Let us analyze the IELTS speaking performance of a student who gave the following task response in the cue card section and check why he was given Band 6.

IELTS Speaking Cue Card:

Describe an idea you had to improve something at work/college.

What idea it was.

When and where you had this idea.

Whom you told about this idea?

What improvement it made at work/college.

Task Response:

Ideas are very important because it is a true saying that an idea can change your life or any situation. Whatever you are enjoying in the modern times like a laptop, mobile phone, it’s all about an idea. After completing my post-graduation last year, I joined a rehabilitation center for civilian persons. Here, I was just in charge of that center, and the number of patients was very less. So, the responsibility to increase the number of persons was given to me. So, I thought a lot about how to improve the number of persons, and the quality of services was also not very good, and I had to think about that also. After thinking a lot, I finally got an idea that I would do it in a different way. I thought that I would use social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, and also advanced media and electronic media. Then I discussed it with my colleagues and the center, and they agreed with my idea. We planned on a weekly basis so that more and more patients can come to our center. I thought this idea improved the number of patients in my center because after the awareness of our center’s services, the number got increased.

Remarks:

The introduction is quite long and can be made more concise and focused on the prompt. For example, “I would like to describe an idea that changed the way we worked in the office.”

“Laptop, mobile phone” should be “laptop or mobile phone.”

“It’s all about an idea” can be rephrased as “it’s all about the idea with which these devices were developed.”

“I was just the in-charge” should be “I was in charge.”

Subject-verb agreement: “number of patients were” should be “number of patients was.”

Word order: “So, it was given to me the responsibility” can be “So, the responsibility was given to me.”

Tense: “So, I think a lot” should be “So, I thought a lot,” “I will use” should be “I would use.”

“I have to think about that also” should be “so I had to think about that also,” “they become agree” should be “they agreed.”

Excessive use of “so” can be avoided.

Self-correction: “I finally…..I got an idea” can be “I finally got an idea.”

Preposition: “on a different way” should be “in a different way.”

Word missing: “use the social media” should be “use the social media channels.”

Overuse of “also” in a sentence can be avoided (“also the advanced media and electronic media also”).

Word missing: “I thought this idea improved” should be “I thought this idea has improved.”

Expected Band Score: 6.0

The candidate has spoken well for a long duration with sufficient usage of vocabulary, and his ideas are clear to understand, but there are some errors of grammar, tense, preposition, etc., that restrict the score to Band 6.