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

Describe someone who is your online friend.

You should say:

• who is he/she
• how you know him/her
• how long you two are friends

and explain how you two maintain your online friendship.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer 1:
If anybody were to ask me to name the “eighth” wonder of the world, I certainly would have said the invention of the internet. In fact, it is almost impossible to imagine a world without the internet because it allows us to do so many things, from buying the most favourite gift for my nephew’s birthday to selling my antique and ancient watch, and from posting a unique story to making friends online.

Talking about making online friends, I actually have been lucky to meet a few of them, but “Rachel” seems to be the special one among them, whom I met for the first time about 5 years ago on an English language learning forum. To introduce Rachel, she lives in Canada, and she is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. Before 5 years, she also happened to be a regular contributor on an English language learning forum online where I also used to take part on a regular basis in order to learn English quickly and easily. And, luckily, Rachel also used to take all the pain to answer my questions in a very fluent but kind manner. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that it is because of Rachel’s efforts and kindness that I have become a bit more proficient in using English Language today.

Anyway, today, I am not only a good fan of Rachel because of her great linguistic abilities, even though she doesn’t show up on that language forum that regularly, but also a good online friend. In fact, as a good online friend, I email to her almost regularly about my life, profession and family, as well as about the other fun things that go on with my life. I also post regular travel update on her messenger services since she likes to learn about the beautiful places of my country. Finally, we also exchange different kinds of online gift cards on different occasions and festivals of our countries. All in all, I am so glad and grateful that I found a great online friend like Rachel.

Sample Answer 2:
To be honest, I have many online friends and selecting someone to talk about for this cue card topic was a bit tough for me. Many of my online friends stay far away and I have never met a few of them. This candidate task card reminds me of Julia, who is a good online friend of mine. She lives in Sweden and I have never met her.

Julia is around  27 years old and a British citizen. She is doing her post-graduation at a Swedish university. She became my friend on LinkedIn, which is a networking website for professionals. After that, we became Facebook and Twitter friends.

It would be more than 4 years ago when we first time got connected online and learned about each other on LinkedIn. However, I would say, we became friends a year later. Thus we are online friendship for over three years.

We often email each other, exchange greeting cards & gifts and update our life events. Since we both have a similar educational background and many common interests, we have many interesting and exciting topics to discuss. We often chat online and both of us follow each other on Facebook. With time, we have become reliable friends. I frequently get lengthy emails from her which describe everything she is up to. Last month I sent her a gift that she liked very much.

I think common interests, similar mindset and regular communication keep our friendship alive. Even though we have never met each other, our friendship means a lot to both of us. Digital friendship often lacks the commitment, feelings and reciprocal respects that most of the real-life friends have, but I never feel it in my friendship with Julia.  She means as much any of my friends means to me. I am not sure how this online friendship would go on in the future but at present, Julia is a good friend of mine who cares for me and value our friendship.

Sample Answer 3:
The human being cannot live alone - it's imprinted in their genetic code and they are born to socialise and have friends. But with the passage of time, the socialisation process has turned virtual to a certain extent and people are utilising different online applications and platforms to maintain their relationships. Hence, the number of online friends we have is on the rise and I am really happy to talk about one of my online friends to you.

I have a good number of online friends all over the world and among them, I communicate with Alexander Kir more often than others. He is a teacher and lives in Saint Petersburg in Russia with his family. His profile picture on Facebook depicts that he is getting ready for skiing with his daughter. He is really a good friend of mine and we often chat with each other. I know all of his family members through the pictures he shared on his Facebook timeline. I have been maintaining our online friendship for the past two years.

I am an architect in Vietnam. While browsing Facebook, one day I got a friend request from an unknown individual named Alexander Kir. I usually do not accept any unknown requests on Facebook. However, I later found that he was a student at the University of Edinburgh where I completed my graduation and post-graduation degrees. Since he was from the same university, I accepted his friend request.  

The friendship between us began in mid of 2016. But now we are good buddies. We regularly chat with each other and sometimes have video calls. Last Christmas, he made a video call where all of my family had a virtual get together with his family. In fact, distance is not a big issue with the prolific power of technology these days.

Maintaining a virtual friendship is not always easy. In the real-life scenario, we meet each other to maintain and grow our friendship. But in virtual situations, it is not possible. But I think our friendship is going on because we have a mutual understanding between us. Alexander and I value our friendship and respect each other's opinion. This helps us maintain our online friendship even though we do not meet each other in person.

Topic: Describe someone who is your online friend.

1. Meeting George was an interesting event in my life. He lives in the USA and I live in India. We share a very good online friendship. And we have been maintaining the friendship for the past two years. I came to know him from Facebook while commenting on a certain page. Our friendship is based on chatting and passing times by voice calls using online media. But we cannot talk for as long as both of us are busy. So, we try to keep in touch through messaging most of the time.

2. Robert is my online friend and we have good bondage. He lives in the same city in Australia where I live. I knew him through Twitter. I really liked one of his Tweets and could not refrain from commenting on it. And the friendship grew since then. I met Robert in person last March and our friendship is around 10 months old. Since we are in the same city, we try to meet once in a while. But most of the time we are engaged in our social platforms. It is nice indeed to have a friend like him.

3. I feel lucky to have Nubia on my Facebook friend list. She is from Egypt and a really good person. I met her on Facebook last year. Since then, we are friends. Actually, I went to visit her social profile sensing it a fake one when she commented on a post I shared. And gradually, I found that I was wrong. She appeared to be introvert but possesses a good heart and compassion for others. I often chat with her online and also make voice calls. She loves commenting on my posts too and often posts hilarious comments.

4. The use of Twitter is not so much prevalent these days in our country but I met with Fukumi at this very platform. She is a Japanese young lady and is active in social events like me. I knew her from Twitter and we are using this social platform for a couple of years. We often chat using our Twitter accounts and share our updates. When we talked, she discussed her dreams to contribute to her nation’s development. I appreciated all of her initiatives when I learned about them.

5. My LinkedIn profile attracted attention from many quarters and I met with Harry there. He is a business professional in Malaysia and a good soul too. He asked me to join his company last year but I had to decline the offer for my current job. Since then, a sense of fellow-feeling has grown between us. To maintain online friendship, I often send him a message on his success. He also congratulates me when he read that I have done something good. And this has become a trend for us. Hope, someday I would meet him in person.

When you are ready to talk about this topic, you should be able to talk about other topics mentioned below:

 1.  Talk about someone who became your friend recently.
 2.  Describe a friend you have from another county.

• IELTS Cue Card
• IELTS Speaking
• Candidate Task Card

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