Describe a Book You Have Read Recently

Written by David S. Wills · January 6, 2018

Today we’re going to look at a question from IELTS speaking part two, also known as the “long answer” question. In this part of the exam, as you probably know, you are expected to speak for about two minutes on a given topic. The topic will be presented to you on a “cue card” and you will then have a minute to make notes before you speak. Today, the topic is books and we will explore how to describe a book you have read recently.

There are lots of different ways that this question could be phrased, and so, as always, you can’t just memorise an answer. In fact, in IELTS it’s always a bad idea to memorize answers. You have questions like “describe your favourite book” or “describe a book that you read in your childhood,” but today I’m going to give you a more general question.

In this lesson, we will learn several things:

1. How to read the cue card
2. Note-making skills
3. Some useful vocabulary
4. How to answer this cue card fully

The Cue Card: Describe a book you have read recently

As I said, there are many IELTS cue cards about books. You could be asked about your favorite book or a book you really love, but in this case we will just look at a book you have read recently:

Describe a book you have read recently.

You should say:

• what kind of book it is
• who wrote the book
• what the story of the book is

and explain if it is a good book or not.

Once you have read the cue card, you must think about it quickly. Analyse the topic and ask yourself what exactly you should talk about. In this case, you may ask:

• Can I talk about any book? – no, only one you’ve read recently
• Could it be a book that I dislike? – yes, that is possible
• Must it be a book that I enjoyed? – no, the final part of the question makes it clear that you don’t have to have liked it
• Should I talk about the plot? – yes, that is fulfilling the third bullet point

You should quickly choose a book, think about how to explain it, and then try to talk about the ideas on the cue card.

Making Notes

So the first thing you should do is make a few notes on the topic. Of course, as we’ve discussed before, you really shouldn’t write too much. Remember – you just have one minute! Don’t write down sentences or else you’ll only have enough to speak for ten or twenty seconds. Instead, write the ideas you want to discuss or the vocabulary you may need.

In this case, of course we first have to think about the book itself. What was its name, and who was the author? It doesn’t have to be an English book, but you do need to be able to give the English title and – if it was written by an English-speaking author, you also must be able to say their name. Here in China, many famous foreigners have Chinese names, or at least their names are adapted to make it easier for Chinese speakers to pronounce, and so they