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    Speaking Part 2Reported 27 July 2026

    Describe your favourite city that you have visited

    The cue card

    Describe your favourite city that you have visited.

    How to answer it

    This question has come back: candidates reported it on 13 July 2026, 16 July 2026, 27 July 2026. Questions that repeat across sittings are the ones worth rehearsing properly.

    This card came back three times in July, which makes it worth genuinely preparing. Avoid the guidebook: pick two or three specific things — a particular street at a particular hour, how people use public space, what the food was like — and connect them to why the place suited you. The Part 3 question about tourist cities as places to live is the one to have an opinion ready for.

    What moves the band

    • City lexis: it's very walkable, the old quarter, it has a real buzz, it's touristy but it earns it.
    • Comparatives keep this answer moving: unlike anywhere else I've been, far more relaxed than.

    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'd like to talk about Istanbul, which I visited two years ago with my sister. It's a very big city in Turkey and it has a lot of history, so there are many old buildings and mosques to see.

    I liked it because the food was really good and the people were friendly. We took a boat across the water, which was very nice, and we also visited a famous market where they sell spices and other things. It was very crowded but it was interesting.

    Another reason I like it is that it is not too expensive compared to other European cities, so we could stay for a week. I would definitely like to go back there again one day, maybe in summer.

    Why it scores what it scores: Everything here is accurate and easy to follow, and that is exactly why it stops at 6.5. The vocabulary stays at the level of very big, really good, very nice, and the answer describes the trip rather than answering why this city is the favourite. Nothing is wrong; nothing is memorable.

    Band 8

    What an 8 sounds like

    The city I keep coming back to in my head is Istanbul, which I spent about a week in a couple of years ago.

    What got me wasn't the monuments, honestly — it was the ferry. For about the price of a coffee you cross from Europe to Asia twice a day with everyone else who's just commuting, and there's this moment halfway across where the call to prayer starts on both banks at slightly different times. That's the image I've kept.

    I think what makes it my favourite rather than just a good trip is that it's a genuinely lived-in city. A lot of famous places feel like they've been tidied up for visitors, whereas there you're walking through people's actual neighbourhoods — laundry overhead, cats everywhere, someone shouting prices at you. It's chaotic, but it never felt hostile.

    And the food, obviously. I'd happily have eaten nothing but breakfast for the whole week.

    Why it scores what it scores: Same trip, different band. The candidate picks one concrete image and builds the answer around it instead of listing sights, uses natural spoken markers (honestly, obviously, what got me was) and controls a range of structures without sounding rehearsed. The final short sentence is a fluency move, not an accident.

    Phrases worth stealing

    • “What got me wasn't the monuments, honestly”
    • “a genuinely lived-in city”
    • “they've been tidied up for visitors”
    • “It's chaotic, but it never felt hostile”

    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.

    • Do people of different ages prefer city or rural life?
    • How do people choose holiday destinations?
    • Are tourist cities good places to live?
    • Do people prefer modern or historic cities?

    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.

    A conversion table tells you where you stand today. Langujet's AI marks your writing and speaking against the real rubric and tells you exactly which criterion is holding your score down.