Cue Card Sample

Describe a thing you possess which is important to you - Cue Card # 342

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

Describe a thing you possess which is important to you.

You should say:

  • what it is
  • what it can do
  • how you use it

and explain why it is important to you.

Model Answer 1:
Today I am going to tell you about an item I possess which is important to me.  I will tell you what it is, what it can do, how I use it and why it is important to me.

The item that is important to me is my laptop!  I am not very knowledgeable about technology, so I can’t tell you anything about its specifications.  However, I can tell you that it is very light and easy to carry around.  It has both a keyboard and a touch-screen and since starting my travels it has become my best friend!

My laptop has all the Microsoft office packages like Word and PowerPoint, it also has a big memory and can give me access to Skype and the Internet. I use my laptop every day for work.  It helps me professionally in my job as an English teacher because I can use it to devise lesson plans, carry out research on new topics, and keep up to date with news and issues of relevance to my area of work.  I also use my laptop every day for personal things.  I can contact my friends by email; chat to others using Skype – if there is a strong enough wi-fi connection – and I can save all my photos of this beautiful country that I am working in at the moment Vietnam, safely on my computer.

I am from England, before I came to Vietnam my employer said it would be really helpful if I could bring a laptop with me.  I was worried - ‘what if it gets broken’ or ‘what if it gets stolen’ I thought.  Now I am here I am so happy I brought it with me.  It helps me professionally to do my job well, and it helps me personally as I can communicate with friends, family and colleagues all over the world.

Did you know that when I was in my twenties computers and the internet did not even exist?  I would never have imagined that thirty years later this gadget ‘a laptop’ has become so important to me.  I wonder what gadgets will be invented in the next thirty years!

[ Written by - Lucy Marris | Careers Adviser (UK), TEFL teacher (Vietnam) ]


 

Sample Answer 2:
Everything has its own importance based on necessity or frequent usage. I also have a laptop of my own and I had bought with my expenses when I was a student. The laptop has been serving me for three consecutive years. And I hope it will last long.  

I bought the laptop in 2014. But it was hard for me to manage the entire amount for the laptop. Hence, I had to save money from my regular expense. Life in Australia is tough if you do not have the minimum support from your family. In fact, I had to go against my family and started earning to support my own expenses including the educational costs in Australia. I felt the necessity for a laptop and it was impossible to seek financial help from my family. So, I arranged to purchase the Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook for me. This is a great machine so far.

This is a very speedy laptop and I am greatly happy with its performance. I can do a good number of tasks with this laptop. It comes with a Core 15 processor and has 128GB SSD. The integrated graphics of this device is also very effective for me. The laptop has an 8GB RAM. On the other side, the majority of the laptops of that age had only 4GB RAM. As a result, this is a very fast laptop I have ever used. But the most important thing to me was the completion of the basic necessary tasks for me. I need to prepare presentations on the laptop and present them before the class. Besides, completing the assignments with the word processor was the other important task I had to do. I enjoyed watching movies on this laptop. I was happy with the 1080p touch display. In fact, it was a new experience to me.

I had to remain very cautious about the use of this machine. The price was comparatively more than my budget and I had to cut many of my costs to afford the laptop. So, it was not possible for me to use the laptop randomly. I only used it when I needed it most. In a day, I used it for three to four hours. And by this time, I completed all of my necessary tasks. I had some other mates and friends in the university. They also had laptops but the way they used was different than me. They took almost no care for their devices and hence the laptops suffered different damages. Besides, some of them kept the machine open for hours. In fact, they did not switch off the laptops even in a week. As a result, they did not get the optimum performance from the laptop. But my experience is the opposite. I am having a better performance even after passing a notable moment with the laptop.

The laptop is important to me for various reasons. First of all, I needed it badly to complete my presentations at the university class. Besides, completing the assignments was the other important reason to have the laptop. This is not the age to submit assignments by hand writing. Often I had to download e-books for my academic studies and communicate with my university professors using e-mail. I was not addicted to social networking and still, I do escape from the time killing activities. But my academic and other needs were essential to me and thus the laptop is important.
 

Similar Cue Card Topics

Your ability to talk about this Cue Card would enable you to talk about the following Cue Cards as well:

  1. Describe a gadget you often use.
  2. Describe an important device you use daily.
  3. Describe something you own which is very important to you.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 3.00 (9 Votes)

Mojammal Hoque
Thank you very much for this wonderful topic. For this cue card, I will tell you about an important electronic device in my possession. It is a common knowledge that almost everything in our possession has its own value and importance; however, the thing I am going to tell you about is my laptop which is very useful to me. I bought it with my own income, which is I am really proud of! I bought it a year ago and I hope it will last a few years more.This is a fast laptop with all the latest configurations. I am quite happy with its performance and it is suitable for all of my tasks. The integrated graphics card generate high-quality displays and I use it for countless purposes including personal and professional correspondence, preparing official presentations and assignments. Sometimes, I enjoy watching movies on it, then search for information on different websites and enjoy videos on YouTube. It helped me profoundly to practice for the IELTS test online and to gather materials for learning English. The hard disk of my laptop has ample space for storing files and photos. Alternatively, I use Google Drive to preserve important documents in addition to the usual storage of my laptop.My laptop plays a crucial role in my everyday life. So I can't deny the importance lies in it. It seems to me I could not cope with the trend of modern technological advancement if I did not possess a laptop. It is a part and parcel of my everyday life.