Cue Card Sample

IELTS Cue Card Sample 41 - Describe your holidays

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

Describe your holidays.

You should say:

  • where you go for the holidays
  • how long they last
  • who you go with

and talk about anything interesting happens during your holidays.

Follow-up Questions:

    What do the Indian people mostly do in their leisure time?
    What's the difference between holidays today and 5 years ago and the reasons for the change?
    Do you think people will spend more time on leisure or working in the future?


 

Model Answer 1:
I love holidays, and I always try to make the best use of them, by engaging myself in some of my favourite hobbies or some other favourite activities. But, whether I go to visit any interesting place or just stay in my hometown, largely depends on the duration of my holidays.

For example, if the holidays are only for a day or two, I mostly try to stay at my home while inviting some of my close friends and relatives over to my place in order to enjoy some movies and good meals. Sometimes, I even hang out with my friends at some of my favourite cafés or even visit a movie theatre in order to enjoy a good movie. Going to do some fishing at a nearby lake, playing some of my favourite sports, or just visiting some countryside are also some of my favourite things to do when my holiday lasts only for a day or two. However, whether I am going out for some outdoor activities or staying at home also depends on the weather and my mood.

On the other hands, if the holidays last longer than two days, I try to visit some interesting places in my country either with my family members or some friends. Talking about visiting interesting places, I try to go to a place of great natural beauty that has ocean and mountain in it or some old historic sites. Sometimes, I also like to take my friends with me and visit some new places, like new cities or new tourist resorts, which I have never visited before.

Anyway, when enjoying holidays, whatever we do seems to be interesting. However, talking specifically, some of the interesting things, which happen during my holidays, may include meeting new people, visiting some nice places, trying some of the local and special food, and taking interesting pictures of some beautiful birds and other animals. Besides, having a swimming competition in a lake or ocean, when visiting a holiday resort, and making videos of our fish barbeque are also some of the interesting things which I enjoy during my holidays.


 

Sample Answer 2:
In most of my holidays, I go to visit my family members in my hometown. For my job, I am currently residing in the capital city of my country but my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncle and aunts are living in our hometown. So in most of my holidays, I go to visit my family members. My typical holidays last for 4-5 days most of the time and sometimes I get longer holidays.

When I was a university student, I had some friends studying in the same faculty who were from my hometown. During my university study, we used to go to our hometown together on our vacations but nowadays I go to my hometown mostly alone. The journey takes about 6-7 hours by bus. Sometimes we travel by train and this train journeys usually take 8-9 hours including the stoppage. Though the journey is tiresome sometimes, the thought of meeting my family members and the excitement of being in the place I really love, wash away the tiresomeness and monotonous feeling of the journey.

The time I stay with my family members and local friends, I enjoy the moments very much. This is the town where I grew up and naturally all of my childhood & adolescence memories are related to this place. I do lots of interesting things there during my holidays: I swim in the river, take care of the garden and firm we have, collect vegetables and fruits from our garden and then make arrangement to sell those to the local sellers, sometimes I catch fish, play with my friends both indoor and outdoor games, visit different places and do lots of other stuff.  

In my city life, I have to follow a strict timeline and stay at my office most of the time, but in my hometown where I mostly go during my holidays, I am quite free and do whatever I feel like doing and spend time with the people I care most. That's why I prefer to go to my hometown during my holidays rather than going to other places.


 

Sample Answer 3:
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my holidays and I would like to talk about it in details.  I prefer to enjoy my holidays only in beautiful Kerala which is my favourite place with natural beauty.

If I go on holidays, I spend at least one week in this area. Since I am a busy person with my work, this is the only time for me to interact with my family members. So I always want to spend these days only with my family members.

Last year, I went for a holiday for two weeks which was very interesting because we cooked food for ourselves on the roadside and we also found some suitable places for having food. It was the first experience of such kind for me and I will never forget it. I am not good at cooking. But on those days I made different foods which were a whole new experience for me as well as for my family members. Actually, we planned to buy foods from some restaurants. However, it did not work due to some reasons. Firstly, I felt very sad because of the inconvenience. But later we managed very well and we enjoyed a lot. Still, I cherish each and every moment with my relatives.

[ by - Jincy Jibins ]


 

Tips for answering this cue card topic: 

Since you are free to talk about multiple activities that you usually do in your holidays, you can talk about many of them and this makes this cue card an easy one. You don't have to talk about a single activity that you mostly do in your holidays unless you are really confident that you would be able to give a lot of details of this single activity. 

Take some notes on the activities you do in your holidays and then start talking about these activities. They can be both indoors and outdoors activities, as the topic has not specified one of them specifically.

Though the holidays are specifically the days set aside by custom or law on which people keep away the formal daily office or business works and celebrate an event or tradition of religious or cultural significance, you are not bound to describe a major festival as your holidays. In some parts of the world, holidays are treated as vacations and you can talk about your vacations as well. If you want you can also describe your activities on major festivals or religiously significant days. 

Some of the common things people do on their holidays: 
  • They put aside the office or business tasks and spend time with family members and friends. 
  • They cook and prepare some special dishes at home or go outside to visit famous places. 
  • They go to their hometown and spend towns there. 
  • They do some shopping as part of the holidays. 
  • Some people go to visit other places or cities during their holidays. 
  • They maintain social relations and visit neighbours and relatives on their holidays.
  • People obey religious rituals and rules if this is a religious holiday. 

Your preparation for this cue card topic would help you answer the following cue card topics as well:

1. Describe one of your holidays. 
2. Talk about a major festival in your country. 
3. Describe a typical day off you have. 
4. Describe your activity during a major festival. 
 
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