Cue Card # 57: Something you purchased but did not use much

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 57

Describe something you purchased but did not use much.

You should say:

• what it was
• where you bought it from
• why you bought it

and explain why you didn’t use it much.

[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:

After reading this topic, I asked myself first if indeed we buy anything that we don’t tend to use much. Surprisingly, the answer to this question is a big “yes”, depending on, of course, how we choose to define “much” in this context. But, as for me, I think that I can easily pick something, which I don’t use much, to talk about here.

It is an “alarm clock”- a beautiful looking, rectangular size, light yellow colour clock with a rather distinguished-looking, champagne colour border around it – which I bought from a “souvenir” shop in a port city of my country. The clock, about 16 square inches, is powered by battery, and it has a nice and big snooze button on the top. I purchased this alarm clock about 10 years ago when I was still a university student, but I feel like it was only yesterday.

This clock indeed keeps reminding me how fast time is really passing, literally speaking. Anyway, I really like this alarm clock, not because of its remarkable (!) capacity to drag me down against my will sometimes from the comfort of my bed in the early morning, but because it decorates my “bedside table” rather nicely. By the way, even though, I initially bought it for the purpose of using it like a regular “alarm clock”, but as time progressed, I started to treat it more like a “souvenir” item because it is made of some expensive and “uncommon” plastic and wooden materials.

Anyway, I don’t really use the alarm clock that much to do what it is exactly built to do (which is to wake us up, by the way), the answer is, I don’t really like its “annoying” sound anymore. Besides, I don’t really see a reason to use it as an ‘alarm clock’ when I have my smartphone to wake me up with its beautiful and soothing music. Finally, I don’t really use it much because I forget to buy its battery most of the time to keep it running.