Describe a time you changed your mind about something
The most grammatically demanding narrative card — it needs past, past perfect and present in one answer.
The cue card
Describe a time you changed your mind about something.
You should say
- what you originally thought
- what made you reconsider
- what you think now
- and explain how the change affected 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.
- What you used to think, and why you thought it.
- What challenged it: a person, an experience, a piece of information.
- The process of changing — rarely instant, usually resisted.
- What you think now, and how you feel about having been wrong.
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.
I used to be convinced that
sets up the former position cleanly
have second thoughts
for the beginning of doubt
come round to
the exact phrasal verb for gradually accepting a view
see it from their side
for perspective-taking
eat my words
idiomatic for admitting you were wrong
with the benefit of hindsight
formal retrospective framing
The trap on this card
Telling the whole thing in the simple past.
'I had always assumed…', 'I've since realised…' — this card is set precisely to see whether you can move between tenses. Use them.
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 clearest example is that I was firmly against remote working before 2020, and I'd argued about it with people repeatedly. My position was that teams need to be in a room, that you lose the incidental conversations, and that people would slack off. I was quite confident about it, which is the embarrassing part. What changed my mind wasn't an argument. It was simply doing it for two years and finding that most of what I'd predicted didn't happen. The incidental conversations turned out to be genuinely valuable and also genuinely replaceable if you're deliberate about it. The slacking off didn't materialise; if anything the problem went the other way. What I find interesting looking back is that I had no real evidence for the original view — I'd absorbed it from people I respected and then defended it as if it were mine. I've tried since to notice when I'm doing that, though I suspect I mostly don't. It's much easier to spot in other people.
What earns the band
- 'Defended it as if it were mine' is a sharp piece of self-analysis and the strongest sentence in the answer.
- It concedes partial ground — the incidental conversations were valuable — rather than flipping entirely, which is a more credible account of changing one's mind.
- The closing admission that it is easier to spot in others is honest, slightly funny, and unmistakably unscripted.
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:
- why people find it hard to change their opinions
- how much people are influenced by those around them
- whether being open to persuasion is a strength
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.