Cue Card # 192: When you went on a summer vacation

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 192

Describe a time when you went on a summer vacation from your school.

You should say:

• when it was
• where you went
• what you did

and explain how much you enjoyed it.

[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:

Thank you for choosing this interesting cue card topic for me. I did go on a few summer vacations from my school. But, the last time, I went, was about 12 years ago when I was a student in 8th grade. Our school had planned that summer vacation trip in mid-August, and the plan was to spend a week camping near one of the most famous and beautiful lakes in my country, which was about 250 kilometres away from my town.

Of course, I already knew a little about that lake in advance, but what I didn’t know was that – it also was one of the most visited lakes in my country. In fact, when our bus arrived at that lake and camping site, it was already crowded with quite a few camps and other visitors.

Anyway, after arriving there, our camping supervisors immediately helped us set up our camps. And as soon as we were done setting up our camps, we all ran and jumped into the lake! We swam there for almost one hour, non-stop, as if we never had seen a lake before! The next day, we also tried to catch some fish with our fishing rods, but very few of us actually succeeded in doing that. Later on, we also walked along the lake shore to explore the beautiful trees and landscape, but to our pleasant surprise, we also got to see some very happy squirrels, playing with each other. We even made friends with the children from other schools too!

We did a lot of other things, but whatever we did there, we enjoyed each and every bit of it. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we felt like one week had passed, and we didn’t even realize it a bit! So, we asked our supervisors to extend our summer vacation trip, but, of course, our request was denied. So, in the end, we all had to leave, but what really mattered was that the trip infused some much-needed energy and motivation in us to look ahead to another challenging year at school.