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    Speaking Part 2Reported 12 July 2026

    Describe a time when you helped someone

    The cue card

    Describe a time when you helped someone.

    How to answer it

    Keep it small. A neighbour with heavy bags told well outscores a grand act told vaguely, because the examiner is marking narrative language, not virtue. Give the situation, what you actually did, and what happened afterwards — including if it was awkward or unappreciated, which is more interesting than gratitude.

    What moves the band

    • Helping lexis: give someone a hand, go out of my way, it was no trouble, they were struggling with.
    • The 'as willing as in the past' question is a trap for nostalgia — question the premise rather than agreeing automatically.

    Two answers, two bands

    Both answers below respond to this exact question. Read them in order: the difference between them is what a band is actually made of. They are written by us for this page — they are not candidate transcripts.

    Band 6.5

    What a 6.5 sounds like

    I want to describe a time when I helped my neighbour. She is an old woman who lives alone in the flat below us, and she is about seventy-five years old.

    One day in winter I was coming back from university and I saw her at the entrance of the building with two heavy shopping bags. She was standing there and she could not carry them up the stairs because our lift was broken at that time. I asked her if she needed help and she said yes, so I carried the bags up to her flat on the second floor.

    She was very grateful and she invited me for tea, but I could not stay because I had an exam the next day. I felt very good after that because it was a small thing for me but it was important for her. I think helping others is a good habit and we should do it more often.

    Why it scores what it scores: Correctly structured, easy to follow, and it takes the plan's advice to keep the act small. Two things cap it. The narrative language is plain past simple throughout with almost no variation in how time is handled, and the final paragraph slides into moralising — helping others is a good habit — which adds no new language and is the least interesting sentence in the answer.

    Band 8

    What an 8 sounds like

    The one that comes to mind isn't a good deed exactly, more an awkward one. Our lift had been broken for about three weeks, and there's a woman on the second floor, well into her seventies, who I'd only ever exchanged nods with. I came in one evening and she was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her shopping, not struggling with it, just standing, which was somehow worse.

    So I offered to give her a hand, and she said no. Firmly. I asked again, she said no again, and then there was this long pause where we both understood that she couldn't do it and neither of us wanted to say so. Eventually she let me take one bag — one, not both — and she carried the other one herself, and we went up very slowly without talking about it.

    What stayed with me wasn't the helping. It was realising that accepting help costs something, and I'd never thought about that side of it before. I still take her shopping up occasionally, and she still insists on carrying a bag, and I've stopped arguing.

    Why it scores what it scores: The candidate follows the plan's hardest instruction — include what was awkward or unappreciated — and that choice is what generates the language. The refusal creates a real narrative complication, which pulls in past perfect, a genuinely delayed reveal, and a shift into reflection that says something rather than concluding that helping is good. Note how much is conveyed by the aside one, not both.

    Phrases worth stealing

    • “not struggling with it, just standing, which was somehow worse”
    • “I offered to give her a hand, and she said no. Firmly.”
    • “we both understood that she couldn't do it and neither of us wanted to say so”
    • “accepting help costs something”
    • “she still insists on carrying a bag, and I've stopped arguing”

    Part 3 questions reported with it

    Part 3 follows the topic of the cue card, so these are the discussion questions the same candidates were asked next.

    • Are people as willing to help as they were in the past?
    • How do people help within their communities?
    • How can children be taught to help others?
    • Should schools encourage helpful behaviour?

    These are candidate recalls. These are questions reported by test-takers after their exams, not official or leaked IELTS material. Wording varies by test version, location and memory. Use them for timed practice — never as a prediction of what you will be asked.

    Practise these next

    Know the number. Now move it.

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