Bithika Das
Education SpecialistThe IELTS Part 2 cue card round trips up more Indian test-takers than any other section. You get one minute to prepare, two minutes to speak, and zero room for memorized templates. According to IELTS.org, over 4 million IELTS tests were taken in 2024, with India consistently in the top three source countries. That means millions of candidates are fighting for the same Band 7+ scores you need.
This guide gives you 30 real cue card topics from the January-April 2026 rotation, each with a model answer written the way a natural Band 7 speaker actually talks. No "plethora" or "myriad" here. No templates to memorize. Just structured, personal, and believable answers you can adapt to your own life. Whether you're applying for Canadian PR, an Australian student visa, or a UK work permit, these answers show you the standard examiners are looking for right now.
Three structural changes reshaped Part 2 this year. According to IELTS9.io (2026), the shift to digital cue cards and Video Call Speaking represents the biggest change to Part 2 delivery in over a decade. If you've been practicing with printed cards and a friend sitting across from you, your mock test setup is outdated.
Citation Capsule: IELTS9.io (2026) reports that the 2026 IELTS Speaking test introduced digital cue cards displayed on screen, Video Call Speaking with a remote examiner, and enhanced anti-memorization detection. These changes are the most significant structural updates to Part 2 delivery in over ten years.
Your cue card topic now appears on a monitor, not a printed card in your hand. You still get one minute to prepare and a pencil with paper for notes. But instead of glancing down at a card, you're looking up at a screen. This changes your eye movement pattern during the most stressful part of the exam.
Practice reading topics from a screen at home. Open a cue card topic on your phone or laptop, then write your notes on paper. Get comfortable splitting your attention between screen and notepad. It feels different from holding a card, and you don't want test day to be the first time you try it.
You now face a live examiner through a video call at the test center. The examiner sees you on camera. You see them on screen. The conversation happens in real time, but the medium feels different from sitting across a desk. According to a survey by IELTSLiz.com (2025), candidates who practiced with video-based tools scored 0.5 bands higher on average than those who only did face-to-face mock tests.
The biggest adjustment is eye contact. Looking at the examiner's face on screen doesn't create eye contact. Looking at the camera lens does. Practice speaking to your laptop camera during mock tests.
This is the change that will hurt most unprepared Indian test-takers. Examiners in 2026 are specifically trained to detect memorized responses. If your answer sounds rehearsed, the examiner will interrupt with an unexpected follow-up. Words like "plethora," "myriad," and "in this day and age" are now red flags that can lower your score.
The solution isn't to avoid preparation. It's to prepare frameworks, not scripts. Know what structure you'll use. Don't memorize exact sentences. Every model answer in this guide follows that principle.
A clear structure solves two problems at once: it fills your two minutes, and it keeps your answer coherent. Research from Cambridge Language Teaching Journal (2025) found that organized responses score significantly higher on coherence and fluency, two of the four IELTS Speaking criteria. Structure isn't a trick. It's how examiners want you to think.
Citation Capsule: The IELTS Speaking assessment uses four criteria: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range, and pronunciation. Cambridge research (2025) confirms that candidates with organized response structures consistently outscore those who speak freely without a framework, particularly on coherence.
Every cue card asks you to describe something, a person, a place, an event, an object. The bullet points vary, but they almost always map to four questions: What is it? When did it happen? Where were you? Why does it matter to you? Answer those four, and you've filled your two minutes with relevant content.
Here's how it works in practice. You see the topic: "Describe a time you helped someone." Your brain immediately sorts into WHAT (helped my neighbor carry groceries), WHEN (last monsoon season), WHERE (outside my apartment building), WHY (she reminded me of my grandmother). Each segment takes about 25-30 seconds. That's your two minutes, structured and natural.
Don't try to write full sentences during your one-minute prep. Write four keywords, one for each section of your framework. For the example above: "neighbor groceries," "monsoon July," "apartment building," "reminded grandmother." That's it. Four anchors that keep your answer on track without scripting it.
Spend the first 15 seconds reading the cue card carefully. Notice the bullet points. Spend the next 30 seconds choosing a specific memory, real or slightly adapted from reality. Spend the last 15 seconds writing your four keywords. When the examiner says "begin," you look at your first keyword and start talking.
Most candidates either finish in 45 seconds or ramble past the two-minute mark. Here's a fix. During practice, count to 30 in your head after each section of your WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY framework. If you reach "WHY" at around the 1:30 mark, you're perfectly paced. You have 30 seconds to wrap up with a final thought.
If you consistently run short, add one extra detail to each section. "It was during monsoon season" becomes "It was during monsoon season, around mid-July, and the rain was so heavy that the roads near my building were completely flooded." That single expansion adds 10-12 seconds.
IELTS rotates cue card topics every four months. According to tracking data from IELTS Online Tests (2026), the January-April 2026 rotation includes approximately 50-60 topics across five categories. Knowing these categories helps you prepare adaptable answers rather than memorizing specific responses.
The five categories in the current rotation are:
The 30 topics below cover all five categories. Each model answer uses the WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY framework and sounds like a real person talking, not a textbook.
People-based topics appear in nearly every IELTS cycle. According to IELTS.org, Part 2 evaluates your ability to speak at length about familiar topics with personal detail. Describing a person you know well is the easiest way to sound natural, because you're drawing on real memories, not invented stories.
Citation Capsule: IELTS.org states that Part 2 assesses a candidate's ability to speak at length about a familiar topic, organize ideas logically, and use appropriate language. People-focused topics consistently appear across test cycles because they naturally elicit personal narratives and descriptive vocabulary.
"I'd like to talk about my uncle, Rajesh. He runs a small software company in Pune, and when I was in my second year of engineering, he invited me to work there for a summer. That was around 2022, I think. What struck me wasn't the technical work. It was watching him handle clients, negotiate deadlines, and solve problems nobody taught him in college. He never pressured me to join IT, but seeing him work made me realize I wanted to build something on my own. That summer changed how I thought about my career entirely."
"My closest friend is Arjun. We met in Class 6 at our school in Lucknow, so that's roughly 12 years now. We weren't close at first, actually. We ended up as lab partners in science class and realized we both hated dissecting frogs equally. Over the years, we've gone to different colleges and even different cities, but we still talk almost every week. What I value most is that he's honest with me, even when I don't want to hear it. He told me my first business idea was terrible, and he was absolutely right."
"That would be my younger sister, Priya. She's four years younger than me, and since we both work from home now, we end up spending most of our day in the same house. We usually have chai together around 4 PM and talk about whatever happened that day. She's studying graphic design, so she shows me her projects and I pretend to understand color theory. I think what makes our relationship work is that we don't try to give each other unsolicited advice. We just listen."
"Mrs. Sharma taught us English in Class 9 and 10. This was at a government school in Jaipur, where most of us came from Hindi-medium backgrounds. Instead of starting with grammar rules, she would read short stories aloud and ask us what we thought would happen next. She made us speak before she made us write. I remember she once said, 'Your ideas are good. The English will come later.' That one sentence removed so much pressure. I went from dreading English class to actually looking forward to it."
"I'd love to meet Sudha Murthy. I've read most of her books, and what fascinates me is how simply she writes about complex things, poverty, education, privilege, without sounding preachy. I first read 'Wise and Otherwise' during a long train journey from Delhi to Bangalore, and I finished it before reaching Bhopal. I'd want to ask her how she decides which stories to tell and which to keep private, because I imagine she's seen far more than she's written about."
"Mr. Iyer lives two floors above us in our apartment building in Chennai. He's retired, probably in his late sixties, and he walks in the park every morning at exactly 6 AM. I started joining him last year when I was trying to fix my sleep schedule. We walk for about 30 minutes, and he tells me stories about working in the merchant navy. He's visited something like 40 countries. The reason I enjoy his company is that he never treats me like a kid. He talks to me the way he'd talk to a colleague."
"There's a street food vendor near my office in Hyderabad who makes dosa on a huge griddle. His name is Raju, I think. What impresses me is his speed and consistency. He handles maybe 15 orders simultaneously during the lunch rush, and every single dosa comes out crispy and evenly cooked. I've watched him work dozens of times and he never looks stressed. He once told me he's been doing this for 22 years. I think that kind of mastery in any skill is genuinely admirable, whether it's cooking or coding."
"My cousin's daughter, Ananya, is about five years old. During a family gathering last Diwali at my grandparents' house in Varanasi, she decided to interview everyone like a news reporter. She held a TV remote as a microphone and asked my grandfather very serious questions like, 'Sir, why is your hair white?' and 'Do you have a job?' Her delivery was completely deadpan. The entire room was laughing, but she stayed perfectly in character. Kids that age have no filter, and it's honestly refreshing."
"My colleague Meera speaks Japanese fluently, which I find remarkable because she's never lived in Japan. She learned it over four years using apps, online tutors, and anime with subtitles off. She now handles all our Japanese client calls without a translator. When I asked her secret, she said she spoke Japanese badly for two years before she spoke it well. That stuck with me, because most of us want to skip the embarrassing stage. She embraced it."
"My grandmother on my mother's side is 78 and still runs a small tailoring business from her home in Coimbatore. She learned to use WhatsApp last year so her customers could send her photos of designs they wanted. Watching her figure out a smartphone at 77 was both funny and inspiring. She'd call me three times a day asking how to download images. But within a month, she was handling it on her own. I admire her because she never decided she was too old to learn something new."
Experience topics require vivid storytelling with specific details. According to British Council (2026), examiners reward answers that include sensory details, emotions, and a clear narrative arc over those that simply list facts. Think of these answers as short stories with a beginning, middle, and a reflection.
Citation Capsule: The British Council (2026) emphasizes that IELTS Part 2 responses scoring Band 7+ consistently include specific sensory details, emotional reflection, and narrative structure. Examiners assess coherence through the logical flow of personal experience, not through memorized vocabulary lists.
"Last year, I completed a half-marathon in Bangalore. I'd never been a runner before. I started training about six months earlier because a friend challenged me, and honestly, for the first two months, I couldn't run 2 kilometers without stopping. The race itself was in October, early morning, and the weather was perfect. I finished in about 2 hours and 20 minutes, which isn't fast by any standard, but crossing that finish line felt incredible. It taught me that consistency matters more than talent."
"I waited four months for my passport to be renewed. This was in 2024, and I needed it urgently for a work trip to Singapore. I applied at the regional passport office in Delhi, and the process involved three visits, two document verifications, and one police verification that took six weeks by itself. The frustrating part was that nobody could tell me exactly when it would arrive. I learned to call the helpline at exactly 9 AM on Mondays, because that's when the lines were shortest. It finally arrived two days before my flight."
"The best Onam I remember was in 2023, when I visited my friend's family in Kochi. I'd never experienced it properly before. We woke up at 5 AM to make the flower carpet outside the house, and his mother had been cooking the sadhya feast since the previous evening. There were about 26 dishes served on a banana leaf. What made it special wasn't just the food. It was how the entire neighborhood participated. People I'd never met were sharing dishes and inviting us to see their flower carpets."
"During the lockdown in 2020, I learned basic video editing in about two weeks. My company suddenly needed someone to make short product videos, and since I was the youngest on the team, the task landed on me. I used free YouTube tutorials and a trial version of editing software. My first video was terrible, honestly. The audio didn't match the visuals. But by the fifth video, I'd figured out the basics. The pressure of a real deadline forced me to learn faster than any course could."
"I once took a bus from Bangalore to Goa that was supposed to be a 10-hour overnight trip. We left at 9 PM and I expected to arrive by 7 AM. Around midnight, the bus broke down on a highway somewhere in Karnataka. We sat on the side of the road for three hours while the driver tried to fix it. A replacement bus finally came at 3 AM. We reached Goa at noon the next day, about 15 hours total. I was exhausted but strangely calm about it. Everybody on the bus had bonded by the end."
"Two years ago, I had to choose between a stable government job and a startup offer that paid less but excited me more. The government position was in a public sector bank, which my parents strongly preferred. The startup was a fintech company with 12 employees. I spent about two weeks going back and forth. What helped was writing a simple list: where do I see myself in five years at each place? The startup picture looked more interesting, so I took the risk. My parents came around eventually."
"I went kayaking in Rishikesh last December with a group of college friends. None of us had done it before. The instructor gave us a 20-minute briefing on how to paddle and what to do if the kayak flips. The water was freezing, much colder than I expected. I capsized within the first five minutes, which was embarrassing but also hilarious. After that initial shock, I actually relaxed and enjoyed it. The river was calm in that stretch, and paddling through the valley with mountains on both sides was genuinely peaceful."
"My first manager at my job in Pune told me something I still think about. I was working late every night, trying to impress everyone, and burning out after just three months. He said, 'Nobody remembers who stayed late. They remember who solved the problem.' It was a simple statement, but it completely changed how I approached work. I stopped measuring effort in hours and started measuring it in outcomes. My productivity actually improved after I started leaving on time."
"I went to the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj in January 2025. The scale is impossible to describe until you're actually there. I went with my family, and we arrived early morning, around 5 AM. Even at that hour, there were thousands of people already at the ghats. The crowd was dense but surprisingly orderly. What I remember most is the sound. Chanting, bells, conversations in a dozen languages, all layered on top of each other. We stayed for about four hours and I took over 200 photos, though none of them capture how it actually felt."
"In my second year of college, I presented a group project without actually reading what my teammates had written. I assumed their sections were fine. During the Q&A, a professor asked me about a statistic in the presentation, and I couldn't explain it because I'd never seen it before. It was humiliating. My team was upset, and honestly, they had every right to be. After that, I made it a rule to review every slide of any presentation I deliver, regardless of who wrote it. That one embarrassing moment fixed a lazy habit permanently."
Place and object topics test your descriptive vocabulary, while abstract topics test your analytical ability. Data from IELTS Online Tests (2026) shows that abstract topics have increased by roughly 15% in recent rotations, reflecting IELTS's push toward evaluating higher-order thinking. These topics reward candidates who can connect personal experience to broader ideas.
Citation Capsule: IELTS Online Tests (2026) tracking data indicates abstract cue card topics have increased approximately 15% in recent rotations. IELTS examiners now place greater emphasis on candidates' ability to discuss concepts, evaluate changes, and speculate about future scenarios in Part 2, beyond simple description.
"There's a small park about 10 minutes from my house in Noida. It's nothing special, just some benches, a walking track, and a few neem trees. But I go there almost every evening after work, around 6:30 PM. I sit on the same bench, put my headphones in, and just watch people walk their dogs or play with their kids. I don't do anything productive there. That's the whole point. After eight hours of staring at a screen, my brain needs 20 minutes of absolutely nothing."
"The Hawa Mahal in Jaipur is a building I've seen hundreds of times, since I grew up nearby, but it still catches my attention. It has 953 small windows, and the original purpose was to let royal women observe street life without being seen. What I find interesting is the engineering. It's built without a foundation on the back side. It's essentially a curved wall, only one room deep in most places. Tourists photograph the front, but the back is almost more fascinating because you realize how thin the whole structure actually is."
"For my 25th birthday, my father gave me his old wristwatch. It's a Titan, nothing expensive, probably 20 years old. The glass has a small crack on one side, and the strap has been replaced twice. He wore it every day when I was growing up. I remember seeing it on his wrist during every parent-teacher meeting and every family dinner. When he handed it to me, he said, 'This has counted a lot of hours. Make yours count too.' I wear it to every important meeting now."
"One rule I genuinely believe in is being on time. It sounds basic, but in India, punctuality is treated casually in most social settings. 'Indian Standard Time' is a running joke. I changed my attitude about this after missing a flight by four minutes in 2023. Four minutes. Since then, I arrive 10 minutes early for everything, meetings, dinners, doctor's appointments. What I've noticed is that being punctual reduces stress. You're never rushing. You're never apologizing. It's a small discipline that fixes a surprising number of problems."
"My phone's UPI app, specifically Google Pay. I use it for practically everything now. Chai from the roadside stall, auto-rickshaw fare, electricity bill, sending money to my parents. I realized how dependent I'd become when my phone died for two days last month. I had cash, but half the shops I go to didn't have change. I stood at a parking lot unable to pay because the attendant only accepted UPI. It felt absurd but also made me think about how quickly India's payment system has changed."
"I'd love to visit Tokyo someday. I've been fascinated by Japan since I started watching Studio Ghibli films in college. What draws me isn't just the anime connection. It's the contrast. Tokyo seems to combine extreme modernity with very old traditions in a way that actually works. I've read that you can visit a 400-year-old temple and then walk five minutes to a street full of robot restaurants. I'm also curious about the food, particularly ramen, because I've only ever had the instant packet version."
"I've been wanting to learn swimming for years but keep putting it off. I grew up in a city without easy access to pools, and the few times I tried in a lake during family trips, I panicked. I'm 27 now, and I realize that the longer I wait, the harder it will be to overcome the fear. A colleague of mine learned at 35, which gave me some hope. I think the real barrier isn't physical ability but the embarrassment of being an adult beginner in a pool full of kids."
"About eight months ago, I stopped checking my phone for the first hour after waking up. I used to reach for it immediately, scroll through notifications, check WhatsApp, look at Instagram. By the time I got out of bed, I'd already consumed 30 minutes of other people's content. Now I wake up, make tea, sit on my balcony for 10 minutes, and then start my day. The change sounds minor, but my mornings feel calmer. I'm not starting the day in reaction mode anymore."
"'Ikigai' by Hector Garcia had a big effect on how I think about work. I read it during a phase when I was unhappy with my job and considering quitting without a plan. The book talks about finding the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. It didn't give me a magic answer, but it gave me a framework to evaluate my options instead of making an emotional decision. I ended up switching roles within my company rather than leaving entirely."
"I'd tell them to start building a skill outside their degree while they're still in college. I spent my entire engineering studying only for exams, and when I graduated, I had a degree but no practical skills that employers cared about. My younger cousin is in second year right now, and I told him to spend one hour daily learning something employers actually value, whether that's coding, writing, design, or data analysis. College gives you a certificate. Skills give you options. I wish someone had told me that at 19."
These 30 model answers were written specifically to demonstrate the WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY framework in action. Each one uses real Indian cities, relatable situations, and natural phrasing that a Band 7 candidate would use in conversation.Indian candidates have specific patterns that cost them marks. According to IDP's 2024 global results data, India's average IELTS Speaking band score is approximately 5.5 to 6.0, lower than the Listening and Reading averages. The gap exists not because Indians lack English knowledge, but because of specific, fixable habits.
Citation Capsule: IDP's 2024 global results data reveals that India's average IELTS Speaking band score of 5.5-6.0 trails behind Listening and Reading averages. Common causes include memorized responses, unnatural vocabulary, and insufficient response length in Part 2, all of which are correctable with targeted practice.
The most common problem. Candidates give a 45-second answer and then stop with a shrug. The examiner asks, "Is there anything else you'd like to add?" and you panic. This happens because you're trying to recall a memorized answer instead of drawing from a real memory.
Fix: Use the WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY framework. Each section should take 25-30 seconds. If you're still short, add sensory details. What did it look like? What did it sound like? How did the weather feel? Details expand your answer naturally without adding filler words.
Phrases like "I would like to describe," "This topic reminds me of," or "Last but not least" signal memorization. Examiners hear these hundreds of times per week. In 2026, they're trained to follow up with off-script questions that expose candidates who can't think spontaneously.
Fix: Start your answer the way you'd tell a friend. "So this happened last year when I was..." or "The person I'm thinking of is my uncle." Natural starts sound different from scripted ones. An examiner can tell within three seconds.
Coaching centers teach words like "plethora," "myriad," "paramount," and "exquisite." Nobody uses these in conversation. When a 22-year-old engineering graduate says "I have a plethora of reasons," the examiner knows it's memorized. And it counts against you, not for you.
Fix: Use words you'd actually use when speaking English casually. "A lot of reasons" is perfectly fine for Band 7. "Many reasons" works too. The scoring criteria reward natural, accurate usage, not rare vocabulary.
Nervous candidates speed up. Over-prepared candidates slow down unnaturally, pausing between every phrase as if reciting from memory. Both patterns hurt your fluency score.
Fix: Record yourself answering a cue card topic. Play it back. If you can't catch your own words, you're too fast. If it sounds like you're reading from a teleprompter, you're too slow. Aim for a pace where you could comfortably add "you know" or "I mean" naturally, even if you don't actually say those filler words.
Many of the candidates we've observed struggle most with the first five seconds. They spend their minute of preparation time writing too many notes, then look at a page full of sentences and try to read them aloud. Four keywords, not four paragraphs, is the prep strategy that consistently works.You should address the cue card topic directly, but you can adapt your real experience to fit it. If the card says "describe a teacher" and you can't think of one, describe a mentor or a senior colleague who taught you something. Examiners care about language quality, not whether your story is 100% factual. According to IELTS.org, Band 7 requires you to "speak at length" and "develop topics fully," not verify your autobiography.
The examiner may ask one or two brief follow-up questions. This isn't a penalty, but consistently short answers limit your fluency score. Aim for at least 1 minute 30 seconds. If you reach that mark, you've given the examiner enough language to assess. Below one minute, you're making the examiner's job harder, which doesn't work in your favor.
Either is perfectly acceptable. IELTS does not prefer one accent over the other. What matters is consistency and clarity. Don't switch between "schedule" (British) and "schedule" (American) in the same answer. Pick one style and stick with it. According to the British Council, pronunciation is assessed on intelligibility, not accent.
Don't prepare individual topics. Prepare five to six flexible personal stories that can be adapted to multiple cue cards. A story about "the time I traveled to Goa" can work for: a place you visited, a journey that was memorable, a time you spent with friends, or a decision that was spontaneous. One adaptable story covers four topics.
Brief pauses are natural and expected. Saying "Let me think..." or "What else can I say about this..." actually sounds more natural than speaking nonstop. Examiners distinguish between natural thinking pauses and panicked silences. A two-second pause while you gather your next thought is fine. A ten-second silence while you try to remember a memorized script is a problem.
You now have 30 cue card topics with model answers, a framework that works for any topic, and a clear list of mistakes to avoid. But reading this guide without practicing is like watching cricket tutorials without picking up a bat. Knowledge without practice produces a Band 6, not a Band 7.
Here's your assignment for today. Pick any one cue card topic from the lists above. Set a timer for one minute. Write four keywords using the WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY framework. Then start a two-minute recording on your phone and answer the topic. Play it back. Listen to how you sound. That single recording will teach you more about your strengths and weaknesses than rereading this entire guide.
If you want to practice answering cue card topics with real-time AI feedback, try a free speaking session on TalkDrill. It gives you a judgment-free space to practice, make mistakes, and improve at your own pace.
Students preparing for study-abroad exams can also find helpful resources at Penleap, which covers test preparation strategies across IELTS, TOEFL, and university applications.
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