Describe a person who has had an important influence on your life
The most common Part 2 card there is, and the one most often answered with a list of adjectives instead of a story.
The cue card
Describe a person who has had an important influence on your life.
You should say
- who this person is
- how long you have known them
- what they have done
- and explain why they have influenced you
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.
- Name them and place them in one sentence — who they are to you, and roughly when they came into your life.
- Give one concrete scene rather than a character sketch: a specific thing they said or did, with a time and a place attached.
- Say what changed in you afterwards. This is the part the card is actually asking about and the part most candidates skip.
- Close on where that influence shows up now, in something you still do.
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.
look up to
warmer and more natural than 'admire' when talking about a person you know
rub off on
for habits or attitudes you picked up from them without trying
shape the way I think about
a clean way into the 'explain why' bullet
set an example
when the influence was through behaviour rather than advice
instil
'she instilled a sense of…' — a less common verb that fits this card exactly
turning point
if the influence attaches to one identifiable moment
The trap on this card
Describing the person's personality for ninety seconds and never saying what they changed.
The card says 'explain why they have influenced you'. Spend at least half your time on the effect, not the portrait.
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.
I'd like to talk about my aunt Reshma, who's my mother's younger sister and probably the person who's shaped how I think more than anyone outside my parents. She's a structural engineer, and when I was around fourteen she started taking me along to building sites at weekends — partly, I suspect, because my mother wanted me out of the house. What struck me was how ordinary she made it all seem. She'd be the only woman on a site of forty men and she just got on with the work. I'd been quietly assuming certain jobs weren't really for people like me, and she dismantled that without ever making a speech about it. The influence has been fairly practical too. She taught me to write things down before arguing about them, which sounds trivial but has saved me endlessly. I ended up studying engineering, though I've drifted towards software since. I still ring her when I'm stuck on something and can't see why.
What earns the band
- Specific detail throughout — a name, an age, a job, weekends on building sites. Band 6 answers say 'she is a very kind person'; this one shows it and never uses the word.
- Natural tense range that the story pulls in on its own: 'she started taking me', 'I'd been assuming', 'I still ring her'. Examiners are listening for that variety and here it arrives without being forced.
- 'Dismantled that without ever making a speech about it' is the sort of phrasing that separates bands. It is precise, slightly unusual, and clearly not memorised.
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:
- the qualities of a good role model
- how people influence one another in society
- whether celebrities make good role models
Other people cards
Describe an older person you admire.
A card that rewards specific life detail — the era someone lived through is free material most candidates leave on the table.
Describe a person who helped you with something.
A narrative card disguised as a person card — the marks are in the situation, not the description.
Describe a famous person from your country.
One of the few cards where you can prepare real content in advance without it sounding memorised.
Describe a friend you have known for a long time.
The 'how you met' bullet is the story engine here — most people rush it and then run dry.
Describe someone you know who is very good at their job.
A card that hands you an entire vocabulary field — work, skill, standards — if you pick someone whose job you can actually describe.
Describe a teacher who influenced you.
Close cousin of the influential-person card, but the classroom setting gives you concrete scenes for free.
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.