very crucial because we have to spend the rest of our life with that person. So our companion, selecting our companion is very important. I chose him through a matrimony site, but I have seen him on that site, but I didn't respond to it first, but later he messaged me on Instagram and I accepted his message request and we got to chat each other and we messaged each other and we talked about our interest, about our future plans and all and that's how we got to know about each other and thus we realized that we too have common goals in our life and the vibe of each other matched. So at that point I decided to keep him as my partner or select him as my partner and we got to know each other through messaging and all and then after that we went out for a dinner, a date and then we spoke each other on that date and we used to travel each other. So I think the most important quality of him was that he was very patient, he was very calm, he used to hear all my problems and he was a good listener and that made, that attracted me towards him.

    Band 6-7

    One of the toughest decisions for me was moving to Bangalore from my hometown. I made this decision when I got a job offer from a company called Cognizant. I've never been myself. I've never tried anything out of my own because I was so dependent on my family. For to learn everything by myself, to live independently. I made this decision and right now I'm suffering a lot. Which makes my decision even more strong. I'm currently living in Bangalore.

    Band 6-7

    I would like to say, one month before I was taking one decision about my future, that's about a career based on taking the PhD. My father has told to me, you can pursue another course but I wanted to take the PhD because it gives the interest to me, I love the science, technology. That subject was impacted to me and influenced my ideas in the future and in the past and present. Science is the best way of my life to study the technology about the science and computer based software. I like to pursue my PhD in London, Cambridge. I have influenced my ideas to going there. My father has encouraged me and my mother puts on me thoughts of being a good student about the college. It was an amazing subject.

    Band 6-7

    I made a lot of decisions in my life, but most important decision that I made in my life was when I studied at 10th standard, I felt that MAX was difficult for me, and I get a low marks, even I failed in some examinations. Studying MAX was a herculean task for me because I don't know much about MAX and MAX basics method of studying MAX, and I went for tuition for studying MAX, and I felt it's a daunting task for me to study MAX, and after the corona section, I felt that I could not have an ability to study MAX because I did not know much about 8th and 9th class, during that time, most of the classes are online and I did not study during that time, so it felt more difficult for me to study MAX in 10th standard, and when I went to tuition, after 2 months, I felt that I improved, and I gained more marks in examinations, and I felt that it is not a herculean task to study MAX, and also after December 2023, I felt that it is not much a daunting task for studying MAX, even I put my lot of effort to study MAX by doing a lot of homework, and even went for tuition for a long time, I quickly know much about MAX, so this decision made my life completely changed because at that time, I get a confidence to study new subjects as well as examinations.
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