Describe a person you would like to meet
The full IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card, a band-8 model answer you can learn from, the Part 3 questions that follow, and examiner strategy. Free, no sign-up.
Describe a person you would like to meet.
You should say:
- Who this person is
- How you know about them
- What you know about their life or work
- Explain why you would like to meet this person
You will have one minute to prepare and should then speak for one to two minutes.
Band-8 model answer
I would love to meet a woman called Tan Le, a Vietnamese refugee who became a tech entrepreneur in Australia. I first came across her through a documentary about immigrant success stories, and afterwards I read pretty much everything I could find about her online. She arrived in Australia as a child with almost nothing, and yet she went on to found a company that develops brain sensing headsets, which basically read electrical signals from your brain and translate them into commands for computers. What really strikes me about her is that she built this from scratch in a field, neuroscience and engineering, where she had no formal background at all, and she did it against all odds as a young single mother. If I ever got the chance to sit down with her, I would want to pick her brain about resilience, how she kept going when investors kept turning her down. I imagine she would have some brutally honest advice about failure that you never get from motivational books. I would also ask how she balances ambition with the responsibility of representing an entire immigrant community. Honestly, meeting someone like her would probably change how I approach setbacks in my own life.
Why this answer scores band 8
- ✓Wide range of grammatical structures used naturally: third conditional, modal verbs of speculation, relative clauses, all with good control
- ✓Idiomatic and precise lexis such as 'pick her brain', 'from scratch', 'against all odds' used appropriately rather than forced
- ✓Clear discourse organisation with cohesive markers ('the main reason is', 'what really strikes me') and sustained focus on the final bullet point
Part 3 follow-up questions
After the cue card, the examiner discusses the topic in more depth. Practise these aloud too — Part 3 is where the highest bands are won or lost.
Examiner strategy for this cue card
Practise this answer out loud in a real Speaking test
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Describe a person you would like to meet — FAQ
How do you answer the 'Describe a person you would like to meet' IELTS cue card?
Spend your one minute of preparation noting a few keywords for each prompt (Who this person is; How you know about them; What you know about their life or work; Explain why you would like to meet this person), then speak for the full two minutes. Cover each point briefly but give most of your time to the final 'explain why' prompt, where the marks are. A full band-8 model answer is shown on this page.
How long should the IELTS Speaking Part 2 answer be?
You should talk for up to two minutes without stopping. It is better to keep going and cover the topic in depth than to finish early — the examiner will stop you when the time is up.
What Part 3 questions follow 'Describe a person you would like to meet'?
Part 3 broadens the topic into a discussion. For this cue card, expect questions such as: What kinds of people do most people in your country admire? Do you think meeting someone in person is more valuable than reading about them or watching interviews? Why? Has social media changed the way ordinary people can interact with famous or successful people?