Cue Card # 196: Describe a place you visited where the air was polluted

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 196

Describe a place you visited where the air was polluted.

You should say:

• where it was
• when you visited there
• how polluted the air was in this place

and explain how you felt about visiting this place.

[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:

I think that air pollution is more common these days in big cities, with a huge population, all over the world. In fact, some cities in my country also are struggling with this problem, but thankfully, the situation in those places is not as bad as the city which I visited about a year ago. For this topic, I will talk about this city where the air was extremely polluted.

The name of this city is called “Cairo”, and it is the capital city of Egypt. With a population of over 20 million, Cairo also happens to be the largest metropolitan city in Egypt, and therefore I expected its air to be polluted when I visited it. Besides, when you were about to see the iconic pyramids and the great “Sphinx”, as well as the royal mummies at the vast Egyptian museum, the issue of air pollution becomes the least of your concerns, and that’s exactly what my mind was thinking before arriving at that city.

But, once I arrived there, air pollution became a serious concern for me. In fact, until I arrived in the city of Cairo, I never really saw “smog” or “smoke fog” in the air.

Initially, I thought that the “smog” was not going to cause any problem for me, but as my taxi was slowly entering deep into the city, my eyes and throat started to itch. Later, I also noticed that the air over the city was becoming more and more thick and grey in colour as my taxi was closing into the “zero or central point” of Cairo. At one point, I even thought that I was going to get sick as I felt that I wasn’t getting enough air in my lung. But, luckily, nothing serious like that really had happened to me.

So, needless to say, initially, it was a rather bad and frightening experience for me as far as the weather in Cairo was concerned. But, I felt a bit lucky about myself because I wasn’t exactly that sensitive to air pollution. Finally, I also felt lucky about the fact that the air pollution in my country isn’t as bad as that of Cairo.