Onterra TutorDescribe a book you have recently read
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 book you have recently read.
You should say:
- what the book was
- why you chose to read it
- what it was about
- and explain whether you would recommend it.
Your 2-minute structure
- Open with a direct answer (10 seconds). Name your choice immediately: one sentence that answers "describe a book you have recently read". Do not waste your first 20 seconds on "that's an interesting question".
- What the book was (about 25 seconds). Give the fact, then add one detail and one feeling. A specific memory always beats a general statement.
- Why you chose to read it (about 25 seconds). This is where a past-tense story earns grammar marks. Set the scene in one sentence, then say what happened.
- What it was about (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 whether you would recommend it (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.
A book I read recently and can't stop recommending is 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I chose it partly out of guilt, honestly, because everyone around me had read it years ago, and partly because I wanted to understand the Biafran war, which my grandparents lived through but rarely discuss. The novel follows twin sisters and the people around them as the war slowly swallows their comfortable lives, and what shook me was how ordinary everything feels right up until it isn't: dinner parties and university debates turn into checkpoints and hunger in a few chapters. I read the last hundred pages in one night, which I almost never do. Would I recommend it? Absolutely, but with the warning that it's emotionally heavy. It made me ask my grandmother questions I'd been afraid to ask, and any book that starts a conversation like that in a family has done something special.
Why this answer works
- Reasons for choosing, the plot and the recommendation are all covered inside a personal frame.
- 'The war slowly swallows their comfortable lives' shows paraphrase and imagery, not summary.
- Ending on the conversation with the grandmother answers 'why it matters' memorably.
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.