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

Describe something useful you learned from a member of your family.

You Should Say:

• what you learned
• how this became useful later in your life
• whether you taught it to someone or not

and explain why it was important for you.

Follow-up Questions:

• Why should we learn from others?
• What is the importance of having friends?

Model Answer 1:

I am blessed to have a very loving family, and I thank them from the very bottom of my heart for teaching me everything, which made me the person today I am. So, I am really glad that I am getting an opportunity today to talk about something useful which I learned from a member of my family.

I used to live in an extended family, which included my old grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters along with my paternal uncles, aunts and cousins, where we all used to share pretty much everything with each other. I was the youngest member of my family. Anyway, as an extended family, my family members used to strictly follow some family codes, and one of those codes was that each of my family members, except me because of my young age, would try his or her best to donate a certain amount of money into a family fund.

By the way, the arrangement of such family fund was made by none other than my old grandmother because she wanted to make sure that we all were able to deal with any kind of emergency financial situation. Anyway, it was at that time I learned the importance of saving up money even whether I was earning enough or not, and I carried this important lesson into my life from high school to university and then also to my professional life.

In fact, this money-saving habit had allowed me to save up enough money to buy some good shares in the share market right after starting my new job about 10 years ago. Now, I am glad to say that I taught this valuable important life lesson also to my young wife and two of my younger cousins.

Anyway, the lesson was important for me because it allowed me to understand the value of money if I really wanted to live a decent life. Besides, it was important for me also because it allowed me the liberty and satisfaction of exploring my true potential and worth as a positive and intelligent person.

Sample Answer 2:

I grew up in a joint family with more than 12 family members. They were my parents, siblings, grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt and cousins. I had the chance to learn so many things from them and it is, in fact, natural that a kid would learn things from his/her family members. I have learned swimming from my uncle, learned the painting from my aunt, learned to play chess from my grandpa, learned to play cricket and badminton from my brother and so on and on. I have learned how to handle the stress and adverse time from my parents and learned how to behave with unknown people from my elder cousin. Thus the list would be a very long one. But I would like to emphasise the thing that I learned from my younger aunt and that is the reading habit and the pleasure of reading. Not that other things I learned from other family members are of less importance, but the reading for please and true interest in reading that I learned from my aunt is different and have great power.

I found my aunt very charming, caring and possesses a great personality. She had been a voracious reader and because of that, she was more learned and wise than people of her age. Initially, I thought that how come she spends most of her time reading? Over time, I became close to her, and she started helping me with my studies. She started inspiring me to read books other than my academic books. She read me stories and that help me grow an interest in books. Then she started telling me amazing stories of our history and showed me which books actually have those histories written.   

She shared the stories she was reading and thus we started becoming a good critic of stories and writers. She told me more stories that I have heard from anyone else. I am grateful to her that she so painstakingly explained different topics and help me grow a good interest in reading. Because of her contribution, I have started reading books of different types whenever I got time which I think is a better investment and activity than spending time idly.

Later I have inspired my nephew to read books. I did the same, I read him stories which would be interesting to him and gave him sweets, candies, ice-cream if he could have finished a book and explain the stories. I guess he has become interested in reading as well.

Tips for Answering this Cue card Question:

You can talk about anything you learned from one of your family members. It can be a morality like and a good quality like honesty, truthfulness, the capability of being strong in the time of distress, bravery, ability to protest again bad things, well manner etc. If you talk about such a morality or good quality, emphasise the person from whom you learned this. Give one or two examples when you find this family member has shown this quality and you were impressed. Also, mention some of the events when this morality or good quality that you learned became very useful for you.

For the question “Have you taught it to someone later”, you should not directly say you have taught it to someone as those moralities and good quality can’t be directly taught to someone. Rather you should say that one of your friends, neighbours or younger family members have been influenced by this quality and you later found that s/he has also acquired this morality/ good quality.

Again, you can talk about a practical skill you learned from one of your family members like cooking, electric work, woodwork, computer, singing, dancing, handicraft, driving, playing a musical instrument etc. Describing such a practical skill would be comparatively easy as you would be able to very easily answer the questions of the cue cards.

If you can answer this cue card, you should also be able to answer the following cue cards:

1.  Describe something you learned from others.
2.  Describe the practical skill you have.
3.  Describe a good quality you admire.
4.  Describe something learning-worthy from your one of your family members.
5.  Describe the quality or skill you have.
6.  Describe a skill you taught to someone.
7.  Describe the good quality you admire in your friends.
8.  Describe a family member you really admire.
 

• IELTS Cue Card
• IELTS Speaking
• Candidate Task Card

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