Cue Card Sample

IELTS Cue Card # 237 - Holiday or vacation you spent with a group of people

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

Describe a holiday or vacation that you spent with a group of other people.

You should say:

  •  when you have had this vacation
  •  where you went
  • what you did

and explain how you felt about having this vacation with those people.


 

Sample Answer 1:

Today I am going to tell you about a holiday I spent with a group of other people. I will tell you when I had it, where I went, what I did and how I felt about having a holiday with other people.

Well, when I knew I was coming to Vietnam, I was a little nervous. I knew the country would be very different from the UK, so I thought before I started work at the University, it would help me settle in more easily if I took a holiday in Vietnam first. So, a few weeks ago, I booked a ten-day tour with a company that would start in Hanoi and finish in Ho Chi Minh City.

There were 16 people on the trip including me, and there was a Vietnamese tour guide as well. I was the only British person in the group. The others were from Australia, America, Canada, Switzerland and Greece!  The tour was really good but very fast!  We often spent only one or two nights in each place. I was very lucky because we saw many beautiful places and did many interesting things. We spent time in Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An on the way to Ho Chi Minh City.

We did many activities together on the tour. As well as laughing, eating and exploring together, we took trips on bicycles and on the back of motorbikes. We visited beautiful pagodas and we even went on a boat trip overnight to Halong Bay.

I felt very lucky to go on this trip. It was the best holiday ever! The people I met were all really friendly and happy. None of us had visited Vietnam before, so we all enjoyed discovering this beautiful and interesting country for the first time together. I was really sad when I had to say goodbye to my new friends and travelling companions. I think it is sometimes more fun to share new adventures with other people.

[ Written by - Lucy Marris | Careers Adviser (UK), TEFL teacher (Vietnam) ]


 

Model Answer 2:

I enjoy my holidays with my friends and family profoundly, except, of course, it doesn’t happen often since we can’t really decide on a common time or date because of our different work schedules. Luckily, however, our work schedules didn’t come into the way of enjoying a vacation about a few years ago when I and my friends managed to visit one of the most beautiful sea beaches in my country.

Of course, all of my friends visited that popular sea beach individually in the past, but that was the time when we could visit the place together. By the way, the sea beach was about 500 kilometres away from where we lived, and we all decided that we would rent a big van to travel to that beautiful tourist spot. Besides, we already knew what we would do and where we would go after arriving at that place because we all knew that place well enough to make a plan for itineraries in advance.

So, as soon as we arrived there, we decided to hit the cold water and swim in it. By the way, we were visiting during the hot summertime, and we just couldn’t wait to jump into the water to cool ourselves down. To be honest, we didn’t even go to our hotel to leave our stuff and luggage before going to the sea beach because we thought that it would be just a waste of time since we all were on a tight schedule.

So, after finishing our swimming, we went to our favourite seafood restaurant in order to enjoy some of the best seafood ever. Later in the evening, we all went out to visit some local shops to buy some souvenirs.

I felt really great about having this vacation with my friends. Of course, we visited the place for a short period of time, but we all made sure that every minute of our visit got actually counted as we all managed to do the things that we really enjoyed. All in all, it was a great vacation in company with beautiful mother nature with a group of people.


 

Sample Answer 3:

I've enjoyed several holidays and vacations so far with a group of people, and some of them were very interesting and exciting. One such vacation was my tour to a historic place where I was with a group of people whom I hardly knew before.

I took this vacation in my college when I went to visit the (…say the name of a historic place…) with a tourist group. Most of them were foreigners, and I had two of my college friends with me. I was around 18 years old at that time, and the journey took almost 5 hours. We stayed with this group of people the whole day, and we did many fun activities together.

We travelled on a bus, and I met many new people. But when we took part in the adventure and fun activities, it did not seem that we hardly knew each other. We ate our lunch together, talked about many topics, and enjoyed our tour to this historic place.

I especially remember 3-4 tourists and a writer from other countries who came to visit the historical places in our country. The tour guide explained to us the historical facts and significance of the place, and we learned many new things from that. In the evening, we played football in the nearby field and then swam in the river. This was a very special vacation for me as it refreshed my mind and gave me the opportunity to learn new things about the historic place as well as the new people.


 

Similar Cue Card Topics

Your ability to talk about this Cue Card would enable you to talk about the following Cue Cards as well:
  1. Describe a tour you recently have had. 
  2. Describe a family program/ gathering you recently enjoyed. 
  3. Describe a picnic you had in a public place. 
  4. Describe a social gathering you remember well. 
  5. Describe a party you recently took part in. 
 
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