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

Describe a life changing experience you have had.

You should say:

• where it took place & who was with you
• what happened
• how it made you feel

and explain how it changed your life.

Model Answer 1:

We all go through some life-changing experiences at some points of our life which eventually help us become the person we are. I also have gone through such life-changing experiences in my life, and I would like to share one of them today.

It was about 15 years ago when I was still a young child and was living with my parents in a busy city. Back then, I also liked to go out with my parents like any other children, whether they were going to do some grocery shopping or visiting a stadium to watch an interesting game. But, the rule was, when going outside anywhere with my parents, I needed to remain close to them all the time, no matter what the situations outside would be.

Of course, I tried to stick to the rule as best as I could all the times, except on one occasion, when my parents had taken me to a stadium to watch a football match. If I remember it correctly, it was a final match between two prominent football clubs in my country, and the stadium was packed with thousands of spectators. After the match was over, my parents were very excited and celebrating with other supporters outside of the stadium, and with them, I also was in a celebratory mood. But, while everybody was busy celebrating the victory, I suddenly found myself in a huge crowd which didn’t include my parents. In other words, I was lost as I probably had forgotten the advice of my parents for a while.  

Naturally, I felt very scared after getting lost and stood still where I was, hoping that my parents would find me.  Not sure, how long I had waited in the crowd, but my parents luckily found me later on.  

Needless to say, this scary incident changed my life for better, because after this incident, I have always listened to my parents and their advice, whether I liked them or not. Besides, it was after this incident that I started to exercise maximum vigilance wherever I would travel.

Sample Answer 2:

I was only 6 or 7 years old then and went to visit my grandpa in our village. I had lots of cousins and many of them were similar to my age. Visiting the village was very exciting for me. One day I along with my cousins went to play in the evening and all of a sudden we decided to catch some fishes from the nearby pond. We had no hook or net to catch fishes so we decided to do it with our bare hands.

There were no people around so no one was there to warn us. As we did not know how to swim and had no idea about the depthless of the river, we lost control and all of a sudden I found that I and my cousin were trying to get out of the water. We already got ourselves trapped in the deep water and were struggling to breathe. I barely remember what happened except that I was trying with my last effort to fight with water and get into the land. I can't recall how much time had spent but suddenly I found that I was lying on my mother's lap and was trying to find my cousin who faced the same fate as I did.

Later I heard that both of us were almost sinking in the water and an old woman came to rescue us. She was a village dweller who came to take water from the pond and had noticed us. She single-handedly rescued me and then my cousin.

This event was a life-changing event for me. After that event, I learned how important it is to stay closer to parents and to heed to their advice. I also learned how fleeting our lives are and we out to help each other. From then I also started respecting all sort of people of all ages and always believed in humanity. When we are in danger, human (known and unknown) would come to rescue us. So we should never disrespect the human and always keep faith in them.

The tragic part is that the grandson of the old woman who saved us died in the water of a river. Knowing it I started strongly believing in fates and then the tests we are bound to face in our lives.

Tips for answering this Cue Card Topic:

This cue card expects you to talk about a very important event in your life that changed your perception of life or changed the path of your life in some way. Do not just talk about an important event in your life that has nothing to do with the changes in your life.  Usually, we have such life-changing experience in our teen ages but there is no hard and fast rule that it would happen in your teen ages only. A simple experience in a later part of life can simply change a life.

The changes in life can be either a positive change or a negative change. Because of a disaster, accident and wrong decision, life can turn to a negative change. If you want to talk about such negative change, mention the event first, then say how it happened to you, who was there, how you felt about that and what negation changes it made in your life.

Alternatively, positive changes come from self-realization, positive thinking or experience, great help from someone, something lucky or miraculous etc. For this scenario, you should mention the event, how it affected your thinking, who was with you, how you felt and what positive changes it had made in your life.

Ideas for talking about such life-changing experience:

1.    Positive life-changing experience:

  a)  You realised something valuable and morality and thus you started practising it for good. For example, you saw an accident and found out how fragile our life is. Then you started leading your life in a positive way.
  b)  You were selected for a course and later on, this training and education helped you shape your career. Example: Computer Graphics course, Auto mechanics, electronics work etc.
  c)  You learned something out of interest and that has helped you earning money.
  d)  You once helped someone and he/she showed his/her gratitude by helping you back.
  e)  You understood that your family is more important and that changed your daily routine.
  f)   Diseases of someone you saw /heard have helped you leave a bad habit of yours.
  g)  You started adopting a better lifestyle.
  h)  You started helping others.

2.    A negative experience that can also change your life:

  a)   An accident
  b)   An economic disaster
  c)   Natural Calamities that affects the life
  d)   Death of a relative and family member
  e)   A negative and bad habit  

If you can talk about this Cue card topic, you should also be able to answer the following topics:

1. Describe an important lesson you learned in your life.
2. Describe a bad experience you have in your life.
3. Describe a memorable event of your life.
4. Describe something that affected your life.

• IELTS Cue Card
• IELTS Speaking
• Candidate Task Card

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