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Describe Something You Do That Can Help You Concentrate On Work/Study: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What is it?
  • When do you do it?
  • How did you learn about it?
  • How does it help you concentrate?
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40 unique answers with expert feedback

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Cue 1:What is it?

  • Clearly state the activity you do to help you concentrate, such as meditation, listening to music, or taking short breaks.
  • Provide a brief explanation of what this activity involves.

Example

One activity that helps me concentrate on my studies is listening to instrumental music. I usually choose soft piano or nature sounds, which create a calming atmosphere that allows me to focus better.


Cue 2:When do you do it?

  • Mention specific times when you engage in this activity, such as during study sessions or while working on assignments.
  • Explain how often you incorporate this activity into your routine.

Example

I typically listen to music while studying in the evenings, especially when I have a lot of material to cover. I make it a point to do this every day, as it has become an essential part of my study routine.


Cue 3:How did you learn about it?

  • Share how you discovered this activity, whether through friends, online resources, or personal experimentation.
  • Mention any specific experiences that led you to adopt this method.

Example

I learned about the benefits of listening to music for concentration from a friend who is also a student. She recommended it to me during our study sessions, and I decided to give it a try. After a few days, I noticed a significant improvement in my focus.


Cue 4:How does it help you concentrate?

  • Explain the specific ways this activity enhances your concentration, such as reducing distractions or creating a positive mood.
  • Provide personal insights on how it affects your productivity.

Example

Listening to instrumental music helps me block out distractions from my surroundings, like noise from family members or traffic outside. It creates a peaceful environment that allows me to immerse myself in my studies, ultimately boosting my productivity and retention of information.


Conclusion

    Example

    In conclusion, listening to instrumental music has become a vital part of my study routine. It not only helps me concentrate better but also makes the studying process more enjoyable. I believe that finding the right method to enhance focus is essential for anyone looking to improve their academic performance.


    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 unclear or general terms can confuse the examiner. It's important to provide specific details about the activity to make your answer more engaging and informative.

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    Tip

    Use clear examples and specific details when describing the activity. Explain what it is and how it works in your routine.


    2: Lack of Personal Connection

    Failing to connect the activity to your personal experience can make your response less relatable. The examiner wants to hear your unique perspective.

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    Tip

    Share a personal story or experience related to the activity. Explain how you discovered it and why it matters to you.


    Ignoring the Cues

    Not addressing all the cue prompts can lead to an incomplete answer. Each cue is designed to guide your response and showcase your speaking skills.

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    Tip

    Make sure to answer all the cues provided. Structure your response to cover each point clearly and logically.


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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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    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.

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    Anonymous student Band 6.5

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    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.

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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.

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    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

    So, something that I do to concentrate on work or studies, basically I follow a 30 minute work rule. I work for 30 minutes or study for 30 minutes and then I take a break of 5 minutes and regain my concentration and again I will start working for again some more 30 minutes and I will take one more 5 minute break. In this way I will get more concentration for work and also during that 5 minute break I sometimes play chess, I also take sometimes, take a quick nap to regain my concentration and energy back to the work. So and another thing is whenever I feel I am not concentrated on work, I will skip the work on that day. I will try to do that work on some other time when I have concentrated, I have high concentration level and I may regain my concentration level. And also when I am not concentrated, my efficiency on work will be also less. So I feel we should do or study, work or study whenever we are highly concentrated and we have good focus, we can achieve our goal faster compared to when we don't have concentration. So for that reason I feel like we should develop high concentration power by doing the concentration exercises. By doing concentration exercises, we can increase our concentration power and also it will also help our efficiency of the work or the study of which we do. So for that reason I feel we all need to work on our concentrating power and increase the efficiency of the work and do the concentrating activities.

    Band 6

    The thing I do to improve my concentration is yoga, let there be no ambiguity in it, I strongly believe in it. I used to practice yoga in morning, a week, still until a week before, but now due to a hectic schedule it is shifted to evening. Previously I begin my day with Surya Namskaram and breathing exercise, but as of now since I am doing it in evening I don't do Surya Namskaram, I will do other yoga sanas. It all started with my summer vacation in my childhood when my mother and dad were so enthusiastic about this Guruji teaching yoga sanas in TV and they want me and my brother to join the yoga class and thereby it all began. I really don't know how it improves one's concentration, but I have a strong gut feeling that I have felt that my focus has rapidly improved since I practiced yoga. So I am not going to give up on that, I am going to take it to the next level, I am going to take it to my grave. I specially like to thank my parents for letting me know this wonderful art of breathing technique. A few weeks before I was suffering from a severe cold and fever, I just practiced basic stretching exercises which was taught a decade before and it really helped me to heal me both physically and mentally. So I will always vouch for yoga.

    Band 6

    So, there are many ways to concentrate, to do something to that help to concentrate on your study, but I prefer running and yoga in my daily routine. From my childhood, I practiced this daily and mainly doing yoga and running there is no time, but I prefer to do in morning. Mainly it is do in park, room, ground, anywhere you want to do, so I will prefer to do in park or room, then it help to increase the concentration power, that help to increase the marks or increase or help to achieve our goal and it also increase the mental health, it also help to give a good sleep in night, it also help to reduce the stress, that have generated during our exam period, it decrease our BP, that is increased by sudden incident, means it cure our hyper tension and anxiety, doing running and yoga is also suggested by the doctor, so it is a best medicine to reduce our hyper tension or anxiety. By doing this, from long time, I feel very energetic and calm, now I feel very focus on my study, it help to increase my concentration on work.

    Band 6

    There are many things that people do so that they can focus on their work or study. For me, I personally listen to lo-fi music whenever I am working or studying as listening to lo-fi music helps me to concentrate in my work and also it makes my head ache more less. So, I do this in night when I am studying and everybody is asleep. Moreover, I discovered it while I was studying and I just randomly took a break and I scrolled through YouTube and I found lo-fi music. I played it and then when I started to study, I was able to focus more. So after that, I always used to plug my earphones in and then listen to lo-fi music whenever I studied. Also, it helps me to focus on my studies by providing me peace and also it helps me to cut the outer environment and just give my sole attention to my work so that I am able to focus properly. That's it. To conclude, listening to lo-fi music depends on each and every person but personally I feel that it's good for me.

    Band 6

    Well, there are so many things which one can do to have great concentration or have great focus. The main thing I would like to discuss about today is meditation. That's the thing that always helps me to concentrate more in more better way to do task more effectively and efficiently. Because there are so many things that we do in our daily life and which gives very hassle bessel. So if you want something like when I was preparing for IELTS or whenever I try to study, first I don't just rush to get into it and I don't do like that. Firstly, I sit and I do deep breathing to relax my mind. It helps me to calm down. So doing this basic, basic methods can help you to concentrate more effectively. And if you are more concentrated, it will help you to, it will help more to learn and you will catch things in a better way. So doing these kinds of things are very important for everyone and everyone should do that. I learned these things on YouTube. I follow the channel of one Sikh Mata ji. She is very famous for her yoga and all. She belongs to Canada and her name is Mata Baljeet Kaur ji. She uploads so many videos related to how to relax your mind, how to be positive, how to not get in negativity, how to recite positive affirmations. So I try to do all the things which helps me to relax my mind so that I can concentrate on work or study in effective manner and give my 100%. So I always try to do these things which are improving my mind and I'm very much interested into these.

    Band 6

    Yeah, things that I do which can help me to concentrate on my work or study is, there's a lot of things which I can do physically and also mentally to concentrate on work or study. Coming to physically, I usually eat ground nuts and lot of dry fruits which can make my brain work more actively and concentrate on any work which I am doing, any work or anything which I study. And while coming to the mentally, I do meditation and also I prepare the timetable when to read and what to read which is very important and I do prioritize my subjects, I do prioritize my work which needs to be done first and which needs to be done later. By prioritizing, by preparing the timetable, everything, I can understand which task needs to be completed in the most priority. And the second thing is that, how did I learn doing all this is, I went to ashram a year ago. They've helped me with lot of things like how we need to concentrate on study, how we need to do our work which is important and which is not important and also, earlier I have attended personality development sessions also, they have asked me to do such things like for example, do meditation, do yoga and also eat proper food which makes your brain concentrate or function more properly.

    Band 6

    Joe Iyer meditation and active reading plays a very key role in building up my concentration while working on a particular topic or studying a particular topic I generally try to meditate every day in the morning before getting started off with my day or at least 30 minutes before sitting to study continuously for a longer period of time I've always seen my seniors and my family members follow this particular method before getting indulged into something which is really serious and requires a lot of effort and work moreover working on it doesn't only increases your concentration but it allows you to analyze any further defense that the particular thing can have and gain insights out of it this concentration technique and not only keep you does not only keep me fully energized but it also allows me to keep on working hard towards what I want and yeah that's all

    Band 5-6

    I usually meditation and doing yoga in early mornings in my regular basis. So these modern life also I am very busy with my work and hectic work lot of lot of patients during my work so that why I was doing this yoga. So usually I when I didn't go office and in my weekends I do more more than 2 hours to spend yoga. Persistently this yoga was I recently went to the Isha Yoga Center in Tamil Nadu. So I I was learning I was learn this yoga and meditation also. In the early morning me and my I and I my family members I were doing yoga in my regular modules. It was a mind refreshing and relaxing. After that we focused on my daily basis. It was it was so interesting. Everybody you should you should practice in like a regular basis. At least 21 days. Doing doing the

    Band 5-6

    Time management is very important on my job role. That is very crucial point. Crucial for the work day to day job. So I am writing my job roles, what to do, what is the next appointment, where I need to meet the next customer, what is his time schedule and everything I write on a book from the day starting my job so that I can plan accordingly to meet the customer and I can explain what is my job roles and how can I help the customer to get the achievement and all like that. So the time management is very important for my duty and that can be the most important. Accordingly I can concentrate on my work. It's very crucial my day to day job. When I am managing my time with the customer I can explain him the needs of the customers so that I can explain the main role of my job to the customer.

    Band 5-6

    As nowadays there are lots of distractions that have always been around that had made for most important to be concentrated to what you are doing and my two of main things that helped me to concentrate on my study are listening to music and take a short nap while studying then I discovered taking a small 10-15 minutes nap with the interval of 2-3 hours kept best works for me as it rejuvenates and refreshes me and to remain more actively concentrated on my study. I tend to listen music, listen some calming music that brings back my focus so here are the two ways which I use to remain focused throughout the day while studying that helps me a lot concentrating and keeping away from the distractions like mobile phone which is the foremost distraction that's over there and while taking a nap the alarms that I keep makes me able to wake up on time and start studying again once the nap and a break time is done.
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