IELTS Speaking: Part 2, How to take a quick preparation in topic card/cue card/prompt card

August 4, 2018January 11, 2019

This post deals with a strategy to take a fruitful preparation on IELTS Speaking Part 2 or Topic card. Reading this post an IELTS candidate can easily learn some techniques and cover a good number of IELTS topic cards easily. Candidates should try to follow the given instructions and prepare themselves for speaking part 2.

In IELTS speaking module many students get confused about taking preparation for the Topic Card or Cue Card section. This is because many students find it difficult to cope up with the short time for their overall IELTS preparation and there are no ways to find out a fixed syllabus for IELTS speaking because there are hundreds of topic cards. We should remember that we will not get much time and this is why we need some techniques for taking a quick preparation in Speaking.

One of such techniques is taking a common topic and making a number of cue cards based on it personally. It is a really interesting and helpful way to cover a Let us take a look at a topic like this.

Here is a sample topic card for you to think over.

Describe a person whom you like.

You should say:

Who he/she is
What he/she does
What’s your relation with him/her
And explain why you like him so much

If we take a close look at the topic card above and the topics in the middle, we can see that the topics around are linked with it. So, if we can have a clear idea and knowledge about the topic in the middle, it will be no problem to talk about the topics around. Moreover, it is far easier to take preparation on multiple topics at a time.

Now, try to think about some characteristics and special matters about the person which you can relate to this topic and put down them on some empty circles just the diagram below. When you finish the task, try to talk on the topic “A person you like” for 2 minutes approximately. Remember to follow your notes as much as possible and use a timer.

Here is an example answer based on the notes:

Thanks a lot for the cue card. I know a lot of persons who are directly or indirectly related to my life, work and society and so on. I like almost all of them. Yet, there are a few persons who always have a special place in my heart. I love them like they follow them, and most importantly, I always want to be like them. Here, I’m going to talk about such a person who is directly my relative and a very close one.

The person is my maternal uncle. His name is Mr. Richard Hall. He is a Computer Engineer by profession. He works for a Canadian private computing firm. He is about 45 years old, tall, stout and a very jolly person.

He is my idol for some special and interesting reasons. He is a very courageous, self-reliant and self-motivated man. He was a very brilliant student in his student life. He used to study at Yale University which is my dream institute. He used to get high grades in all his subjects.

One of the reasons why I like him so much is his quick-thinking and decision-making accuracy. He can take decisions very well in critical situations and he never gets nervous. He is also my advisor in many ways. I always get help from him in many ways. Even a couple of days ago he helped me to decide whether I should join my present job or not. He is a pious man but he is modern in his attitudes. His attitudes towards life are not back-dated, rather it is always motivating and contemporary. I also like him because his state of mind is quite similar to me. He helps me whenever I ask for it but he always tells me not to give up to try for something, which also shows the amount of perseverance an optimistic person should possess.

Finally, I would like to say that my uncle possesses all the qualities of a successful person who not only inspires me with his work and lifestyle but also gives me hope and encouragement about being someone like him and serve my family, society, and nation. That’s why I like him very much and I am proud of him.