Describe a Piece of Good Advice You Received
A Band 8 model answer for the IELTS Part 2 advice cue card, with reported speech handled naturally and Part 3 questions on giving and taking advice.
Cue Card
Describe a piece of good advice you received.
You should say:
- what the advice was
- who gave it to you
- when you received it
And explain how it helped you.
Abstract cards like this one push candidates into general statements, and general statements are where fluency goes to die. If your answer could apply to anybody, it will not fill two minutes.
Anchor the advice to the moment it was given. The answer below quotes one short sentence and then spends the rest explaining why that sentence mattered on that particular day.
Model Answer
Band 8The advice I still use came from a manager I had in my first proper job, and it was slightly rude when she said it.
This was about six years ago. I'd been there maybe four months and I was drowning, mostly because I said yes to everything anyone asked me. I was staying late almost every night and producing worse work than the people who left at six, which I found genuinely confusing at the time.
She called me in, which I assumed was going to be a warning, and instead she asked me what I'd said no to that week. I couldn't think of anything. And she said, more or less, that if I never said no then my yes didn't mean anything, so nobody could plan around me. Then she told me to pick one thing that week and refuse it, and to come back and tell her how it went.
It took me about a fortnight to actually do it, and the thing I refused was trivial, some formatting job that wasn't mine. Nobody minded at all, which was the point. What it changed wasn't my workload immediately, it was that I stopped treating every request as a test of whether I was a good employee. I still think about it whenever I'm about to agree to something automatically. I'd say it's the single most useful thing anyone has told me about work, and she delivered it in about fifteen seconds without appearing to think it was a big deal.
Why This Answer Works
- The advice is quoted in reported speech rather than dropped in as a slogan. "If I never said no then my yes didn't mean anything" arrives inside the scene, which stops it sounding like a poster.
- It includes a delay. Taking a fortnight to act, and then acting on something trivial, is realistic and stops the story being too neat.
- The confusion is stated honestly. Admitting to working late and producing worse work is unflattering, and unflattering detail is one of the strongest signals of a real memory.
- It distinguishes the immediate effect from the lasting one. The workload did not change, the reflex did. That precision is what lifts the answer above a general statement about learning to say no.
Key Phrases to Steal
“I was drowning”
Single-word metaphor for being overwhelmed. Vivid without being elaborate.
“she said, more or less, that”
Hedged reported speech. Signals you are paraphrasing, which sounds honest.
“it took me about a fortnight to actually do it”
The word actually here marks the gap between deciding and acting.
“as a test of whether I was a good employee”
Noun clause after a preposition. Complex structure delivered without strain.
“without appearing to think it was a big deal”
Understatement that characterises the manager in one clause.
Part 3 Follow-Up Questions
Do young people usually take advice from older people?
Selectively, and I think that's reasonable. Advice tends to be accepted when it comes from someone whose situation the younger person recognises, and rejected when it starts with how things were done thirty years ago. There's a fair point underneath the resistance, because some advice genuinely doesn't transfer across changed job markets and technology. What does seem to travel well is advice about people, since colleagues and families haven't changed nearly as much as careers have.
Is it better to get advice from friends or professionals?
They're useful for different problems. A friend knows your history and can tell you when you're repeating a mistake, which no professional will spot in an hour. A professional has seen hundreds of similar cases and isn't invested in keeping you comfortable, so they'll say the thing your friend is avoiding. For anything with real consequences, medical or legal or financial, I'd take the professional and use the friend to help me decide whether to act on it.
Why do people sometimes ignore good advice?
Often because they weren't looking for advice in the first place. A lot of what sounds like asking is really asking for permission, and when the answer comes back as no, the person keeps looking until somebody agrees with them. There's also the cost problem, in that good advice usually requires giving something up, and the person can accept the reasoning completely while being unwilling to pay for it. Understanding and acting are quite separate things.
Now Try It Out Loud
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