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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 60 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
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    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

    The important decision which I have made has been moving to abroad on the currently I am planning, which is the most important decision which I have made, the results I don't know, I don't believe in results, I believe in the efforts, so as such the efforts matter, so I don't think about the results, the important decision as per me because moving to abroad was my beautiful plan of my part of life and it has been a sincere dream from when I joined for my bachelors and it has been coming to true in 3 months, I will be moving to, I will be moving to UK in January which is the most ultimate decision which I have made, right now the results I have told you and these things which let me see where, what kinds of plans are which are waiting for me, let's see.

    Band 6

    In every person's life, decision creates an important role to create their future. In the last month, I took a decision that is related to my daughter. I delivered a daughter two months ago and she is not well from the birth. So we had to take a decision where we want to go for their treatment. All of my family members recommend to go to the private hospital which is situated in Delhi. It was very costly to go there. We spent some time in private hospitals too. But now we had to take the decision where we want to go for the further treatment. I took a decision with the help of my husband that we go to the civil hospital that is situated in Chandigarh. That is known as a PGI. That is a research center. We spent one month there. Our daughter admitted there for a month. I felt relaxed when she got the proper treatment. She diagnosed what happened to her. We feel comfortable to talk with the doctors there because they are very much polite to us. They always give us the guidelines about their treatment and about their further planning. We really feel satisfied for this decision. We got the perfect treatment for our daughter. She is recovering so fast. We come back from the hospital with a smile on our faces. It really feels good.

    Band 6

    A very important decision that I made was to not use my mobile phone during my examinations. This decision I took when I was in my sophomore year and my final higher secondary exams were approaching. The decision I took was because I really wanted to stay away from all the distractions and wanted to focus on my studies more better. The ringtone that my phone had belonged to the company which it belonged which was Motorola but mainly focusing on the fact that after taking this important decision I was successful in scoring a really good marks in my examination and I passed with flying colors. It really made me feel that one can achieve a certain goal after restricting themselves or making some sacrifices that would make a person feel more better about themselves that they have achieved a certain goal after sacrificing something. My decision to restricting myself from the use of android devices has proved to be a great achievement for me and it also helps me practice it nowadays as well so that I can get some of my important things done rather than focusing on distractions to which the youth of today is more paved towards.

    Band 6

    So, an important decision that I made is going to the gym and walking out five times a week. This decision is so far the most significant decision that I have made in my life towards my health and fitness. It not only helped me begin with my physical health journey, but also it helped me with my discipline habits and it built my mental strength as well. So, I started going to the gym since last one year and there were times when I used to skip it and sometimes I was a little busy for going to the gym. But now that I have learned how to manage time and organize my schedule, I am able to take my gym classes regularly. Going to the gym has really been a turning point in my life. It not only motivated me to eat healthy, but also look good. Looking good, I think, is quite underrated. People say that it doesn't matter whether how you look or not, but I think working on your appearance can be the biggest game changer and the biggest form of self-respect that you can give yourself. People look up to you when you look good and people prefer you when you are more presentable.

    Band 6

    I would love to talk about an important decision that I made and the one decision that I made from switching my job career from an associate software associate quality analyst to an associate software engineer. As I was working as a software as I working as a quality analyst in a big MNC company for nearly 12 months after a certain period of time I I realized that this is not the job which I was dreamt from my childhood all I do all I have to do is find the bugs in the application there is no technical difficulties in this job. So I took an important decision in my life I thought of quitting this job which nearly took me a lot of courage and then I finally did it and then I got cracked into an another company. This time I was clear that if I'm going into another company I should be going as a software developer. So during the period of preparation I was I used to learn many programming languages that helped to deepen my skills and I got clicked in a company which is a very small company even though it's a small company it gave me a lot of career opportunities to learn many many skills. Now I am now I am working as an currently working as an associate software engineer I used to build maintain and test software applications using ASP.NET and SQL server we use ASP.NET to create a dynamic websites and a SQL server to manage the back-end databases. It's a decision making data driven application which helps me to solve a real world complex problems overall the one decision that I made helps me to enhance my skills and gave me a bright future. Thank you

    Band 6

    In life, whatever decision you make, whether it's during your universities or you're going to make in future, it somehow impacts either negatively or positively towards your career, your personal development, etc. One of the most important decisions that I have taken or took during my university was whether to pursue my career in corporate or academic. I remember it was our 8th semester when we were given a form, we had to choose between these two options and there was a clause that we cannot return it or again change back if we have second thoughts about our mind. I was contemplating to whether enter into a world of competition or to pursue further high studies and gain in-depth knowledge about a particular subject. I started to go through many papers in cognitive behaviour and also cognitive learning, gaining knowledge from my elder siblings who are both in corporate and academic worlds. I started to analyze my friends and my peers' memories. It's all that I have. I'm really thankful that I have so much support from my professors who also made me understand that corporate world is a better place and it will always help me to advance my studies whether interpersonally or professionally.

    Band 6

    Well, decision-making is part and parcel of everyone's life, however, sometimes decisions are like a hard net to crack, therefore, we always rely on others to make the relevant decisions. And if I were to talk about one of such times, I would suppose I will tell you about a time when I was in a catch-22 situation. To explain it more, I was literally confused whether to stay at home or to study in one of the renowned universities in Amritsar. I nearly forgot to tell you that it was a matter of nearly 5 years back and the reason I was quite struggling with it was quite simple. This was because I had never been away from my family, so I was, you know, literally in a quandary. Thereafter, I took the assistance of my parents and they succoured me to take the right decision. Even though they knew that they wouldn't meet me as much as possible, they made me to take the right decision because they told me that it would be, you know, one of the great opportunities in my near future. So, I decided to, you know, study in the renowned university called Narayana Devya University. Now looking back, I feel that I had made the right decision. This is because I have become the best version of myself and, you know, in the past, even though initially I was feeling, you know, terribly sick, this is because as I felt homesickness and moreover I was not acquainted with much of my friends, but slowly I became, you know, aware with the university life and I have, I believe, I have taken the right decision because had he not taken the right decision at that time, I would have been on edge. And this is because it assisted me to, you know, to become more autonomous and now these days I can take any decision and even can live away from my family. So, all in all, this was the time when I took the

    Band 6

    The important decision that I made was the decision to go for my MBA after 6 years of experience post my graduation. I graduated in 2019 and after that I have been working in industry for around 6 years. I decided I want to grow further in my career and I want to move into the leadership position. So I chose to give GMAT and the preparation for GMAT exam was a bit tough and like my schedule was very hectic for 2-3 months. I had to go to office then after coming back I will be having the evening calls with my US counterparts and post that I will be studying for my GMAT till late night. But I am happy now and I am also excited to have this opportunity to go outside and again go back to study and the chance to meet the diverse people from diverse background from all across the globe and I hope and I am really hoping that will give me a chance to develop myself and where I can be at a good position after my studies.

    Band 6

    Decision making is a very important thing in one's life and it's basically the mindset of people decides whether he is able to make a decision or not and from me from my 9th standard onwards every decisions are made by me itself and I always take assistance from my parents but I never allow them to take any decision for me so I am the one who always decide everything in my life and my parents are always supporting regarding that and one of the decision which I was made with a confusion but even though it was a very right decision till now was my career change I was a biotechnology engineer I completed my degree in 2024 and I was searching for a job in that particular career field itself and finally I got an opportunity to work with one famous company in India and I joined there but soon after I understood that that was not my path and I was literally confused I was unable to work there I got some work pressure and I was unable to lead a normal life suddenly I was in a confusion mode and I discussed with parents and with my full confidence I quit that career and I moved forward for banking field and it was a really a life changing moment in my life like I suddenly joined to the banking sector it was completely a new world to me and I started to learn new things and it was like a small baby was learning to work and learning to lead a good life and it's such a good thing for me and because of that sector only I am able to stand confidently I can earn a good level of money and it's like very very interesting and very interesting day by day and I used to feel I want to go to office want to do my job like that mindset is only happening for me because I joined

    Band 6.5

    After I passed my class 10th, I really had to make a decision regarding choosing a stream. There were 4 streams of commerce, arts and science with maths specifically that I chose. And it was really a hard decision because at that time I had a lot going through my mind. I was thinking about just opting for arts and then going abroad to become a chef. And also I thought that if I choose commerce then I could go for banking. But at the end I ended up choosing science with maths streams, specifically known as non-medical stream. And after I made the decision during my class 11th, I really had to go through a lot of hardship because the syllabus was at a whole new level, the difficulty was at the top and I really had to manage all the homework that I have to do from the school and even after that going to the coaching classes where I again have the homework to do again after I come back. So I really had a hard time during my class 11th. But once I got into class 12th, everything just went smooth. And nowadays if we talk about how I feel about my decision, I really love it that I had to make hard decision at the time but I really did really well making the decision. Moreover, decisions should be made with the advice of the elders. As during my decision making, I took advice of my parents and even my uncle who works as a data engineer in Bangalore and he really gave me advice that I should...
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