Cue Card # 86: An interesting story you heard

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 86

Describe an interesting story you heard when you were a child.

You should say:

• who told you the story
• what was the story
• why you think it was an interesting story

and explain why you still remember this story.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer:

Listening stories and processing them is not a one-time event but an ongoing process for us as children. A story from a storybook or a person’s imagination contains one or several characters and displays the details of a particular place, event and idea that affects a child’s mind and thought process. And thus stories help children develop their imagination power which ultimately makes them creative.

The same thing happened to me as a child, and whenever my aunt “Laura” used to tell me about the great stories of space travel, I made an imaginary world where I could do anything I want. As I recall, I was five years old, and my aunt used to read stories of space travel to me every other night. My aunt was an obsessed reader of science fiction stories and she liked to read all science fiction stories available around her. American science fiction and fantasy writer, James Benjamin Blish, was her favourite. He is best known for his “Cities in Flight” novels and his series of “Star Trek” novelizations adventure series. When my aunt used to read these books every night before bedtime, for me that time was the best time of the whole day.  

The story of “Star Trek” set in the twenty-third century based around the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, representing the United Federation of Planets, including Earth on a five-year mission in outer space to explore new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and to go to those planets, where no one has gone before. 

Since I was a little girl, I loved to imagine things in outer space. UFOs, other inhabitable planets, aliens, the spaceship in which I can go to space someday were fascinating to me. These ideas were always in my thoughts. Even I used to play games as a space fighter with my action figure toys. So I liked every part of that fantasy and science fiction story. 

How can I forget the “Star Trek” stories? The stories are humanistic; they provide an optimistic vision of our future. It tells us that no matter how crazy the world may look today, it will get better. Even, the movie ‘Star Wars’ has made on the theme of these stories. Wherever I see young people and advanced science technology, I can see the reflection of Star Trek among them.