Describe something you bought recently that you are happy with
Recent means you have real detail available — use it, because vagueness here is obvious.
The cue card
Describe something you bought recently that you are happy with.
You should say
- what it is
- where you bought it
- why you chose it
- and explain why you are pleased with it
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 it is and when you bought it, with an actual timeframe.
- The decision process: what you compared it with, what nearly stopped you.
- Where you bought it and whether that mattered.
- How it's worked out since — the test of 'happy with it' is use, not purchase.
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.
shop around
for comparing before buying
worth every penny
the exact idiom for a good purchase
I'd been meaning to buy one for ages
explains timing naturally
on a whim
the opposite framing, if it was impulsive
value for money
standard collocation, better than 'good price'
I use it daily
concrete proof of satisfaction
The trap on this card
Choosing something you bought months ago and calling it recent.
Genuinely recent purchases come with detail you don't have to invent — the shop, the price, the hesitation. Use a real one.
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 last thing I bought that I've thought about since is a proper chef's knife, which I bought about two months ago after fifteen years of using whatever was in the drawer. It cost considerably more than I'm comfortable admitting, and I bought it after a friend who cooks seriously watched me chop an onion and made a face. What surprised me is how much difference it's made. I'd assumed that sort of thing was mostly for people who care about equipment for its own sake. It turns out that cooking is much more pleasant when the tool isn't fighting you, and I've been cooking maybe three times as often since. The unexpected consequence is that I've been eating better and spending less on takeaways, so it may actually have paid for itself, which I've been telling everyone slightly too often. I do have to sharpen it, which I resent. But it's the best thing I've bought in a couple of years.
What earns the band
- It tracks a change of mind — from scepticism to conversion — which gives the answer a shape rather than a list of features.
- 'Slightly too often' and 'which I resent' are small self-deprecating asides that are extremely hard to fake at a lower band.
- Present perfect used repeatedly and correctly to link past purchase to present effects, which is precisely what this card invites.
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:
- what influences people's buying decisions
- whether people buy more than they need
- how shopping habits differ by age
Other objects cards
Describe a piece of technology you find useful.
The temptation is to name your phone and stop. The card rewards anything more specific.
Describe a gift you received that you liked.
The object matters less than the relationship behind it, and the best answers know that early.
Describe an item of clothing you like to wear.
A card that needs physical description, which is exactly the vocabulary most candidates haven't rehearsed.
Describe a photograph you like.
You describe two things here — the image, and the moment it froze. Most candidates only do one.
Describe something you made yourself.
A process card. The sequence of making is the structure, which makes this one of the easier cards to fill.
Describe an app on your phone that you use often.
Modern, easy to talk about, and dangerously easy to answer in generalities about social media.
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.