Describe a Close Friend of Yours
A Band 8 model answer for the IELTS Part 2 cue card about a close friend, showing how to describe a person through incidents rather than adjectives.
Cue Card
Describe a close friend of yours.
You should say:
- who this person is
- how long you have known them
- what you do together
And explain why this friendship is important to you.
The weakness in most answers to this card is adjectives. She's kind, she's funny, she's very supportive. Adjectives are cheap, the examiner has heard all of them today, and a string of them uses about twenty seconds.
One incident tells the examiner more about a person than ten adjectives. The answer below describes a friend almost entirely through two small events.
Model Answer
Band 8I'll talk about my friend Dilnaz, who I've known since university, so that's coming up to nine years now. We met because we were assigned to the same lab group and neither of us wanted to be there.
She works as a pharmacist and she's the most stubborn person I know, which I mean as a compliment about eighty percent of the time. What we mostly do together is walk. We started during a period when neither of us could afford to go out, and it turned into a habit, so now we walk a long loop through the park most Sunday mornings and talk for two hours. We've done that for about six years.
There are two things I'd point to. The first is that when I lost my job, she didn't offer sympathy or advice. She turned up with a spreadsheet she'd made of every contact she had in my field, which was faintly ridiculous but also the most useful thing anyone did. The second is that she once told me, quite bluntly, that I was being unfair to my brother in an argument. I was annoyed for about three days and then I called him.
That second one is why the friendship matters, if I'm honest. Plenty of people will agree with you, and agreement is comfortable but not much use. Having somebody who has known you for nine years and will still tell you when you're wrong is rare, and it only works because there's no chance she's saying it to score a point. I'd like to think I do the same for her, though she'd probably say I go easy on her.
Why This Answer Works
- The two incidents do the characterisation. A spreadsheet instead of sympathy, and a blunt correction, define this person more sharply than any list of qualities.
- The percentage joke about stubbornness is exactly the kind of aside real speech contains and memorised answers do not.
- It answers the "why important" bullet with a specific claim rather than a warm generality, and then qualifies it. The last sentence undercuts the speaker slightly, which sounds honest.
- The time references are handled well throughout. Nine years, six years, three days, coming up to. Accurate and varied time language is a quiet marker of a strong candidate.
Key Phrases to Steal
“coming up to nine years”
Natural way to say almost, used with periods of time.
“which I mean as a compliment about eighty percent of the time”
A hedge and a joke in one clause. Very hard to fake.
“it turned into a habit”
Simple phrasal verb describing gradual change. Better than "it became habitual".
“faintly ridiculous”
Adverb softening an adjective. Precise and characteristically British.
“I go easy on her”
Idiomatic phrase for being less critical than you should be.
Part 3 Follow-Up Questions
Is it harder to make friends as an adult?
Considerably, and I think the reason is structural rather than social. Friendship seems to need repeated unplanned contact over time, which school and university supply automatically and adult life does not. As an adult you have to schedule it, and scheduling makes it feel like an obligation. People who move cities in their thirties usually describe exactly this problem, that they meet plenty of pleasant people and none of it turns into anything.
Can online friendships be as strong as face to face ones?
They can be, though I'd have said no about ten years ago. The evidence I'd point to is people who met in online communities around a shared interest and have supported each other through serious events for years. What online friendship lacks is the incidental, sitting in silence, noticing someone looks tired. So it can carry a lot of weight in a crisis and less of the ordinary maintenance, which is arguably the harder part.
Should friends tell each other uncomfortable truths?
Yes, but the timing and the standing matter enormously. Someone who has earned the right through years of showing up can say something difficult and be heard. The same sentence from a recent acquaintance is just criticism. I'd also say there's a difference between a truth the person can act on and one they can't, and the second kind is usually cruelty dressed up as honesty.
Now Try It Out Loud
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