IELTS Speaking Practice
This IELTS cue card ask you to describe a helpful person, someone who gave you help.
The topic is very general, it does not specify what kind of help, but it is specific about the fact that you worked/studied with this person.
So think about a student/teacher/tutor or friend who helped you (not necessarily with your studies) or a current work colleague who has helped you.
Maybe it was a person who helped you only one time, or a person who helped you regularly over a longer period of time.
The idea of 'help' could refer to help with studies (explaining, clarifying, etc.) or just giving advice about life/careers, etc.
Or help at work could refer to
- directly helping with a work-related task
- someone at work who helped you with something not connected with work (a colleague who helped you find an apartment, gave you a lift to work in their car, gave you some advice about your boss, etc.)
Describe a person you have worked or studied with that was very helpful
You should say:
and say what you learned from the experience.
- who he/she was
- how you met him/her
- what he/she did to help you
Describe A Helpful Person IELTS Cue Card Model Answer
When I was a student, I had a good friend who was on the same course as me. She would often help me with some of the tasks and assignments we were given because she was very good at analysing things and deriving solutions from first principles.
We first met at the beginning of the first semester, I think it might have even been the very first class of the course, which we both took together. She sat next to me and naturally we started chatting.
She was a very patient person, unlike myself. I’m fine when I understand something, and when things are going okay, but when I was a student and used to get stuck for ideas, or didn’t know how to solve a problem, or the best approach to use for a task, I used to get frustrated and become impatient.
My friend, on the other hand, simply approached everything from the most basic point of relevant knowledge she could remember and then worked on the task from there until eventually she would arrive at an appropriate solution.
Math was one of my worst subjects while I was a student, but I gradually began to adopt the same approach that my friend used, and after a while, I actually became much more confident about tackling things I wasn’t familiar with, or had difficulty understanding, at first.
So, I guess I could say that I learned from her the importance of not losing my patience and becoming frustrated when thing s didn’t work out, and to simply derive things from my own knowledge rather than trying to remember lots of formulas or equations.
Her calm and logical approach to solving problems rubbed off on me, and even nowadays, whenever I find myself facing something I’m not sure about or need to tackle problem solving, I always think of her and ask myself what she would do in such a situation.
I’m definitely much more patient these days when I have to deal with such things, and tend not to become frustrated, so I’ll always be grateful to her for showing me a better way to tackle difficult tasks and situations.
Follow-up question:
Do you generally find it easy to ask other people for help?
Yes, in general, I don't have a problem asking for help. It's usually quicker and easier if someone can at least point you in the right direction or advise you how to deal with something, so that you can get on with whatever you need to do.
For the 'follow up' question or 'rounding off' question, you do not need to give a lengthy response. It is simply a transition from Part 2 to Part 3 of the test. Answers that are unnaturally long or verbose will not score more points!
How would you answer this question about describe a helpful person?