Onterra TutorDescribe a time you helped someone
An IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card, with the structure examiners reward. You get 1 minute to prepare and up to 2 minutes to speak.
The cue card
Describe a time you helped someone.
You should say:
- who you helped
- what the situation was
- what you did
- and explain how you felt afterwards.
Your 2-minute structure
- Open with a direct answer (10 seconds). Name your choice immediately: one sentence that answers "describe a time you helped someone". Do not waste your first 20 seconds on "that's an interesting question".
- Who you helped (about 25 seconds). Give the fact, then add one detail and one feeling. A specific memory always beats a general statement.
- What the situation was (about 25 seconds). This is where a past-tense story earns grammar marks. Set the scene in one sentence, then say what happened.
- What you did (about 25 seconds). Slow down and be concrete: a name, a place, a number. Details are what make an answer sound fluent rather than memorised.
- And explain how you felt afterwards (about 25 seconds). Link back to your opening sentence with a connector like 'which is exactly why' so the whole answer feels planned.
- Close with why it matters (15 seconds). End on how it affected you or what it taught you. A natural closing line signals confidence to the examiner.
Sample band 8+ answer
About 90 seconds when spoken at a natural pace. Notice how specific the details are; that specificity is what you should copy, not the story itself.
I'd like to talk about the time I helped my neighbour's son prepare for his university entrance exam. His mother mentioned at the gate one evening that he was struggling with mathematics and that private lessons were beyond their budget that year. Since I'd done well in maths at school, I offered to coach him on Saturday mornings. The situation was delicate, honestly, because he was embarrassed at first, so for the first two sessions I mostly let him show me what he could already do, and praised that. Then we worked through past questions for about two months, focusing on the topics that appear every year. When the results came out he had passed well enough for his first-choice course, and his mother brought us a whole cooler of jollof rice to celebrate. I felt genuinely proud, but the bigger feeling was gratitude, because teaching him showed me I enjoy explaining things, and it's part of why I'm considering a career that involves training people.
Why this answer works
- Feelings are named precisely (embarrassed, proud, gratitude), which lifts vocabulary scores.
- The answer shows the HOW of helping, not just the fact of it: strategy, patience, past questions.
- It ends by linking the event to the speaker's future, a natural, confident close.
What the examiner listens for
Fluency (can you keep going for 2 minutes without long pauses), vocabulary range (topic words, not just "good" and "nice"), and grammar variety (past tenses and linking words like "which is why" and "even though"). Hesitation is normal; stopping is what costs bands. If you lose your thread, say "what I mean is..." and keep moving.