IELTS Energy 1603: How Important is the IELTS Part 2 Cue Card?

This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, episode 1603. How important is the IELTS part two cue card? Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz, Aubrey Carter, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. If you are stuck with a low score,

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Have you ever wondered if it is required to address all of the bullet points on your speaking part two cue card? Find out today and learn three band nine idioms for questions about the environment.

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Go to allearsenglish.com slash myscore today. That's allearsenglish.com slash M-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hello, Michelle. How are you? I'm doing well, Aubrey. How are you?

Excellent. I have a question to start us out here. Are you a rule follower? Some people are and some aren't. I'm curious. Overall, yes. But I also do sometimes question the rules if I feel that it's just arbitrary whatever.

But overall, yes. A big rule follower. What about you? That was a bad nine word. Arbitrary. Arbitrary. Yes. So this is something that doesn't seem – there's no rhyme or reason.

It doesn't seem that logical. It seems kind of random or nonsensical. A lot of good vocab there for any question about rules or – Oh, this is going to be really good.

And the reason I asked you is many people have asked us if it is a rule on IELTS to address everything on the IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card. So a lot of you out there, if you haven't thought this question before, you might now be thinking, oh, yeah, I need the answer to this. I haven't thought about it, but I want to know. And we are going to let you know today.

Yes, exactly. So, I mean, what kind of question are we talking about here? So this is part two. These questions begin with describe. And that statement, like describe a friend, describe a typical weekend, whatever it is, is the most important part of the cue card.

And that is what the examiner is listening for is your answer to that. Whatever you're being told to describe, you have to do that in detail or you'll get a low score. But on the cue card, we also see you should say followed by bullet points. Right.

And there's a couple of things. These are not mandatory. These are suggestions that can help you think of what to say. Often you are going to automatically address those bullet points because they're all on topic.

It just makes sense that you'll cover those. But the examiner doesn't even read those. They don't care. They are not listening for you to answer those bullet points.

That's so interesting. But is it possible that they would... So the cards, though, they basically help you come up with some ideas. Exactly. It's not part of the scoring system for the examiner to listen for those to be addressed.

It is exactly like you said, Michelle, to help you come up with ideas. Exactly. In fact, it would be hard. We're going to show this. Stay to the end of the podcast.

And we're going to show this. I think we're going to have evidence that it's actually hard to fully answer one of these questions without discussing those bullet points at all. They're usually so related to what you would talk about that it would be difficult to avoid them. But you can read them or not.

If it helps you to come up with ideas to read them awesome, you don't have to read them. You could just describe what you're being asked to describe and you're probably going to accidentally address all of them.

Yeah, that's funny. I like that, to accidentally address all of them. Yeah. And you have one minute to plan for those part two answers. So should we be worried about the time while planning?

That is a really good question, Michelle. No. The examiner will tell you when that time is up. And then you'll begin your answer. So take that full minute.

Don't be looking at the clock or thinking about how much time has passed. You only want to spend all that time thinking of what you want to share, details, a story you could share, interesting vocabulary, linking phrases, idioms. Use that time. And then when it is up, the examiner will say, you know, thank you.

Please begin speaking now. And that is when you start your answer. Yeah. Okay. So very interesting. So should we give an example of a part two cue card?

Yeah, let's do it. And remember, you want to be thinking of topic specific, less common vocabulary you can use. Think of a story you can tell. So we'll give an example here and we'll kind of talk about how you could address it.

So what's a part two question, Michelle? Okay. So describe an environmental problem in your area. And then what would the rest of the cue card say? So it's going to say, you should say what the problem is, what causes it, how it affects people or the environment, and explain what could be done to solve it.

So, yeah, I mean, you absolutely could address all of those bullet points when answering the question, but it's actually not required, as Aubrey was saying. Yeah, which it's interesting. They're really not using the right verbiage here. It should say, you could say...

When it says you should say, students definitely get the impression that they should cover all of this and they might be trying to follow them. And instead of telling like a story, they might be trying to stick with the bullet points and not speaking as naturally. So this is sort of an IELTS trick. It's a trap, just like the instructions for this type of question, which says, you know, speak for one to two minutes, which is an IELTS trap.

Speak for two minutes or your fluency and coherence score will be lower. So you need to know this inside information about IELTS so that you know how to not fall for these traps. Yeah, definitely. That's so helpful, Aubrey.

And guys, before we move on, we want to remind you to hit follow wherever you're listening to the IELTS Energy Podcast so you never miss anything and let us help you get that high score. Absolutely. We have so many great strategies and tips for you to get the band score you need on IELTS. Lots of sample answers, vocabulary, and answering questions like this that you might not even have thought to ask before.

And then you hear an episode and you're like, oh yeah, I need to know this. So be sure to hit follow so you get all these great tips. And then we also want to share here... Like I mentioned, it would be extremely difficult to, for example, this question, to describe an environmental problem in detail without addressing these bullet points, right?

If you don't explain what could be done, for example, your score won't go down because you missed that bullet point. The examiner didn't even read that bullet point. But is your answer really that full and detailed? And did you take the full two minutes if you don't cover that?

It would probably be difficult. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. A lot of these things are just naturally going to come up. So, I mean, but if you don't explain like what could be done, your score will not automatically go down for that.

Exactly. That's what I just said. Right. So if you don't. Right. If you don't explain one bullet point like that one, for example, what could be done, your score will not automatically be affected.

The examiner didn't even read that card. But you certainly can talk about it. You don't have to. But the question is, which strategy is going to help you speak more naturally?

Reading these bullet points and trying to stick to them or telling a story and sharing details about the place you live and an environmental problem you have noticed that That, the latter, right? This second version is going to be so much more native and natural. Yeah.

Yeah. Love it. Do you ever avoid speaking because you're worried that you'll make a mistake? Not a huge mistake, but just enough of a mistake to make the conversation feel awkward.

So instead, you choose the simpler path, the safer answer, maybe the shorter answer. Over time, this habit becomes a barrier to fluency and connection. Because fluency isn't about avoiding mistakes. It's about communicating and connecting despite them.

Our free two-minute fluency quiz helps you discover your current English level and it identifies what's holding you back. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score to take the free two-minute quiz now. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e.

All right, let's teach a few quick idioms, Michelle, that could be used in questions about the environment. We recently shared a lot of band nine vocabulary about the environment. So after you're done listening today, you could scroll back and catch those if you miss them. But we didn't share much idiomatic language.

This is required in IELTS speaking questions. So you also need some idioms. So we're going to share three. The first one is a drop in the ocean, which means something too small to make a real difference.

What's a sentence that maybe could be used in a part two question using this idiom? Okay. So using a reusable bag once in a while is a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of plastic pollution. Oh, perfect.

So you can see how maybe you're talking about what people can do to make a difference. And maybe you're saying, I can only kind of make a difference on a small scale. But then maybe your point is all of us together doing that does make a difference. Or maybe your point is that we individuals can't do much.

Big corporations, government needs to do more. Both are great. Doesn't matter what the examiner thinks. This is high-scoring vocabulary. And the second one is pay the price, suffer the consequences of something.

We use both of these, right? Pay the price or suffer the consequences. We use these a lot when we talk about the environment, right? For example, we might say, if we continue cutting down forests, future generations will pay the price through climate change and biodiversity loss.

Same sentence, you could say instead, future generations will suffer the consequences. These are both really high scoring native natural phrases to talk about. Yeah, sure. And then this third one is also really helpful.

It's to turn a blind eye to something. So this is to ignore a problem deliberately. You're just kind of like, oh, it doesn't exist. So for example, some companies turn a blind eye to illegal dumping in order to save money.

Exactly. Okay. So this is amazing vocabulary. Try and use it if you can, but it's pretty flexible. It doesn't have to be about the environment. Imagine you're talking about a relationship and you say that you turned a blind eye to some of the red flags, some negative things that you saw, right?

These are flexible idioms that you could use on lots of different answers, certainly not just about the environment. This vocabulary is exactly what you need for questions about the environment. Speaking part two, speaking part three, we recently shared how often vocabulary questions come up on speaking part three. And all of these idioms added to the language we already shared, the vocabulary we already shared will get you that band nine vocabulary score.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. These are huge. So I'm so glad that we talked about these today. And guys, make sure you hit follow, because we are going to have part two of this episode coming up.

And we're going to be doing a sample answer. We have a lot of fun things coming up on this next episode that are really going to be helpful. So Definitely hit follow and look out for part two.

Yes, Michelle is going to answer a part two question using this vocabulary. And we're also going to show what it would look like if she doesn't have the bullet points. And will she accidentally answer them? So stay tuned.

That's going to be the very next episode. Be sure to hit follow if you have not. And we will see you in that episode. Thanks for joining me today, Michelle.

All right, Aubrey. Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.