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IELTS Cue Card Talk about a member of your family

May 19, 2020 IELTS Research

IELTS Cue Card Talk about a member of your family you spend a lot of time with

Talk about a member of your family you spend a lot of time with

You should say

Who the family member is?

Why do you spend so much time with them?

How do you spend this time?

And describe the family member.

Sample Answer

We can choose who we spend time with and who we surround ourselves with, except for the people whom we were born among; our family. Whether we like it or not, the family will always be present throughout our life and play a critical role, even in absentia they will leave a memorable impression.

I honestly do not manage to spend all that much time with my extended family due to living away from them in the city. The only family I truly know is my parents. Up until recently both of my parents used to work office jobs, after quarantine they too were forced to stay at home like me. I found myself spending time more with my mother though. During our roof walks post-dinner we had debates on academic and practical subjects both. It’s fascinating to be able to debate two different world viewpoints.

Mum and I would help each other out with our respective pastimes, mine would be drawing and hers would be writing. I introduced my mother to some new books which I thought she would like, to my delight she loved them: Red Notice by Bill Browder especially. She told me all about the intricacies in that book, and I, in turn, showed her the fantasy universes of Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games too.

My mother comes off as a very uptight and strict person when you first meet her; someone you should not trifle with. However, it is after knowing her for my whole life I can indeed confirm that she does indeed smile, and she does in fact, have a silly side too. Sadly, she is not ticklish but one cannot have everything in their lives. I love both of my parents dearly and I am very privileged to have such savvy and understanding people in my life.

Useful words and their meanings
In absentia	When you do something in absentia, you’re not physically present.
Uptight	nervous, anxious, or worried
Trifle with someone or something	to act without seriousness or respect toward someone or something.
Privileged	having special rights or advantages that only a small number of people have
Savvy	used to describe someone with practical knowledge and ability

Follow-up questions:

Speaking Part-3 

Q1. What are the things that you like to do together as a family?
Q2. Do you get along well with your family?
Q3. Are people in your country generally close to their family?
Q4. What kind of families are most common in your hometown?
Q5. How important is the family bonding for you?
Q6. What is your favorite memory with your family members?

Sample Answer here.

Feel free to call for suggestions and queries.

IELTS Band 7 Dehradun
Near Ballupur Chowk, Dehradun

email: info at ieltsband7.com

IELTS online simulator

IELTS BAND 7 Home page

Cue Card # Talk about a time you set a goal

May 15, 2020 IELTS Research

IELTS Cue Card # Talk about a time you set a goal

Talk about a time you set a goal

You should say

What was the goal?

Did you achieve the goal?

What did you learn along the way?

And Explain why you set that goal.

Sample Answer

During Quarantine the world seems to have come to a standstill. Time, weekdays, and routines have become an abstract alien concept to the majority of us. To keep myself preoccupied and to prevent myself from wasting this precious time, I set myself some goals.

My Goals were as follows: getting up early, every single day consistently; continue a modified version of my workout even at home; and to learn a new skill.

The first two goals were easy enough to implement once I got used to the ideas. I made sure to keep my favourite song as an alarm tone. Rather than keeping my phone next to me while I sleep, now I kept it in the kitchen which is all the way across the apartment. Once in the kitchen, I have a glass of water to freshen up and get about the rest of my day.

I soon noticed that getting up became easier every day, my moods got a whole lot better, and I just felt generally more productive. I managed to do variations of indoor yoga six days a week, for I gave myself a pass on Sundays. That’s another thing I did, I made sure not to lose track of the weekdays, I treated every day like a work vacation; a day to get the most out of.

Now as for my last goal, it was to learn a new skill to keep me focused. The skill I chose to learn was animation. It was slow, time-consuming work; reading from the manuals and online free tutorials I could get my hands on. But lo and behold, two weeks later I had finished my very first simple animation of a 90-frame loop of a walking bird. I am very proud of my creation.

So far, the quarantine is still not over but I am proud to announce that I have indeed achieved the goals I have set out for myself – I even look forward to achieving them tomorrow, and every day that is to come in the future. The main thing I learned along this journey is realizing as an adult how much your choices reflect in your lifestyle. How good improvement actually feels, and how easy it is to take that first step into the unknown.

Useful words and their meanings
Quarantine	a period of time during which an animal or person that might have a disease is kept away from other people or animals so that the disease cannot spread
Standstill	a condition in which all movement or activity has stopped
lo and behold (a phrase)	something that you say when you tell someone about something surprising that happened

Feel free to call for suggestions and queries.

IELTS Band 7 Dehradun
Near Ballupur Chowk, Dehradun

email: info at ieltsband7.com

IELTS online simulator

IELTS BAND 7 Home page

Cue Card # Talk about a time you were travelling but were delayed

May 13, 2020 IELTS Research

IELTS Cue Card Talk about a time you were travelling but were delayed

Talk about a time you were travelling but were delayed

You should day

Where were you travelling to?

Why were you delayed?

How did you overcome the delay?

And describe the entire episode in detail.

Sample Answer

Travel is a requisite of the modern lifestyle. One cannot achieve globalization without interpersonal communication after all. Even though now the situation has changed quite a bit since the outbreak of this pandemic, travel for essential services still carries on.

My story happened quite a while ago; I believe it was in the December of 2017. Now, I was going to travel to Sri Lanka for a vacation with my family. We were set to arrive at the airport at 4 pm so we could board our 7 pm international flight on time. A tip for travel I always keep in mind is to be as unhurried as possible, be it driving or train travel; you always want to have extra time, it takes away the unnecessary stress.

Naturally, we had a bit of a tussle with our baggage to get it out of the drop off taxi trunk but we managed in the end. As we entered the terminal gates were greeted by the classic coffee scent that permeates most airports. So far, the situation was looking good. We managed to get past check-in, baggage, security and customs with no hiccups at all with an hour to spare.

Here’s where the trouble started. Soon after boarding the flight and idly waiting for a half-hour for the flight to take off, we were asked to deboard as the flight was facing technical issues. So, we boarded the airport bus and were all relocated to a new flight. Our baggage relocation took us another hour. At this point many people were getting very antsy, and for good reason too. This was supposed be a short 3-hour flight and we already had to endure more than 2 hours of waiting time, it was quite preposterous.

My family and I dealt with it by simply getting out our travel pack Uno game. That’s another great tip for anyone who’s travelling with kids; always bring travel-friendly games along because the kids will get bored. We played a variation of games with the card pack, original Uno, bluff, and a couple of games my kids came up with. After some very suspicious game rule changes and some very victorious kids, the announcement of the flight being ready for takeoff started. We arrived that night in Sri Lanka, where we found our waiting cab and managed to drive to the hotel. The journey ended up pretty smoothly despite the technical delay we faced. As they say, “all’s well that ends well”.

Speaking part 3 follow up questions:

Q.1 What are the most common reasons that cause travel delays?

Answer: I think severe weather conditions and technical defect are the two biggest causes of travel delays. Traffic congestion, diversion of routes due to accidents or repair work also lead to travel disruptions.

Q.2 Do you think too many people are dependent on cars as a means of transport?

Answer: Definitely, yes. The number of people who depend on cars for commuting and travelling has gone up considerably in the past few decades.

Q.3 Why do people prefer to travel by car?

Answer: I think there are two main reasons why people prefer to travel by car. Firstly, public transport systems like buses and trains are poorly maintained in many parts of the world. Secondly, cars have become a status symbol. Nobody wants to wait for hours and board an overcrowded bus or train. Those who can afford tend to avoid using public transport facilities and prefer their own mode of transport. It not only saves their time but also gives them comfort and privacy.

antsy	very nervous, worried, or unpleasantly excited
preposterous	very silly or stupid

Feel free to call for suggestions and queries.

IELTS Band 7 Dehradun
Near Ballupur Chowk, Dehradun

email: info at ieltsband7.com

IELTS online simulator

IELTS BAND 7 Home page

IELTS Essay: Computers will be more intelligent than human beings

May 11, 2020 IELTS Research

WRITING TASK 2 Computers will be more intelligent than human beings

You should spend 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some scientists believe that very soon computers will be more intelligent than human beings. Some people think that this will be a positive development, while others worry it will have negative effects.

What are your opinions on this?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Sample Answer:

Human civilization has developed at a staggering pace in the last century. We went from not having sliced bread to being on the path to having supercomputers more powerful than we can comprehend. There is indeed a common presumptuous notion out there; that one-day computers might become ‘more intelligent than human beings’.

The amount of ignorance this specific thought conveys leaves me quite inarticulate. Firstly, computers are digital, brains are analogue. There is no conceivable way to compare these two. Computers are highly logical machines designed to perform tasks; humans are essentially a tangled mass of neurons behaving in an unpredictable manner, which births thoughts, emotions and ideas. Their core functions are polar opposites.

The issue that must be addressed is the highly misdirecting role of movies and entertainment media in presenting Artificial Intelligence as ‘self-sufficient’ and ‘intelligent’ in the manner of independent thought processing. One cannot press this enough; but machines will never aim for world domination. They have been created for one purpose and one purpose only, to aid humanity.

The world’s fastest computer averages out at 200 petaflops, the human brain has been estimated to run at one exaflop. The difference between them is akin to the earth and sky. Nonetheless, I do not doubt the gap will be closed within the next decade. However, this will just mean that supercomputers will be more efficient at the analysis tasks they perform, this will not mean that they will spontaneously decide to sprout a conscience and destroy the world in the blink of an eye. This idea is so ridiculous it has passed the point of comedic hilarity into plain oblivion and beyond even idiosyncrasy.

I refuse to even acknowledge such a possibility. Computers becoming more efficient than human processing power would be a leap in the fields of data analysis, weather prediction, space calculation, molecular modeling, natural resource exploration, etc. There is absolutely no cause for worry, fear or panic. Only further awareness on the true nature of computers and the fictionality of popular media tropes.

In conclusion, it is inevitable that computers will become more efficient. There are very little drawbacks to this save for initial job losses, the positives outweigh the negatives in all formulate-able aspects.

Staggering	very shocking and surprising
Comprehend	to understand something completely
Presumptuous	Showing little respect for others by doing things they have no right to do
Notion	a belief or idea
Inarticulate	unable to express feelings or ideas clearly, or expressed in a way that is difficult to understand
Conceivable	possible to imagine or to believe
Misdirecting	to use something in a way that is not right or legal
Petaflops	a unit of computing speed equal to one thousand million million (10¹⁵) floating-point operations per second.
Exaflop	a billion billion calculations per second (10¹⁸)
Comedic	relating to or involving comedy
Hilarity	a situation in which people laugh very loudly and think something is very funny
Oblivion	the state of being completely forgotten
Idiosyncrasy	a strange or unusual habit, way of behaving, or feature that someone or something has
Media tropes	something such as an idea, phrase, or image that is often used by the media
Fictionality	the quality of being fictional (= imaginary)
Inevitable	Certain to happen