Noisy place
IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card with a full sample answer, a Band 9 model of the two-minute long turn.
The cue card
Noisy place
You should say:
- what place it was
- when you went there
- who you went with
- what people do there
- why you liked or disliked it
Sample answer
The noisy place I'd like to describe is Irimsaciz Mall, where I found myself with my close friend Shamkhal, a companion of mine for well over a decade, on what should have been an unremarkable weekend outing about a year ago.
As luck would have it, the mall happened to be hosting some sort of celebration that day, though the exact occasion escaped me entirely. The moment we stepped through the doors, we were engulfed by an overwhelming wall of sound — music blaring from every speaker, children shrieking with unrestrained excitement, and hundreds of voices competing to be heard over one another, creating an almost deafening cacophony.
What struck me most was how superficially people seemed to be engaging with the occasion. Rather than genuinely soaking up the atmosphere, most visitors appeared to be darting from shop to shop, phones raised, desperately chasing the perfect photo for social media amid all the commotion. The incessant shuffle of feet, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the odd wailing toddler, generated a genuinely chaotic soundscape, rendering any semblance of proper conversation with Shamkhal virtually impossible.
Truth be told, I found the whole experience thoroughly exasperating. Somewhere beneath that deafening din, there may well have been something worthwhile unfolding, but the sheer intensity of the noise drowned out anything of substance. Shamkhal and I ended up cutting our visit drastically short, ducking into a nearby café simply to escape the racket. It was a stark reminder that even the liveliest of places can become so overwhelmingly noisy that they ultimately defeat their own purpose.
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.