The cue card
Describe a website or app that you use often.
You should say:
- what it is
- how you found out about it
- what you use it for
and explain why you use it so often.
You have one minute to make notes, then speak for one to two minutes.
Band 8–9 sample answer
Written by Abroadway as a model of natural, high-band speaking (not an official IELTS sample).
Apart from the usual messaging apps, the one I open most often is a flashcard app called Anki. It's not exactly glamorous; to be honest, it looks rather old-fashioned, but it has quietly become part of my daily routine.
I found out about it in my first year at university in Dhaka. I was struggling to memorise the enormous number of drug names and chemical structures we had to learn, and I was complaining about it in the canteen when a senior student pulled out her phone and showed me her collection of flashcards. She swore it was the only reason she'd survived her exams, so I downloaded it that same evening, a little sceptically.
What I use it for is essentially memorisation. You create digital cards with a question on one side and an answer on the other, and the app tests you on them. The clever part is that it uses what's called spaced repetition: if you answer a card easily, it won't show it to you again for days or even weeks, but if you get it wrong, it keeps bringing it back until it sticks. These days I use it not only for my course but also for IELTS vocabulary, collocations in particular, and I've even made a small deck of Japanese phrases, since I'm hoping to visit Japan one day.
The reason I use it so often is that it fits neatly into the dead time in my day. I can review twenty cards while I'm stuck in a traffic jam on a rickshaw or waiting for a lecture to start, so it never feels like a major commitment. And it works: I retain far more than I used to when I relied on cramming the night before an exam. It's made studying feel less like a battle and more like a habit.
Useful phrases from this answer
- part of my daily routine
- something I do regularly every day
- until it sticks
- until you remember it properly
- dead time
- time spent waiting when you are not doing anything useful
- cramming
- studying a lot in a very short time just before an exam
- crowding out
- taking the place of something and pushing it aside
- piece together
- combine small bits of information to get the full picture
- heavy-handed
- too strict or forceful
- find ways round
- discover how to avoid a rule or problem
Part 3 follow-up questions and answers
What kinds of apps are most popular with young people?
Without doubt, social media and video-sharing apps dominate young people's phones. Platforms built around short videos are especially popular because they're endlessly entertaining and require almost no effort. Messaging apps come a close second, since that's where friendships are largely maintained nowadays, often through group chats. Beyond that, I'd say gaming apps are huge, particularly among teenagers, and online multiplayer games have become a social space in their own right. More positively, a fair number of students also use educational apps for language learning or exam preparation, though I suspect those get opened far less often than the entertainment ones.
Do people spend too much time on their phones?
Generally speaking, I think many of us do, myself included. The problem isn't the phone itself, which is an incredibly useful tool, but the way many apps are deliberately designed to keep us scrolling. It's very common to see a family sitting at dinner with everyone staring at a separate screen, which suggests that phones are crowding out face-to-face conversation. There are also concerns about sleep, since people often scroll late into the night. However, it depends on what the time is actually spent on. Someone reading the news, taking an online course or calling relatives abroad is using their phone productively, so the total hours alone don't tell the whole story.
How has mobile banking changed people's lives in your country?
I'd say it's been one of the most transformative changes in Bangladesh in recent years. Before mobile money became widespread, sending cash to relatives in a village often meant relying on a bus driver or someone travelling home, which was slow and risky. Now a factory worker in Dhaka can send money to their parents in a matter of seconds. It has also brought many people who never had a bank account into the financial system, and plenty of small shopkeepers now accept mobile payments. The downside is that fraud has become a real concern, with scammers phoning people and tricking them into sharing their PIN, so public awareness is essential.
What are the risks of sharing personal information online?
The most obvious risk is fraud. If criminals can piece together someone's date of birth, address and phone number, they can impersonate that person or guess their security questions. Beyond that, there's a danger to personal safety; posting your location in real time, for example, can let strangers know exactly where you are, or that your house is empty. There's also a longer-term issue that young people often overlook: what you post at sixteen may be seen by an employer or a university admissions officer years later. And finally, companies themselves collect huge amounts of data, which can be misused or leaked. So I think people should assume that anything online could eventually become public.
Should parents control how their children use the internet?
For younger children, absolutely, though the degree of control should decrease as they grow up. A seven-year-old simply can't judge which websites or strangers are dangerous, so filters, time limits and keeping devices in shared spaces seem perfectly reasonable. With teenagers, however, heavy-handed monitoring can backfire. If parents read every message, teenagers tend to find ways round the restrictions and stop confiding in them altogether. I'd argue that the most effective approach is gradual trust combined with open conversation, so that children understand the risks themselves rather than just obeying rules. Ultimately, the goal is to raise young people who can regulate their own behaviour.
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