Describe a book you have read more than once
IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card: Describe a book you have read more than once. One minute to prepare, up to two minutes to speak, then follow-up questions.
An intermediate-level session of about 8 minutes. Covers Part 2. 3 prompts in total.
Assume the examiner has not read it. That assumption changes everything about the middle of your turn: each character you name needs a clause explaining who they are, and somewhere in the second subplot the tenses begin sliding between past and present while you try to keep up. It is the argument for holding the plot to two or three sentences. The bullet that belongs only to this card is the last one, because it is the only place where twice matters. Often the honest answer is that you had changed rather than the book — you were older, or in a bad month, or reading it in English after first meeting it in another language. So what did you see the second time that was not there the first?
Angles worth taking
- Name one line or scene you still remember without checking; that is the evidence of a second reading.
- Date the first reading by the class you were in, or by who put the book in your hands.
- Say what you skipped on the second pass; skipping is a specific and honest kind of detail.
- A book you read in translation and then in English gives you a full minute of comparison.
- Say how many times you have read it and when the last time was; twice and twelve times differ.
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Browse all IELTS Speaking testsThe format
Parts covered
2
Prompts in total
3
Modes
Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)
How a IELTS Speaking session works
Part 1 — the warm-up
Familiar questions about you: work, home, routines. Short answers, but not one-word ones. The examiner is calibrating to your voice.
Part 2 — the cue card
A topic card with prompts, one minute of prep with notes, then up to two minutes speaking without interruption.
Part 3 — the discussion
Abstract follow-ups on the Part 2 theme. Opinions, comparisons and speculation, where the higher bands are decided.
Your band estimate
A score on each of the four official criteria, what pulled it down, and the habit to change before you sit the real test.
What you're scored on
IELTS Speaking is marked on four criteria of equal weight. The estimate reports each one separately, because they rarely move together.
Speak for 1-2 minutes with clear structure and descriptive language.
Fluency and coherence
Whether you keep going, and whether the ideas connect. Hesitation while you search for a word costs less than hesitation while you search for a thought.
Lexical resource
Range and precision, including whether you can paraphrase around a word you do not have instead of stopping at it.
Grammatical range and accuracy
Variety of structures as well as correctness. All-simple-sentences and all-accurate caps out around band 6.
Pronunciation
Intelligibility, stress and intonation. Accent is not penalised; flat stress and swallowed word endings are.
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