Describe a time you got lost
The full cue card, what each bullet point is actually asking for, and the Part 3 discussion questions an examiner is likely to move on to. Read it once, then talk for two minutes.
Written by Anjali Tripathi · CELTA and DELTA qualified · 5 years teaching IELTS
Record my answer and get a bandThe cue card
Describe a time you got lost
You should say
- Where you were
- How you became lost
- How you found your way
- And explain how you felt
You get one minute to make notes and paper to write on. Then you speak for one to two minutes without interruption. The examiner stops you at two.
What each bullet is asking for
The bullets are not four equal questions. Three of them set up the last one, and the last one is where Fluency and Coherence is won or lost.
Where you were
Answer this in one or two sentences. It is scene-setting, not the answer.
How you became lost
One or two sentences again. Give a specific time or place rather than a vague one: detail here is free vocabulary.
How you found your way
This is where you start extending. Two or three sentences with an example.
And explain how you felt
The one that carries the marks. Spend at least half your two minutes here, and give reasons rather than a restatement.
How to use the preparation minute
Do not write sentences. There is not time, and reading aloud from notes is audible: it flattens your intonation and it costs you under Fluency and Coherence. Write single words, one cluster per bullet, and let the sentences form as you speak.
Spend the minute on the last bullet rather than the first. The first three bullets are answerable without preparation because they are facts about your own life. The one beginning “And explain” needs reasons, and reasons are the thing candidates cannot invent under time pressure.
Running short is worse than running long. If the examiner has to stop you at two minutes you have done the task; if you dry up at fifty seconds, the examiner will prompt you, and that prompt is recorded as part of your performance. Aim to still be talking when you are stopped.
The Part 3 questions that follow
Part 2 always leads into Part 3, where the examiner moves from your own experience to the general and the abstract. Answers get longer, opinions need supporting, and this is where the higher bands are decided.
- 01Should governments ban junk food advertising?
- 02Why do some people find it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle?
- 03How has people's attitude towards mental health changed?
- 04Do you think people are healthier now than in the past?
Why there is no model answer on this page
Because a written model answer for a speaking task teaches the wrong thing. Examiners are trained to recognise memorised responses, and the band descriptors treat them as evidence against fluency, not for it. A candidate delivering a learned paragraph scores below the same candidate speaking ordinarily about the same topic.
What is worth practising is the shape: which bullet gets the time, how to extend an answer without padding it, and what to do when you run out of things to say at ninety seconds. That comes from speaking, being marked, and speaking again. Record an answer to this card and you get a band for each of the four speaking criteria with the specific moments that cost you marks.
Talking to yourself proves nothing. Get the two minutes marked.
Record your answer to this cue card and get a band for Fluency, Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation, with the exact moments that cost you marks.
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