IELTS Speaking Part 2: cue card; a long journey you went on; with notes and model answer

January 11, 2019May 30, 2023

In this IELTS Speaking Part 2 post, we are looking at a topic or cue card on the topic ‘a journey’ or ‘a long journey that you went on’. This post will help you prepare for the topic card easily as it includes a plan or notes and a model answer.

Let’s take a look at the topic card.

Notes taken in 1 minute before speaking for 2 minutes on the given topic:

For this topic card, you can decide to talk about any journey that you took in your life. You need to focus on the given points in your topic card.

Here, the topic card tells us to talk on the following points:

where you went: the route of the journey from…to…
how long it took: total time spent on the journey
who you went with: your companions on the trip
explain why you went on that journey: give some details of the journey

Here is a note made by me for this card. Match the notes with your own and see if there are some similarities.

Model answer:

I have made many journeys in my life due to various purposes. For this topic card, I’m going to talk about a journey that I made by car because I recall it for the wonderful experience and fun I got during this journey.

I, along with two of my cousins and a friend, went to Chattagram, the business capital, and the place of the scenic beauty of my country about two and a half years ago. It was just a last-minute plan for us to decide to take a car instead of travelling by train. All four of us had received our driving permit and owned personal vehicles. So, we decided that we would rather drive there.

It took us around 12 hours for us to reach Chattagram from my residence in Sylhet. In fact, we could have reached there earlier, but being careful drivers we drove slowly bearing in mind the safety of each other. I never overlapped the limit of 80 kilometers during this long drive. In addition, we had two breaks on the freeway which also prolonged our journey.

My friend Shakeel and my cousins Reesah and Farah accompanied me on the journey. All of them are my childhood friends too and we have studied and graduated from the same university together. We also live in the same town. Besides, our families also are on good terms with theirs. Thus, I was certain that if I take them on this journey, it will be a journey worthy of remembrance. We did lots of fun on the way to Chattagram. We took selfies on our smartphone and had delicious home-made lunch prepared by Reesah and Farah. We sang songs loudly and smiled a lot. The wonderful sceneries around us and our favourite music in the car made the whole journey more thrilling and enjoyable. It was really a day of excitement and enjoyment.

As far as the reason goes, I decided to make this journey by car because my companions thought that it would be more amusing and relaxing. Not only that, but the air-tickets were also expensive for us and we did not want to spend a large sum of money just for a couple of hours’ flight. I believe it was the best decision to make and it proved to be so.