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Describe your favourite food at a traditional festival or a special event in your country .: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • What it is
  • At which festival/event you eat it
  • How it is made
  • And explain why you like it
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43 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 43 answers

Cue 1:What it is

  • Begin by clearly naming the food and giving a brief description of it.
  • Mention any unique characteristics that make this food special.

Example

My favourite food is 'Puran Poli', a sweet flatbread stuffed with a mixture of jaggery and lentils. It's a traditional dish that is not only delicious but also holds a special place in my heart.

Cue 2:At which festival/event you eat it

  • Identify the specific festival or event where this food is commonly enjoyed.
  • Explain the significance of this food during the festival or event.

Example

I usually eat Puran Poli during the festival of 'Gudi Padwa', which marks the Marathi New Year. This festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm, and Puran Poli is a must-have dish that symbolizes prosperity and happiness.

Cue 3:How it is made

  • Describe the basic ingredients and the cooking process involved in making the food.
  • Highlight any special techniques or traditions associated with its preparation.

Example

Puran Poli is made using whole wheat flour, jaggery, and split chickpeas. The lentils are cooked and mashed with jaggery to create a sweet filling, which is then encased in a thin layer of dough and rolled out before being cooked on a hot griddle. The aroma of ghee adds to its irresistible taste.

Cue 4:And explain why you like it

  • Share personal feelings or memories associated with the food.
  • Explain how this food connects you to your culture or family traditions.

Example

I love Puran Poli because it reminds me of my childhood when my grandmother would make it for us during Gudi Padwa. The taste brings back fond memories of family gatherings and celebrations, making it not just a dish, but a cherished part of my heritage.

Conclusion

  • Summarize your feelings about the food and its importance in your life.
  • Reiterate how it enhances the festive experience.

Example

In conclusion, Puran Poli is more than just a delicious treat; it represents my cultural roots and the joy of celebrating festivals with loved ones. It truly enhances the festive spirit of Gudi Padwa.

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 vague terms can make your answer unclear. Avoid general statements that do not provide specific details about the food or the festival.

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Tip

Be specific about the food's ingredients, flavors, and the unique aspects of the festival to create a vivid picture.

2: Lack of Structure

Failing to follow the cue prompts can lead to a disorganized response. This may confuse the listener and weaken your answer.

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Tip

Organize your response by addressing each cue in order: what it is, when you eat it, how it's made, and why you like it.

Overly Short Answers

Providing very brief answers can make your response seem incomplete. This may limit your ability to showcase your language skills.

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Tip

Expand on each point with examples or personal experiences to give a fuller, more engaging answer.

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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
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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7.5

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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

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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

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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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Reported by

Anonymous student Band 7

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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
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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 6-7

There are many food items in India which are cooked on the special occasion of festivals. The food I really enjoy to eat is none other than Sheer. Sheer is the traditional food which has been cooking since many centuries. I would say from the time of Akbar when he arrived in India he was the great king and he started the trend to cook the kheer in the occasion of Eid festival. According to him, if you cook the kheer definitely you would get better career opportunity in the future. There are many food items that are cooked in India on the occasions of festival. But my favorite food is kheer which is cooked on the occasion of Eid in the Muslim families. Sheer is made up of water, milk and salt and also with jaggery. The process to make kheer is very simple and forward. Firstly, you have to add some water into the rice and you only have to heat it at 110 degree Celsius. And after that within 30 minutes you have to add a cup of milk into that. This food is very much special because on the occasion of Eid, Muslim people share it with the other people of religion. That's why it creates the sense of unity between two people. As far as I know, when I was in my college, my teacher asked me to bring kheer in the university campus because she really liked it. I would say more about kheer what I can say. There are many food items that are really special. There are many food items that are really special and only cooked at the occasion of festival in my country. The food I really like is the kheer which is cooked on the occasion of Eid in the Muslim families. There are many food items that are really special and only cooked at the occasion of festival in my country. The food I really enjoy to cook and eat is none other than sheer. Sheer is the delicious meal which is prepared on the occasion of festival in Muslim families. This is known for its delicious and smooth taste. Whenever you have the small cup of sheer, after that you would definitely feel invigorating and energetic. The process to make the kheer is very simple. The process of making kheer is very simple. You only have to take one cup of rice and add only one glass of water to it. Naturally, it gives you the deligent taste when you have it. I would also say that it has been cooking since many centuries. It is said that the trend started in Indian culture when the great emperor whose name is Akbar arrived in India.

Band 6-7

So, my traditional favourite food is Modak. It's a steamed food. It's made with maida and you can put various stuff like jaggery and coconut and it's not fried or anything so it's very healthy to eat and it's just steamed. And it's usually made in Maharashtrian family or Hindu family and it's usually made in festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi. During Ganesh Chaturthi, we make a lot of foods. So, one of them is my favourite and that is Modak and I enjoy eating it very much as it's sweet and I'm a very big sweet lover. So, yeah, I prefer anything that is made of sweet and yeah.

Band 6-7

So the favorite food, traditional food I like is Pongal, so it has a very big significance in our South Indian culture in general because we make it during the harvesting festival which is almost made in almost, which is almost celebrated in every part of the country. So in Tamil Nadu and few other South Indian states, I can only talk about Tamil Nadu because I am from Tamil Nadu, I am a Tamilian, so we make Pongal, Pongal is basically, so we make two kinds of Pongal, a sweet Pongal and one, a salty one. So the sweet Pongal is traditionally made with jaggery, rice, dal and few other spices, I am really not sure about it, so and the salty Pongal is made with rice, dal, peppercorns and few other spices and pakka, salt. So these, so this is made during the harvesting festival, so if you can see these are all the harvests which is obtained from the farm, so this is a, this is where we celebrate the harvesting and for celebrating it we cook these food and Pongal is my favorite because every Sunday my mom makes it for us, it is such a comforting food in general and so calming to stomach, it has dal, rice, ghee, peppercorn, salt and my mom makes it with chutney and sambar, but in Karnataka I have seen people don't eat sambar with Pongal, so in my place sambar is, sambar and Pongal is a proper combo, but here people don't eat it that way.

Band 6-7

Well, as I am a foodie person, I love to try new foods as well as traditional foods of my country. But today, I want to talk about a special and typical food, which is known as Ghevar, which is a traditional food of Rajasthan and which is also made in every festivals and also made in every function of Rajasthan. As I belong to Rajasthan, I love to eat food that is created from Rajasthan like Dal Bati and also Churma. But in my last summer, I visited my cousin's wedding and at that time, we have tried some new foods and at that time, first time I watched Ghevar, which is a sweet desert food and it is well-known for Rajasthan culture as well as in many functions, they are made for happiness and also many people believe that it is a national food of Rajasthan and at that time, I talked to my cousin about the name of the food and also which item to create this food and my cousin told me that it is a very sweet food and also they have some knowledge of this food.

Band 6-7

So my favorite food item that I enjoy during a festival known as Uttarayan is Jalebi. So Jalebi is known as a funnel cake in English. It is a spring, it is in round shape, it usually comes in round shape and actually a spiral shape and it is filled with sugar syrup inside. It is very shiny and glazy from outside and it is fried in oil and so when you take a bite of funnel cake, it is very warm and crispy. It is, people usually enjoy it with Rabdi, it is also a sweet curd which is made in India. I personally prefer Jalebi without Rabdi because sometimes I get very, I don't like very sweet taste, I am not personally a sweet tooth but along with that Jalebi is a every season dish and people enjoy it in every, enjoy it the whole year and Jalebi is usually famous in Gujarat region where people enjoy, people prefer to eat it in their breakfast along with Fafda which is made from gram flour and at my home Jalebi is not usually cooked, we prefer buying it from

Band 6-7

My favorite food that I prepare during the traditional festival is tamarind rice or sometimes I do prefer lemon rice too. It is basically made of tamarind or lemons. We offer them to the god or goddess during the festival and we mainly prepare tamarind rice during Dussehra or Vinayak Shruti. They both are the major festivals that we do celebrate in India, in my country as it generally takes very less time to prepare and it is easily affordable with minimum requirements and I love the tamarind rice because it has that unique taste with sweetness and sourness.

Band 6-7

My favorite food at a traditional festival would be Onam and the name of the festival is also Onam basically. So this is my comfort food or I can say my favorite food because it is very simple yet so tasty. It has very minimal ingredients like rice, a lentil, a type of lentil basically, it's the yellow lentil and black pepper and salt. It has no use of oil.

Band 6-7

Okay, so I hail from a small city, Tehran to city from Patna, which is in Bihar, India. So there we celebrate a festival named as Sun, and we worship the... I hail from a tier-2 city of India named as Patna, Bihar. So there we celebrate a festival named as Chhat Pooja, which usually happens in the month of Kartik, that is November or October as per Hindu calendar. So in the Chhat Pooja, we worship the Sun during the dusk and the next dawn day. And there we have a special offer to the deity, the offering which is made to the deity, Chhati Maiya, is basically an Indian cookie made up of all-purpose flour with jaggery, which we make together in the family and all of us gather together in the year once for this festival and we all make this traditional offering for the deity. And this makes it very special for me because it's a good family time to spend with. And later after providing this as an offering, we consume this special dish as Prasadam, we say, and we distribute among our relatives also as it is believed that it gives a kind of blessing which we have absorbed while we were doing pooja for the Sun, early morning and the late evening on Chhat Pooja days. It has been an amazing experience always from my early childhood to witness this traditional festival and it is very famous in all over India. So people from...

Band 6-7

In India we all love biryani especially we love Hyderabadi biryani because it have such a magical spices flavors and everything we could feel all type of taste at the same time it was such a good dish everyone should try once in a lifetime because it was just amazing that's all we all love it we take that our traditional festival favorite food okay most of our traditional festival shall we take traditional Indian festival Diwali it's celebrated all over India without any talk about a parvacham because all will celebrate Diwali as same during Diwali we eat more sweets like jalebi, rasagulla, ladoo gulab jamun and everything all type of sweets palakova etc

Band 6-7

So, recently we visited to a community center here in Minnesota. So, there was a Diwali party and the food was amazing. Authentic Indian traditional food was arranged. So, I liked the starters. The salads, various types of salads were authentic. And there was also a savory samosa and a paneer tikka. Paneer tikka was for the main course. We loved the biryani there. And lots of bread options were there like the chapati or a naan. And in the sweet sections, we had Indian sweets. Various types of Indian sweets like gulab jamun or a rabdi or a jalebi. So, I liked the taste. When it comes to taste, the taste was very rich and it was same as of the India. So, it remembered me of the Indian culture. And it's been a while that I have been to India. So, that's why I liked the food at the Minnesota community center during the Diwali party. And...
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