Describe a time you received good news
The waiting beforehand is the story. Without it, the news is one sentence and you're stranded.
The cue card
Describe a time you received good news.
You should say
- what the news was
- how you heard it
- who told you
- and explain how you reacted
1 minute to prepare · up to 2 minutes to speak
How to fill the two minutes
Four beats, not four answers. The prompts on the card are a scaffold — a turn that flows past them scores better than four disconnected replies.
- What you were waiting to hear, and how long you'd been waiting.
- The moment it arrived: where you were, what you were doing, how it reached you.
- Your immediate reaction, physical and honest.
- Who you told first, and what changed afterwards.
Vocabulary this card invites
Lexical Resource is a quarter of your band, and band 7 explicitly allows the occasional wrong word — playing it safe with plain vocabulary is what keeps people at 6.
on tenterhooks
for anxious waiting — uncommon and well placed here
it came through
the natural phrasing for a result or approval arriving
over the moon
the standard idiom for delight
it hadn't sunk in
for delayed emotional reaction
I had to read it twice
concrete detail that beats 'I was very happy'
a weight off my shoulders
for relief as much as joy
The trap on this card
Announcing the news in the first sentence.
Withhold it. Build the waiting for forty seconds first — suspense is what turns one fact into two minutes.
A band 8 answer, and why it works
Read this to see the moves, not to learn the words. An examiner hears memorised answers every working day and it shows up in your fluency score — the hesitation pattern of someone reciting is nothing like the pattern of someone thinking. The details below are invented; yours should be your own.
The best news I've had recently was my sister telling me she'd got into the medical school she'd been trying for since she was about fifteen. She'd applied twice and been rejected the first time, which had taken a lot out of her, so the second round was tense in our family in a way nobody was talking about. She rang me at about eight in the morning, which she never does, and I knew before she said anything from the fact that she was clearly trying to sound calm. I was on a train. I made a noise that alarmed the man opposite me and then spent the rest of the journey grinning at nothing like an idiot. What made it so good wasn't only that she'd got in. It was that I'd watched the first rejection genuinely damage her confidence, and this undid that. I'd say I was more pleased about it than about anything that's happened to me personally in the last few years, which surprised me slightly.
What earns the band
- The physical reactions — the noise on the train, grinning at nothing — convey feeling through behaviour rather than adjectives.
- 'I knew before she said anything from the fact that she was trying to sound calm' is precise observation and a nicely complex construction.
- The comparison at the end, being more pleased than about one's own news, gives the answer a genuine emotional conclusion.
What Part 3 asks next
Part 3 is loosely tied to your long turn, but the questions turn abstract — about people in general rather than about you. This card usually leads into:
- how people share important news today
- whether the media reports too much bad news
- how news travels differently than it once did
Other events & experiences cards
Describe a journey or trip that you remember well.
The word is journey, not destination — and the difference is worth a band.
Describe an important decision you have made.
A card built on a fork in the road. If there was no real alternative, pick a different decision.
Describe a celebration you enjoyed.
Cultural detail is free marks here — the examiner may genuinely not know how the occasion works.
Describe a time when you were late for something.
A narrative with built-in tension — one of the easiest cards to speak fluently on if you tell it in order.
Describe a time when you helped someone.
Mirror image of the person-who-helped-you card, and the same rule applies: build the problem first.
Describe a problem you solved.
The card rewards process. What you tried and abandoned is worth more than what finally worked.
Speak this one out loud
Oliver will read you a card, wait out your preparation minute, and then say nothing at all for two minutes — which is the part you cannot rehearse alone. The report afterwards scores fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation separately. The first test is free.
This guide is written from the published IELTS Speaking band descriptors, in our own words. For the official wording, see the British Council's band descriptors. MockLive AI is an independent practice tool and is not affiliated with IELTS, the British Council, IDP or Cambridge University Press & Assessment.