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

A product you bought and was dissatisfied about.

You should say:

•  what the product was
•  where you purchased it from
• what you did with the product

and explain why you were not satisfied with the product.

Model Answer 1:
I try not to be a very picky person when it comes to choosing or buying a product. But, that may not always be a wise thing to do because it leaves us enough room for dissatisfaction just like it did for me when I bought a product last month.

It was a travel bag which I bought from one of the popular and prestigious shopping centres in my city. I could have bought that travel bag from some other stores, but since one of my cousins convinced me to visit that shopping centre, because it was selling some beautiful travel bags on discount, I decided to oblige.

I must say that I never really visited that super centre because I was under the impression that they didn’t have a collection of enough quality products. But, after visiting that shopping centre, I was proved out to be wrong because they did sell a lot of products, including some top-class travel bags. And, they were being sold on some discounted price also.

Naturally, I felt happy and picked up a travel bag for me which looked just too perfect for me at that time. Of course, I had to pay a hefty price for it even though the product was sold on a discount. By the way, the bag was supposed to be water-proof. But, after taking it home, after a few weeks, I found out that it was not waterproof when I accidentally spilt some cold coffee on it. On top of that, I also noticed that the metallic chain looked already loose after using it only for a few times.

So, the next day, I took the bag to the store and explained the situation. I also told them that I paid a lot of money for that bag even after getting a good discount. I also argued that the bag was actually made out of poor materials and as such, they should have given me a full refund. Luckily, the manager understood the gravity of the situation and gave me a full refund.

Sample Answer 2:
It would be probably 1 year or so when I bought a cell phone and went through a horrible experience. I bought a Nokia C8 cell phone from a Nokia shop in the city shopping mall. I saved the amount to purchase a cell phone over 6 months that would allow me to use the internet and install applications. Due to my budget deficiency I though Nokia C8 would be a good choice and the salesman also convinced me to purchase this particular one. I spent almost half an hour for testing the phone before purchasing it.  

I used the cell phone for about a month and I was very happy with its performance. It was a touch phone and mostly operated with the fingertip. All of a sudden one day I noticed that the touch functionality is not working and hence I am unable to use it and do anything. I restarted the phone and I found it okay again. But that problem kept reappearing over and over again and I took the phone to the service centre. After a week I took back it home and used smoothly for 2 weeks or so and sadly the problem reappeared. That was a very frustrating experience and I explained my daunting experience to the customer care officer and he assured that they would fix it. But to my surprise, I found the problem again. That day I decided to through it in the dustbin and bought a new cell phone by a different brand and manufacturer. Though I have not thrown it away to the dustbin, I placed it in a box with old and unused materials. I later bought a new cell phone by Sony and found it really cool.

Tips for talking about this cue card topic:

For this cue card speaking topic, you should talk about a product that you bought and was very disappointed about. Mention a product that you bought and mention your expectation from this product and the brand. Then show your disappointment about your experience of this product and finally mention why you were disappointed.
For the final question, state what you later did with this product.

For the first question “What was the product” you can mention one of the following:

1. An electronic gadget.
2. Mobile phone, computer, laptop, tabloid PC, a stereo system, internet modem, music player, gaming device etc.
3. Car, bicycle, motorbike
4. Refrigerator, TV, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, rice cooker etc.
5. An expensive toy for your child, an exercise machine, household appliance or gardening tool.
6. Furniture, dress, food item etc.

For the question, where you bought it from, mention that you bought it from a good brand shop, with a reasonably high price as you wanted a quality product. The product brand is a renowned one and usually, people trust this brand. Later mention that the seller assured you about the quality of this product and you paid an additional amount for the extended warranty period. Apart from the brand name, shop, mention from which city, region you bought this product from.

The question “What was not satisfying” is an important part of this cue card and asks for your capability of describing the reasons properly. There could be many dissatisfying reasons for a product and following are some of the common reasons mentioned to give you some ideas. Keep in mind that the reasons mentioned there are not specific to any product and depending on your product, these should be fine-tuned:

1. The product worked for a couple of weeks just fine and after that, it started malfunctioning even though you have used it very carefully.
2. The manual was not user-friendly and you had to struggle to learn all the intricacies of it.
3. There was a hardware fault/ defect and when you contacted the brand shop, they disagreed to change it.
4. The product started consuming much more electricity/ fuel/ energy than it ought to have.
5. The tool/ device/ thing did not work as you expected and that was really frustrating.
6. You took it to the seller and they disagreed about the promised warranty.

For the final question, what you did about it, mention that you talked with a relative about the strange behaviour of the product and s/he told that his/her one was working just fine for the last couple of years. Then you went to the shop to claim your warranty and they took a very long time to have it repaired. Even after the repair work, you were not happy about it and later you decided to sell it no matter what was the price and buy a better one.

Similar Cue Card Topics that you should also be able to talk about:

1.   Describe an irritating experience you recently had.
2.   Describe a bad experience you have.

• IELTS Cue Card
• IELTS Speaking
• Candidate Task Card

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