Cue Card # 27: When you were asked to give your opinion in a questionnaire or survey

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 27

Describe a time when you were asked to give your opinion in a questionnaire or survey.

You should say:

• what the questionnaire/survey was about
• why you were asked to give your opinions
• what opinions you gave

and explain how you felt about giving your opinions in this questionnaire/ survey.

[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:

Traffic congestion can be a very frustrating and burning issue for any city, regardless of its size, and I lived in a city where the traffic system was almost broken. So, about five years ago, when I was asked to be part of a survey on how to reduce traffic congestion in our city, I immediately decided to oblige.

The survey was aimed mainly at young adults who were between 21 and 40 years of age as well as professionals who were experts on urban planning. I was asked to take part in the survey probably because I wrote extensively on the menace of traffic congestion in my university newspaper.

The survey didn’t exactly ask us to provide our opinions, but rather requested to rate the opinion pieces, that already existed, on a scale from one 1 to 10 with “1” being the “least favourable” opinion while “10” being the “most favourable” one. I can’t exactly remember how many opinion pieces I rated as there were dozens of them, but I can remember at least a few of them: one advocated for a more robust and better public transportation system within the city during rush hours to reduce the number of private cars in the streets; the second opinion talked about building underground railroad system to connect the main city points. The third opinion, I believe, was about building better cycling infrastructure and then encouraging city dwellers to take advantage of it instead of driving private cars during rush hours.

After finishing rating the survey opinions, I felt like I was finally able to get my points across as far as the issue of my city traffic congestion was concerned. In fact, I was really happy about the fact that the people in my city suddenly started to talk about traffic problems more loudly after the survey was conducted. Not sure if the city mayor along with the city traffic authority would take the findings of the survey into their cognizance in order to make our city faster and less hectic, the survey nevertheless was a step forward in the right direction and I felt great for being a part of it.