- working / studying
- colours you like / dislike
- how colours affect purchasing
- discussions about colour
- a memorable childhood event
- traditions
- historical heritage
IELTS Speaking Part 1
What is your full name?
My name is...
Can I see your ID?
Yes. Here it is.
Where are you from?
I’m from [city] in [country]. {If you are not doing IELTS in your own country}
I'm from [city]. {If you are doing IELTS in your own country}
Do you work or study?
I’m working and I’m studying as well.
What subject are you studying?
I’m studying for my MBA at the moment.
Why did you choose this subject?
For two reasons – I find it interesting, especially the international aspects of this course, and it’s something I need to do to advance my career because I want to be able to compete with others for the best positions in management within multinational companies.
Is it a popular subject among students?
Yes, it is, particularly in recent years for those working in business and commercial sectors.
Let's talk about colours:
What colour do you like the most? Why?
Personally, I prefer red as a colour – I think it’s a nice colour, and it’s bold and strong.
Is there any specific colour you dislike? Why?
No, not really, not one colour in general. There are some colours I wouldn’t choose for certain things, but I wouldn’t say that there is just one particular colour that I don’t like.
How much does colour matter to you when buying things?
Yes, it’s extremely important. For example, if I was buying new clothes, I would consider the colour very carefully, or if I was buying a car – the colour would be very important, too.
I think colour influences people’s purchasing decisions a lot, whether they are aware of it or not. There are some colours which are more powerful and suggestive, and appealing than others.
Have you ever had a discussion about colours? What aspect of colour was it about?
Yes, I can remember once in a class we had about marketing, we had a big discussion about the role of colour in terms of products and marketing and the different moods and feelings that colour can evoke in consumers, it was really interesting.
IELTS Speaking Part 2
Describe a happy childhood memory
You should say:- What it is
- When and where it happened
- Why you liked it so much
and explain why you still remember it now.
Describe a happy childhood memory | IELTS cue card sample answer
When I was about 11 years old I began to attend karate lessons. Before that, I had been interested in playing soccer but wanted to try something different – you know, for a change. So my parents found a karate school near where we lived and I used to go twice a week in the evenings after school.
Anyway, after I had been there a few months the club announced that they were going to do a charity run – 10 kilometres – to raise money for a local charitable foundation.
I had never done such a long run before but I started training with another person who also went to the karate club and we gradually trained ourselves for the event.
I explained to all my friends and family about the event and they helped me to get a lot of sponsors for the run, people who would donate a sum of money for each of the kilometres run on the day of the event. We wanted to raise as much money as possible.
When it came time for the charity run, I remember it was a beautiful day, a Saturday in the morning, and we started at about 10 am.
The first part of the run was quite easy but soon everybody began to feel tired and slowed down. But we started to encourage each other and especially the few people at the back of the group and we all motivated each other to keep on going.
It was tough, but we all finished eventually and we were extremely happy to have completed the entire 10 kilometres – quite an achievement for the first time.
I still remember it now, because it was such a great bunch of people, boys, girls and older people too and it was just like a big family doing something important together.
There was a lot of support and camaraderie in the group – a great feeling. And we also raised a lot of money that day for a good cause in the community. So it was a very memorable event in my childhood.
Maybe you could talk about a gift you received in your childhood that made you happy and that is why you remember it. Or You could describe a friend of your family you remember from your childhood that you shared a memorable time with.
- Describe a childhood memory
- Describe a happy childhood memory
- Describe an unforgettable event from your childhood
- Describe a memorable childhood experience
- Describe your childhood memories
- Describe a happy childhood event you remember
- Describe a memorable period or event from your childhood
- What is your most memorable childhood experience?
- What is your favourite memory from your childhood?
- What was your childhood like?
- Describe a memorable event in your childhood
- Describe a memorable event from your childhood
- Describe an event/happy experience from your childhood
- Describe a happy memory from your childhood
- Describe a memorable event in your life
- Describe your childhood
- Describe a childhood event
IELTS Speaking Part 3
Why do you still remember it?
It’s a strong memory for me probably because it was something that I hadn’t done before, and also because it was the first group activity I did with the club so that was new for me also.
But probably one of the main reasons is because it was something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do at first – but because of the motivation and encouragement within the group – we all managed to finish the event.
So it was an important personal achievement for me, and a valuable lesson about persistence and the power of doing things together.
I have many other good memories from my childhood, like special birthdays and things like that, but this one was important because it taught me something very valuable that I’ve never forgotten.
Why do you think young people pay less attention to traditions now?
One of the main reasons is that the pace of life has become much quicker. This has had a couple of effects – people have less time for non-essential things, and things are less permanent than they were in the past.
Let me explain, for example, nowadays people are expected to do so much more in their lives than in the past.
There is more pressure to compete and progress in life and this means that many young people don’t have time, or are not interested in traditions and things from the past – they are focused on the ‘now’ – the present – and the future, because these are the things they can change or influence and so have greater importance than anything that happened in the past.
Then there is the rate of development which we experience in modern life. Before, things were slower moving – but now we seem to have one change after another which means we have become accustomed to constantly changing and adapting – and are less stuck in our ways, and this is another reason why some traditions are becoming less important.
There are probably other reasons – but those are just two possible reasons why traditions seem less important to young people than before.
Why is it important to keep our traditions and historical heritage?
Well, there some good reasons why we shouldn’t just forget about our past and our history.
It’s important to understand where we came from, our origins, and how we developed as a nation, and as a people. Each country has its own identity, culture, and so on … and it’s important to understand how that came to evolve over time.
Also, traditions and heritage can help people identify with their sense of roots, or belonging, and make them feel like part of something, a shared culture.
I experienced this myself last year when I was studying abroad. I met another student from my country while I was there, and we immediately had so much in common that we became good friends – because we were both in a strange country with a different culture and different traditions.
We seemed to have an instant bond because of the traditions and culture that we shared.
Who do you think should be in charge of keeping our traditions alive? Why?
Ideally, everyone should be involved, for example, there are some official traditions that the government and other official bodies need to maintain, national traditions and religious traditions.
For example, and then there are the more general cultural traditions which people maintain, such as family traditions and other special occasions.
They’re all important, but individual citizens would find it hard to organize an official ceremony to commemorate an important historical or military occasion in history – that’s something best done by the government.
Likewise with religious festivals, maybe people celebrate them with their families, but it’s normally the church or other religious groups which organize public events to celebrate special festivals and so on.
Maintaining traditions and cultural heritage involves everybody – but in different ways and for different reasons.
Do you think we should keep our traditions without change? Why?
It seems that some traditions haven’t changed much over the years, but then again others have.
It depends a lot on what the actual tradition is. For example, commemorating Independence Day is a tradition that hasn’t changed much over the centuries. There are still the usual parades and commemorative events and it’s still done similarly to how it was done in the past.
On the other hand, other traditions such as graduating from university, getting married, or even celebrating Christmas, for example, still have some things which haven’t changed but they have also evolved a little to include some new aspects.
It’s not that the tradition has changed – they’re all still celebrations of an important event – for example, people used to get married in a church in the past, now they can still do that.
But some people choose to get married in other places also, and in some countries marriage between two people of the same gender is now possible, so while the tradition of celebrating ‘marriage’ is still the same – there are some new aspects to it nowadays.
I don’t think it’s important to keep all traditions exactly the same as they were in the past – some will naturally evolve as they are more based on society and its values – and those things are always changing, so it’s kind of inevitable that some traditions will also evolve to reflect those changes.