IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 45
Describe a birthday party or celebration you have attended recently.
You should say:
- whose birthday it was
- who attended the party
- where the party was held
and describe whether you enjoyed it or not.
[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:
Sometimes, I really wonder why many people who do not care much about my well-being the whole year, but then suddenly, on my birthday start “remembering” me and “wishing” for me all the best. Then I answer myself ‘maybe this is a special way of saying that we care’. But what I never question is our “rights” to “celebrate life” no matter how they come. And if it comes by celebrating a birthday of our loved one, then so be it!
My friend, James, a very rich person, never really liked to celebrate any of his birthdays without me no matter how much I “disapproved” of big parties. So, the other day, about a few weeks ago, when he told me that he would have a “surprise” for me on his next birthday to be held in the next several days, I became a little curious.
So, I decided to attend the “surprise” birthday party, and a “surprise” it really was! The birthday party was attended only by a couple of dozen of people as opposed to at least “few hundreds”. In fact, the party was attended only by some of the very “familiar faces” whom we knew from our very early high school years along with his family. The party was held at his residence instead of a big hotel conference room with plenty of decoration inside. On top of that, it was only a 5-pound cake, with some very ordinary looking candles on top, to contend with as opposed to “struggling” to cut one of the biggest cakes in the market, a bakery shop would usually ever venture to prepare for a birthday party. So, there were indeed surprises for me at the birthday party, one after another!
So, anyway, the birthday celebration had started at midnight very casually, but it carried on for a longer period of time than expected with all of us enjoying our strawberry chocolate cakes and soft drinks, followed by a nice “home-cooked” dinner meal for each.
After leaving my friend’s place, I felt like it was one of the best birthday celebrations I had ever attended mainly because I was able to meet some of my friends from the old days. In fact, it was just so refreshing and “liberating” to be able to talk and debate with those friends at the party, just like when we were some young boys, about some “trivial” matters instead of “boasting” how much money we made last year from our bonuses, and what kind of cars we bought recently. However, the “big” moment came when my birthday friend came to me and told me finally how much he actually appreciated my idea of a “simple” birthday. So, yes, it was a birthday, I must say, that I enjoyed thoroughly from the very start to the very end, not because it was organized according to my own “taste and preference”, but because it allowed us to celebrate our “lives” just as they were with nothing to complain.