Home ›IELTS Cue Cards › A skill learned from an elder
This IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card asks you to talk about a skill learned from an elder, covering what the skill is; who taught you; how you learned it; and explain how this skill is useful to you.. Below is a band 9 sample answer with tips on structuring a two-minute talk.
Describe a skill you learned from an older family member.
You should say:
You have one minute to prepare and may make notes. Then speak for one to two minutes; the examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions.
The skill I am most grateful for is cooking, which my grandmother taught me across the summer holidays of my school years. It began accidentally: as a curious twelve-year-old I loitered in her kitchen mainly to steal samples, and she converted my greed into apprenticeship by assigning me small tasks — washing rice, peeling vegetables, and standing guard over simmering milk. Over several summers this quietly escalated into a genuine education. Her teaching method was entirely practical and slightly mysterious: she never measured anything, so I learned quantities by watching her palm and correcting my own disasters, and she insisted I understand each step rather than memorise it — why onions must brown slowly, why spices go in a particular order, why the flame drops at certain moments. She also taught the unglamorous parts: planning meals from what exists, wasting nothing, cleaning while cooking. The usefulness of all this revealed itself when I moved to another city alone. While my flatmates lived on deliveries and instant noodles, I could produce genuine meals from a basic kitchen, which protected both my health and my budget — and made me suspiciously popular on weekends. But the deeper value is emotional. Cooking her recipes keeps her present in my daily life, and her dishes taste like my childhood in a way no restaurant can counterfeit. She gave me what I now consider the best kind of inheritance: not an object, but a permanent capability.
After your talk, the examiner moves to more abstract questions linked to this cue card.
The life-maintenance skills schools never timetable: cooking, budgeting, repairing things, negotiating disagreements, caring for the sick, and the family's own traditions and recipes. These transfer best through years of casual observation at home — and they come bundled with values, which is the part no institution can teach.
Because their economics collapsed. Hand weaving, pottery or home preserving once made financial sense; mass production made them slower and costlier than buying, so parents steered children toward modern careers instead. The knowledge often dies untransmitted — not from disrespect, but because a generation was never given a reason to learn.
Yes, though differently. Physical distance and busy schedules have thinned the old daily apprenticeship, but video calls now let grandparents teach recipes and stories across continents, and many young people are actively returning to grandparents to document skills before they vanish. The channel is changing; the hunger for roots is, if anything, growing.
Band 9 model essays, letters and templates from the Writing library. Browse all 118 in the Learning Hub.
Daily articles on IELTS changes, visa rules and university admissions.
Cue cards, speaking questions and Writing Task 1 questions with band 9 sample answers, plus a free band score calculator.