| Describe a happy event of your life. You should say:
and explain why it was a happy event. |
Follow-up questions
- What do you think is important in achieving happiness?
- How do you celebrate some happy events?
- What do the camera and video play in celebrating?
Possible answer 1 for the above speaking cue cards
I can remember many happy events of my life and out of those, I would like to talk about the event that I can still remember vividly regarding my success in the board exam. The moment I heard that I had been awarded a scholarship based on my performance in the board exam, I became the happiest man in the world. This was indeed a very happy moment for me as it is something I was looking forward to achieving and the news made my parents quite happy and proud.
I spent almost a month with great anxiety regarding my result publication. I started speculating so many things and many of them were negative. I could hardly keep away the tensions about my upcoming result. The result was so important that my college admission would mostly depend on it. I could not sleep well in the night before the result publishing. I think this is a common anxiety for students and I was familiar with this type of anxiety. However, this particular exam results game me more nightmares than any other time of my life.
The result was published at around 11.00 am and I found that I did exceptionally well. I was so relieved and happy that I literally shouted. Then I hurriedly came back to our home and gave the news to my parents. They were happy too. My father bought sweets and my mother gave it to our neighbours. I felt excited, happy and relieved. At that time I was about 15 years old. It happened in our hometown called (… say the name of your hometown…)
Possible answer 2 for the above speaking cue cards
In my face, I feel a glow whenever I remember the day I went to the International trade fair with some of my friends. That was my first International trade fair visit and this was such a happy experience that I still feel a great joy reciting the memory of this event. It was January 1998 and that time I was in my first year of college.
Until I finished my college, I was kind of a newborn lady, who had never visited any places without her places of her local area. After I got admitted into the college, I started exploring the world and the amazing things that invite people like us. One day I planned with my friends that we would visit International trade fair. This might seem like a very usual and banal event for others but to me, that was a really exciting thing to do. Later on, we did as we thought and finalised our visit to the fair. After break period at college, we escaped by the back door (As a side note, I would like to mention that I’d no previous record of escaping school or college before). We were five in members and we hired a taxi to reach the trade fair. There wasn’t enough space to sit on the back side of the taxi and the taxi driver gave a suspicious look at us. That’s why with a fishy smile we took the decision that one of us would sit in front of the baby taxi with the taxi driver. It was a funny decision but there was no alternative to us and we enjoyed it.
After few minutes we reached the fair and then collected the tickets. We were thoroughly enjoying everything we did that time. We entered the fair and took a deep breath to ease ourselves. We were kind of overwhelmed to observe the vast area with hundreds of shops and stalls. People were all around us and we felt like somehow we have come to a fairy land. Wherever we went, I was feeling so excited, everything was totally new to me as a grown-up lady. We took lots of photos from different views, purchased few interesting things within our limited budget and roamed in the whole area of the fair. I forgot my usual area, boundaries and the same thing I do almost every day and felt a happiness that I missed for a long. We spent almost 4-5 hours in the trade fair and at last returned to our home in the evening. We returned home by bus and I was so happy that I felt like discovering a new continent.
How to answer this cue card?
“Describe a happy event of your life” is an example of cue card topic that gives a candidate a wide range of options to pick from. You are virtually free to talk about any event that you think you would be flexible to talk about. On the contrary, the topic like “Describe a famous writer in your country” narrows your option. You can’t just pick any writer and start talking about him. For the later topic, you need to think about such a writer and give some factual information about him.
The cue cards that give you wide options are usually easier to talk about since you won’t have to wonder a lot to pick what you would talk about. For this cue card i.e. “Describe a happy event of your life” think about an event in your life that made you happy. If you take it from your life rather than making it up, you would be able to give more details and extend the topic.
Following are some of the ideas you can take as examples of happy events of your life but always try to speak about a real event of your life.
- Your father got promoted and your family celebrated it.
- You got admitted to a school/ college/ university where you dreamed of studying.
- The birth of your younger sister/ brother/ nephew/ niece or even your own kid if you are a father/ mother.
- One of your family members was severely ill but got healed miraculously.
- You won a competition.
- You did something for others and people acclaimed that.
- You got a scholarship.
- You overcame one of your obstacles.
- You went to visit a foreign country.
- You achieved something noteworthy.
- You saved someone from a big problem.
Discussion
Q. What do you think is important in achieving happiness?
Answer: I strongly believe that ordinary yet priceless things such as health, family solidarity and closeness, important people like friends who will always be there for you no matter what and job satisfaction can definitely lead to happiness. I am opposed to the belief that money makes everyone happy and replete. Although money and wealth are essential elements for human life as they help people cover their expenses, do things they want and purchase materials people want, I don’t think that they are the determinant factors. Furthermore, self-contentment could be another important ingredient for us to be happy. We can be happy with however little we have only if we have the self-satisfaction and self-contentment.
Q. How do you celebrate some happy events?
Answer: As I can remember, when I was younger I used to held parties at my home solely with my family and relatives. Especially on my birthdays, my mom cooked my favourite foods and made my favourite birthday cake with chocolate. Now that I am not a teenager anymore, I go out with my friends and in some special circumstances with my family as well. For example, on my graduation day, I went to a Greek restaurant with my parents, brother and my five best friends and we had a really great time. Generally speaking, I would say that I am more of an introvert person, so I totally prefer to spend substantial time with few friends rather than having many people and typical relationships. My happy moments and celebrations are also related to my friends and family members.
Q. What role the camera and video play in celebrating?
Answer: I would argue that these two tools, camera and video, play an integral part in different types of celebrations. First of all, most people have moments of their childhood and memories from childhood are captured in cameras. To illustrate, some of the most important events such as birthday parties, weddings, graduations and so on are included in these jigs and in this way the moment is captured and saved for a long period of time. Furthermore, as some essential and happy events are recorded, they could be used and displayed years later in order for some people to remember some significant events. A good illustration in my case is that on my 22nd birthday, my friends made me a really emotional video from all the years that we have been friends. Without the usage of the camera and video-recorder, this could never have happened.
If you can talk about this cue card, you should be able to answer the following cue cards as well:
- Describe a memorable event of your life.
- Talk about an event that made you happy.
- Describe a happy memory you have.
- Describe a success you achieved in your life.
Related IELTS Resources
Take a practice test to find out what is your current weakness in terms of IELTS scale and allow more time to improve your weak spots. The following IELTS resources will help you to develop your skills faster: