IELTS Speaking Part 2 Cue Cards With Answers

IELTS Speaking Part 2 is the Long Turn: 3 to 4 minutes in total, made up of one minute to prepare and roughly two minutes to speak. You get a card with a topic and three or four bullet prompts, paper and a pencil, and then you talk.

Two minutes is longer than it sounds. The candidates who run out at 50 seconds are not short of English — they are short of a structure, and the structure is what the preparation minute is for.

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Key Takeaways

• Part 2 is 3 to 4 minutes: one minute to prepare, about two minutes to speak.
• The bullet points tell you what to include, but they are not a checklist you must complete in order.
• Use the whole preparation minute on notes — keywords only, never sentences.
• The final bullet is usually “explain why”, and it is where the extended language lives; give it half your time.
• If the examiner stops you at two minutes, that is the timing working, not a fault.

How Part 2 works

Stage	Time	What happens
Card given	—	Topic plus three or four bullet prompts
Preparation	1 minute	You make notes on paper provided
Your turn	About 2 minutes	You speak; the examiner does not interrupt
Rounding-off	A few seconds	One or two short follow-up questions
Total	3-4 minutes	—

The note-making template for your one minute

Line	Write	Time to spend
1	The specific thing you will talk about — a name, a place, a date	10 sec
2	Three keywords for the descriptive bullets	15 sec
3	Two reasons for the “why” bullet	20 sec
4	One contrast or complication to extend with	10 sec
5	A closing sentence you can reach for if you run short	5 sec

Keywords only. A candidate who writes sentences in the preparation minute reads them aloud, and reading aloud is audible in the fluency score.

Cue card 1: a person

Describe a person who has influenced your working life. You should say: — who this person is — how you know them — what they did — and explain how they influenced you.

Model answer (band 7+)

“I want to talk about a woman called Renata, who managed the depot where I had my first proper job. I was twenty-two and had been hired to do data entry, which I was doing badly because I found it dull.

She noticed within about a month, which I did not expect — she managed forty people and I assumed I was invisible. Instead of putting me on a warning she moved me onto the scheduling desk, which was the busiest and least popular job in the building, and she did it without asking me first.

What she did specifically was give me the work rather than a conversation about attitude. She said something like: you are bored, so here is something that will not bore you, and if you cannot handle it we will talk in a fortnight. That was the whole intervention.

The influence has lasted much longer than the job did. Two things stuck. The first is that being bad at a task is often a mismatch rather than a failing, and the useful question is whether the task is wrong. The second is about how she handled it — she gave me a harder job as a form of confidence, not as a punishment, and I have tried to do the same thing with people I have managed since.

I would not say we were close, and I have not spoken to her in years. But she changed the direction of what I do for a living in about four sentences, which is more than most people I know well have managed.”

What this answer does	Where
Names a specific person immediately	First sentence
Covers each bullet without announcing it	Paragraphs 1-3
Spends the most time on “explain how”	Paragraph 4
Uses a contrast to extend	Final paragraph
Mixes past simple, past continuous, present perfect and conditional	Throughout

Cue card 2: a place

Describe a place you have visited that was not what you expected. You should say: — where it was — why you went there — what you expected — and explain how it differed.

Model answer (band 7+)

“The place I will describe is an industrial town in the north of my country called Halvorsen — not a tourist destination by any measure. I went there for a work training course, three days, entirely reluctantly.

What I expected was fairly specific and fairly negative: a grey town, a chain hotel, nothing to do in the evenings. Everyone who had been there had described it in roughly those terms, and I had no reason to doubt them.

The difference was not that the town turned out to be beautiful, because it did not. The buildings really are grim and the weather was worse than advertised. What surprised me was the food. There is a substantial immigrant population there, drawn originally by the factories, and as a result a town of ninety thousand people has better Eritrean food than the capital does. I ate somewhere different every night and every one of them was good.

The other thing I had not anticipated was how friendly it was, and I think the two are connected. It is not a place people visit, so anyone who does visit is unusual and gets talked to. In the capital nobody would ask me why I was there.

So the expectation was wrong in an interesting way rather than simply wrong. The town is exactly as unattractive as I was told. What nobody mentioned was that being unattractive had kept it from being smoothed out, and that is the part I would go back for.”

Cue card 3: an object

Describe something you own that you have had for a long time. You should say: — what it is — how you got it — how you use it — and explain why you have kept it.

Answer plan — the notes a candidate would make in one minute:

bike — steel frame, 1994, grandfather got: garage clearout, age 15, needed rebuilding use: commute, weekends, not races why kept: repairable / heavy but survives / not sentimental exactly contrast: newer bike in the shed unused close: outlast me probably

Six lines, about 25 words, and enough to speak for two minutes. That is the target density.

The five recurring cue card types

Type	Typical bullets	Where the marks are
A person	who / how you know them / what they did / how they influenced you	The influence bullet — abstract language
A place	where / why you went / what it was like / why you remember it	Descriptive adjectives plus a contrast
An object	what / how you got it / how you use it / why it matters	The “why” — avoid listing features
An event or experience	what / when / who with / why it was memorable	Narrative tenses, then reflection
An activity or habit	what / how often / how you started / why you continue	Frequency language plus change over time

Every type ends with an “explain why” bullet. That bullet is where the abstract vocabulary and complex structures come from, so it deserves about half your speaking time even though it is one bullet of four.

How to fill two minutes without padding

Technique	Example
Be specific immediately	“a woman called Renata who managed the depot”, not “a person I used to work with”
Include one concrete detail per bullet	A number, a name, a piece of dialogue
Add a complication	“I would not say we were close, and…”
Compare with an alternative	“In the capital nobody would ask me why I was there.”
Reflect at the end	Move from what happened to what it means
Say the unexpected part	“The expectation was wrong in an interesting way rather than simply wrong.”

What loses marks in Part 2

Problem	Why it costs you	Fix
Running out at 50 seconds	Too little language assessed, and it reads as limited fluency	Plan two reasons and one contrast in the preparation minute
Announcing the bullets	“Now I will say how I know them” wastes seconds and sounds mechanical	Move between bullets without labelling them
Writing full sentences in the prep minute	You will read them aloud, and it is audible	Keywords only, six lines maximum
Choosing an abstract topic	Hard to be concrete, so the answer stays vague	Pick a specific instance even if it fits the card imperfectly
Memorised answers bent to fit	Examiners recognise them and the fit is usually poor	Prepare structures, not content
Stopping when the card is covered	The bullets are prompts, not a finish line	Extend the “why” bullet until the examiner stops you

Practice routine

1. Pick a card. Set a timer for one minute and make notes — keywords only, six lines.
2. Set a timer for two minutes and record yourself. Do not stop early and do not restart.
3. Listen back once, timing where you ran out of material.
4. Do the same card again the following day with different notes. The second attempt shows whether the structure or the content was the problem.
5. Once a week, take a card at random and speak with no preparation at all. It makes the one minute feel generous.

FAQ

How long do I get to prepare for IELTS Speaking Part 2?

One minute, with paper and pencil provided. The whole Part 2 including the follow-up questions takes three to four minutes, and your talk itself should run to about two.

What happens if I speak for less than two minutes?

Nothing formally, but there is less language for the examiner to assess and short answers read as limited fluency. Planning two reasons and a contrast during the preparation minute is what usually fixes it.

Do I have to cover all the bullet points?

The card tells you what points you should include, so treat them as your structure. Covering them keeps your answer organised, so use them — but do not announce them, and do not stop speaking simply because you have reached the last one.

Will the examiner interrupt me?

The examiner will stop you at around two minutes, which is the timing working normally rather than a signal that you have done something wrong. There is no interruption during the talk itself.

Can I make up the story in Part 2?

Yes. You are assessed on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation — not on whether the events happened. A specific invented answer is easier to deliver than a vague true one.

Should I write full sentences in my notes?

No. Six lines of keywords is the right density — roughly 25 words. Candidates who write sentences end up reading them aloud, and the change in rhythm is audible to the examiner.

Related practice resources

• IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions
• IELTS Speaking Part 3 questions
• IELTS vocabulary list for band 7+

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