Band 9 Tips for Cue-card Section - IELTS

✅ a) Frame an introduction in which you set the scene (who was involved, time, place, etc) in an interesting way to make the listener eager to know what happened next.

Example: It was 2001, I was 15 years old. And what happened then changed my life forever…

✅ b) Then answer the questions you raise in the listeners minds – use this part to develop your story, presenting the events in the order they happened:

Example: My entire family went on a vacation to a nearby mountain side where we planned to spend two days camping, and swimming and enjoying nature. On the second night, I woke up to a howling noise coming from the nearby forest…

✅ c) Close the story that tells the listener happened at the end of the story – this could include your feelings, people's feelings, final comments or reactions. If you can, come up with a surprising ending. It makes a great impression on the examiner.

Example: After this experience, everyone in my family decided never to take people and nature for granted. In fact, my younger brother decided to entirely stop consuming meat after that incident.

First-person narratives are great places to display use of past tense. Use of a variety of past tense forms correctly is another great way to go towards a Band 9 in IELTS.

Past Tense in IELTS

In the post here, we discuss the past tense along with the different sentence forms that you could use in both speaking and writing.