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IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card.

Describe a course you took in your college or university.

You should say:

• what course it was
• when you took it
• what you learned from this course

and explain why you took this course.

Model Answer 1:

As a student of business administration, I needed to take many subjects to fulfil the requirements of my graduation. While I learned many things by studying those courses, today I would like to talk about one particular course that, I think, that has helped me a lot in my professional life.

The particular course, I am talking about, is "Business and Professional Communication". If I remember it properly, I took this course during the 3rd semester of an undergraduate degree with a great teacher in the year of 2014. Even though I was taking other difficult courses during that time, I remember paying special attention to this particular course as I was really enjoying studying it from the start. In fact, this was the subject in which I got one of my highest grades, along with a few other subjects.

By the way, Business and Professional communication is the process of sharing information between people within and outside a company so that it helps improve the organization practices and reduce errors. Effective "business and professional communication" is how employees and management interact to reach organizational goals.

I learned a lot of things by studying this subject, including upward communication, how to effectively communicate with a manager, colleague, as well as a subordinate within an internal organizational setup. I also learned how to conduct external business communication, which involves messages that leaves from an office and internal staff, while dealing with customers, vendors, or any other kinds of communication that impacts a company or brand. Besides, I also learned what kinds of disaster takes place in a company or for a brand when it fails to conduct effective business and professional communication.

Anyway, this is a great course, and I took it because I really wanted to improve my communication skills on both personal and professional levels. I also wanted to make myself valuable for my company, for which I would be working, so that I can play a leading role in shaping the effective communicational parameters for it. I am really glad that I took this course.
 

Sample Answer 2:

‘Book Keeping & Banking’ was one of the most interesting courses I took in my university level and I thoroughly enjoyed this course. In fact, I learned many new concepts and theory from this course that it helped me a lot throughout the remaining semesters. This was a mandatory course in the 3rd semester in my Bachelor of Business Administration studies and the courses on this subject lasted for four months. I was so interested in this course that later on, I took three other courses in different semesters related to banking.

I learned the accounting concept of banking, how a bank is operated, how the banking transactions and accounting are maintained, how the central banks control the money supply of the market and many more concepts from this course. A practical session was included in this course and I learned some basic transaction processes of bankers from these lab sessions.

In my third semester, this was a mandatory course and I had no alternatives other than taking this course. I came from the science background until my undergraduate course, and that’s why I had no prior accounting course experience. I was a bit dubious about this course in my university level as I did not know what it includes. But after I completed this course, I found myself very much interested in Banking procedure and automated banking. 

Tips for answering this cue card:

For this cue card you can talk about any course (be it academic or not) you took in your college or university. You should talk about a course that you actually enjoyed so that you can answer the questions fluently. You are free to pick any subject you like and the third question ‘what you learned from this course’ actually expect you to talk about the things you learned from this course.

For the final question ‘why you took this course’ might have two types of answers; one: it was a mandatory subject and you had no other choice but to enrol in it. Two: you had a passion and interest in this subject and that’s why you decided to take it.

State the name of the academic subject clearly (like C programming language, Introduction to Business, Basic Accounting etc.). After that, tell the year and term/ semester when you took this course. If you can recall the year and month, also mention that.

Your ability to talk about this cue card would also help you to talk about the following cue cards:

1.  Describe a subject taught in your school.
2.  Describe one of your favourite subjects.
3.  Describe something you learned from college.
4.  Describe a subject taught at your university.  
5.  Talk about your favourite subject in high school.

• IELTS Cue Card
• Candidate Task Card

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