Course that impressed you
IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card with a full sample answer, a Band 9 model of the two-minute long turn.
The cue card
Course that impressed you
You should say:
- what the course was about
- where you took the course
- what you did during the course
- why it impressed you
Sample answer
The course I'd like to talk about wasn't a formal one in any conventional sense, but rather an entirely hands-on crash course in coding that a friend of mine, Roman, tailored specifically for me — and it left an indelible impression.
I undertook this course, if you can call it that, right at my own training centre, over the course of roughly two months. Roman, who possesses an impressive command of web development, had originally come to my centre to hone his English, but our friendship blossomed into something far more consequential once he discovered I'd long harboured an ambition I'd never quite dared pursue: building a website for my business.
Session after session, he broke coding down into digestible chunks, walking me through the fundamentals with real-world examples and plenty of hands-on exercises rather than dry, abstract theory. We'd sit together for a couple of hours at a stretch, and he'd patiently unpack concepts I'd always assumed lay far beyond my grasp.
What impressed me most was just how accessible he made something I'd once found utterly daunting and intimidating. By the end of it, I'd actually built and launched my own website, one that now handles student registration and exam administration with remarkable efficiency, and has genuinely bolstered my professional image. I still consider myself very much a novice, but that course fundamentally transformed the way I run my business, and I remain immensely grateful to Roman for his unwavering patience and guidance.
Reading a model answer is not the same as saying one. The sample above shows what a strong Part 2 answer sounds like. What it cannot tell you is how yours sounds — whether you hesitate, repeat the question back, or run out of things to say at forty seconds.
You can record an answer to this exact question and get it marked on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and pronunciation — the same four criteria the examiner uses.
Common questions
How long should I speak for in Part 2?
Between one and two minutes. The examiner stops you at two, so aim to still be talking at the ninety-second mark rather than finishing early — running out at forty seconds is the most common problem in this part.
What do I do with the one minute of preparation time?
You get one minute and a pencil and paper. Most candidates waste it writing full sentences they then read aloud, which sounds flat. Note a few keywords against each bullet instead, so you have four things to talk about rather than a script.
Do I have to cover all four bullet points?
They are prompts, not a checklist, and you are not penalised for skipping one. In practice they are the easiest way to fill two minutes, so covering them is usually the simplest way to keep going.
Does it matter if the story is not true?
No. You are assessed on your English, not on whether the events happened. Inventing detail is fine and often easier than recalling a real memory under pressure.
Model answers written and reviewed by The English All-in-One IELTS team. They are teaching models showing what each band looks like, not real candidate scripts.