Describe a Competition You Took Part In
A Band 8 sample answer for the IELTS Part 2 competition cue card, including how to handle a story where you lost, and the Part 3 questions on winning and pressure.
Cue Card
Describe a competition you took part in.
You should say:
- what the competition was
- when and where it took place
- what you had to do
And explain how you felt about taking part.
There is no requirement to win. Candidates assume the card wants a triumph, so they either invent one or pick a genuine win and end up narrating a scoreboard for two minutes.
Losing is usually the better story, because losing has a shape and a feeling attached to it. The answer below is about coming last, and it gets there in the first sentence.
Model Answer
Band 8I took part in a regional chess tournament when I was about fifteen and I finished last out of thirty-two, which I can now say without wincing.
It was held in a school gymnasium in the town next to ours, over a weekend in October. My school had a chess club with about six members and the teacher who ran it entered all of us, I think mainly to fill the places. The format was five rounds, each game up to ninety minutes, and you played whoever the pairing system gave you.
What I hadn't understood is that everyone else there had been playing since they were about six and had coaches. My first opponent was a girl who looked about eleven and she beat me in nineteen moves without appearing to think about any of them. She then apologised, which was somehow the worst part. I lost the next four as well, though the fourth one went on for over an hour and I got close.
How I felt about it has changed completely over time, which is the interesting bit. At the time I was humiliated and I stopped playing for about two years. Looking back, that weekend taught me more than winning would have, because it was the first time I'd been comprehensively outclassed at something I thought I was decent at. I'd been the best in a room of six and mistaken that for being good. Every time I've walked into a new job since, I've had that gymnasium somewhere in my head, which I'd say has been useful more often than not.
Why This Answer Works
- It opens with the loss. Announcing the result in the first line frees the whole answer from building to a reveal and signals confidence.
- The nineteen moves and the apology are precise details that carry the emotion without the speaker naming it. Showing beats stating.
- It uses the "then versus now" structure that Part 2 rewards. The feeling at the time and the feeling since are clearly separated with the right tenses.
- The final image, that gymnasium turning up in later situations, ties a teenage story to adult life in one sentence. That is the kind of ending that makes an examiner remember the answer.
Key Phrases to Steal
“which I can now say without wincing”
A wry aside that signals emotional distance from the event.
“what I hadn't understood is that”
Cleft plus past perfect. Sets up a realisation naturally.
“comprehensively outclassed”
Precise, slightly formal pairing that fits a competitive context.
“mistaken that for being good”
Compact way to express a false conclusion. Shows control of gerunds.
“more often than not”
Idiomatic frequency phrase. Useful for hedging a claim without weakening it.
Part 3 Follow-Up Questions
Is competition good for children?
In moderation and with adults paying attention, yes. Competition gives children a reason to practise something past the point where it stops being fun, and that persistence transfers to other areas. The damage happens when the child concludes that losing means they lack talent rather than preparation, and that conclusion usually comes from how the adults react rather than from the loss itself. So the activity isn't really the variable. The coaching around it is.
Why do some people perform badly under pressure?
Attention seems to be the mechanism. Skills you've practised heavily run automatically, and pressure makes you monitor them consciously, which interferes with the automatic process. Musicians describe this constantly, that thinking about their fingers is what makes them stumble. Some of it is also anticipating the aftermath rather than doing the task, so part of your mind is already in the conversation you'll have afterwards.
Should everyone in a competition receive a prize?
I don't think so, though I understand the impulse. If everyone is rewarded regardless of outcome, the reward stops carrying information and children work out fairly quickly that it's meaningless. What does make sense is recognising things other than the result, effort, improvement, or how someone behaved when they lost, because those are within a participant's control in a way that beating a naturally stronger opponent is not.
Now Try It Out Loud
Reading a model answer is one thing — saying it under pressure is another. Practise this exact cue card with our AI examiner and get instant band-score feedback.