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

Describe one of your relatives whom you like.

You should say:

• who the relative is and how close you are to him/her
• what makes you like him/her
• what you usually do together

and explain why you like this particular relative of yours.

Model Answer 1:

I am lucky to have several relatives, whom I happen to like because all of them have helped me become the person I am today, in one way or another. However, today, I would like to specifically mention one of them here, who is a bit more close to me than some of my other relatives.

His name is Ebad Ali, and he is a distant cousin of mine, even though I am not too sure that I should actually use the qualifying adverb “distant”, given the type of close relationship, we enjoy with each other. Anyway, Ebad is almost the same age as me, and we grew up together for a significant part of our childhood, when we did a lot of things together, from watching cartoons and children’s movies to chasing a duck into a lake. However, during our high school years, we parted away from each other because my father had to move to a different place for professional reasons.

Gladly, we are back again at the place because Ebad got a great job in the same city where I live. In fact, now we try to enjoy our life the same way as we used to do when we were children. Of course, now we don’t chase ducks or watch cartoons anymore like the old days. Instead, we go to a movie theatre to enjoy a great movie or hit a nearby lake in order to swim during the summer. We also go to our favourite cafe every week to enjoy some fresh coffee and snacks. Ebad and I are very close to each other – close enough to even exchange our shirts. Anyway, I like Ebad for many reasons, but his positive attitude towards life is what makes me like him the most.

To conclude, I like Ebad because there are very few people in this world, except my parents, who understands me as better as him. I like Ebad also because he is a very resourceful and happy person, and he seems to have solutions for everything.

Sample Answer 2:

I like many of my relatives and among them, I'd like to pick my Grandma whom I really love and admire. She is a loving woman who always loves me. She lives with us and very close to me. I share lots of my own stuff with her. She cares for me as a mother does for her own kids. She tells me stories, some of her own and some of them are from her young time. She has a good heart and she is nice to others.

In the morning she wakes me up and we go out for the morning walk. All of our family members take our breakfast together. Sometimes I read her books and watch religious TV programs together. Sometimes I urge my wish to her and then she bargains it with my parents. In a way, she is a very close friend of mine. 

My grandma is very fond of me and I like her very much as well. We have good bonding between us that makes our relationship easy and soothing.

Sample Answer 3:

I like many of my relatives who are very compassionate, lovely and friendly to me and among them, I would pick my younger uncle as the best relative in terms of our mutual understanding, closeness and communications. In fact, we share so many common interests and activities that he is more like a friend to me than a guardian. I am very close to him and we share our books, thought and views on different issues like two close friends would do.

I like him because of his authentic compassion, support for me and because of the common interest he shares with me. I personally find him very benevolent and talented and he is a good counsellor for me. I respect him and it surprises me the way he treats me. I have never found him to ignore me and treat me as a younger nephew ever and that’s something I really like about him.

We often discuss our family issues, our thoughts of the politics, religion, books writers, movies, music and on many other issues. We share our books and recommend books to each other. I find his taste very much similar to me and that makes us do lots of things together including travelling, watching movies, spending holidays together and many more activities someone would like to do with friends. He even spends time with my friends without any hesitation.

I am the only child of my parent and from my childhood, I found that my younger uncle was living in our house. This was the main reason we became close and apart from that the shared interests, his personality and behaviour actually made us close. He took care of me in my childhood and supported me in many ways in my teenage and with time I became very close to him.

Tips for answering this cue card speaking topic:

For this cue card, talk about any close or distant relative you have whom you like. This includes your uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, relatives by blood. Try not to talk about your parents, siblings, friends, neighbours and specifically exclude the friends and neighbours as they are not treated as relatives at all.

For the first question “Who the relative is and how close you are to him/ her” say your relationship with him/her, then name and for how long you know this relative. Then to describe how close you are, mention one or two events you did together to prove that you are actually very close to this relative.

For the next question “What makes you like your relative?” describe the common interest you two have, how you treat each other, his/her personality and good quality, your memory about him/ her and finally the support you got from this relative.

You have already mentioned one / two activities you two do together, now for the third question you should give a series of activities you two do together including the conversation you have.

Now that you have said that this person is very close to you, cares you, friendly and benevolent; the time has come for you to describe why s/he is close to you. If you are talking about a close relative like a younger aunt, uncle etc. mention that s/he lives with your family. If it is a cousin you can say you two live in the same community and thus meet each other daily. Finally, if it is a distant relative, mention you often visit each other. Now talk about your common interest, activities, his/her excellent personality and talent, helpfulness etc. made you two very close. Actually, people get close for two reasons: one, if their common interests and notions have similarities or if they live together. Obviously, there are other parameters as well but mentioning these two reasons for your closeness would be convincing for the question “and describe why this person is close to you”.

Similar cue card topics that you should be able to answer as well:

1.  Describe one of your relatives.
2.  Describe one of our family members.
3.  Describe someone you like.
4.  Describe someone you like to spend time with.
5.  Describe a person you would like to travel with.
6.  Describe a person you like to talk for a long.

• IELTS Cue Card
• IELTS Speaking
• Candidate Task Card

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