Describe a person you know who loves to grow plants (vegetables, fruits, flowers)
IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card with a full sample answer, a Band 9 model of the two-minute long turn.
The cue card
Describe a person you know who loves to grow plants (vegetables, fruits, flowers)
You should say:
- who this person is
- what this person grows
- where this person grows them
- why this person loves to grow plants
Sample answer
I'd like to talk about my grandmother, who has an absolute passion for gardening and growing plants. She's in her late sixties now, and tending to her garden has been one of the greatest joys of her life for as long as I can remember.
My grandmother grows an impressive variety of plants. In terms of vegetables, she cultivates tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and various leafy greens, while she also grows fragrant herbs like mint, basil and parsley. On top of that, she has a beautiful array of flowers, including roses and tulips, which add wonderful splashes of colour. She even has a couple of fruit trees that produce apricots and cherries in the summer.
She grows all of these in the garden behind her house in the countryside, where she's lucky enough to have a fairly large plot of land. She's divided it neatly into sections — one area for vegetables, another for herbs and a lovely flower bed near the entrance. She also keeps a few potted plants on her windowsills and balcony, so greenery is truly everywhere in her home.
As for why she loves it so much, there are several reasons. Firstly, she finds gardening incredibly relaxing and therapeutic; she often says that spending time among her plants clears her mind and keeps her feeling young and active. Secondly, she takes enormous pride in growing her own fresh, organic produce, and she loves cooking meals using ingredients she's nurtured herself. There's also a sentimental side to it, as gardening was something she used to do with her own mother, so it connects her to happy memories. Whenever I visit her, she enthusiastically shows me her latest blooms, and her passion is genuinely infectious. In fact, watching her has made me appreciate the simple pleasure of growing things, and I hope to have a garden of my own one day.
312 words — roughly 2–3 minutes at a natural speaking pace.
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 say and can speak naturally from them.
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.