Describe a gift you gave to someone

The cue card

Describe a gift you gave to someone. You should say:

• what the gift was
• who you gave it to
• why you chose it
• and explain how the person felt about it

You have 1 minute to prepare and should speak for 1 to 2 minutes.

🎙 Practise this card with the examiner

Notes you could make in 1 minute

Write key words only, one line per bullet point:

• cookbook, handwritten recipes
• my sister, moving out
• she can't cook
• laughed, cried

Band 7+ sample answer

The gift I'm going to talk about is a cookbook that I made for my younger sister when she moved out of our family home last year to start university in another city.

It wasn't a normal cookbook from a shop. I spent about two months collecting our family's favourite recipes, mostly from my mum and grandmother, and I wrote them out by hand in a nice notebook. I added photos of the dishes, and little notes like "Grandma always adds extra garlic here" or "This is the one Dad makes on Sundays".

I chose it because my sister is, to put it politely, not a confident cook. She'd lived at home all her life and had hardly ever made a meal, and I knew she'd be living on instant noodles if nobody helped her. But I also wanted it to be something that reminded her of home, because I knew she'd feel homesick at first.

When she opened it, she laughed at some of the notes and then got quite emotional, which I hadn't expected. She told me later that she uses it at least once a week, and that her housemates now ask her to cook my mum's chicken curry for them. I think it's the most successful present I've ever given, mainly because it had real sentimental value rather than just being expensive. It taught me that the best gifts are the ones you put a lot of thought into.

🔊 Listen to the sample answer

About 243 words, or roughly 2 minutes at a natural speaking pace.

Useful vocabulary for this topic

• a thoughtful gift
• sentimental value
• to put a lot of thought into
• it was a hit
• to treasure something
• personalised

Why this answer works: it covers every bullet point, tells a short story with specific details (names, places, numbers), uses a range of tenses, and finishes with the "explain" point, which is where you show your best vocabulary.

Follow-up and Part 3 questions

Examiner's follow-up (Part 2): Do you enjoy choosing gifts?

Part 3 discussion questions:

• Why do people give gifts?
• Is it better to give money or a present?
• Do people spend too much money on gifts nowadays?
• How are gift-giving customs changing?

Answer Part 3 questions in 3–4 sentences: your view, a reason, an example, and the other side.

More cue cards

• Describe a time when you helped someone
• Describe an important decision you made
• All 30 IELTS cue cards