Person who is good at making things by hand
IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card with a full sample answer, a Band 9 model of the two-minute long turn.
The cue card
Person who is good at making things by hand
You should say:
- who this person is
- how you know this person
- what talent this person possesses
- why you admire this person
Sample answer
The person I'd like to talk about is my aunt, Sevda, who possesses a remarkable knack for making things with her own two hands.
She's my mother's younger sister, so I've known her for as long as I can remember, and we've always been incredibly close-knit - she used to look after me constantly when I was little, and we still see plenty of each other at family get-togethers.
Sevda's particular forte is pottery. She took it up as a pastime about a decade ago, almost by chance, after tagging along to a weekend class with a friend, and she's since turned it into something of a genuine passion. She has a small wheel set up in her garage, where she spends hours most weekends, shaping bowls, vases and mugs before glazing and firing them herself. What amazes me most is the sheer patience the whole process demands - a single piece can take days to complete from start to finish, and there's always a risk it'll crack in the kiln, yet she never seems to lose her enthusiasm.
I admire her for a whole host of reasons. For one thing, she's largely self-taught, having honed her skills through sheer practice and, more recently, online tutorials, rather than any formal training, which speaks volumes about her dedication. For another, she's remarkably generous with what she produces; virtually everyone in our family owns at least one mug or bowl she's crafted, and each piece feels genuinely special given the effort poured into it. Finally, I admire the fact that she took up something entirely new in her forties and has stuck with it through thick and thin, which says a great deal about her character - she's not remotely afraid of being a beginner and ploughing on regardless. Honestly, watching her has left me itching to pick up a craft of my own one day.
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.