Describe a Time You Helped Someone
A Band 8 model answer for the IELTS Part 2 cue card 'Describe a time you helped someone', with a breakdown of the storytelling technique and Part 3 questions about helping and community.
Cue Card
Describe a time when you helped someone.
You should say:
- who you helped
- how you helped them
- why they needed help
And explain how you felt about helping this person.
There's a temptation on this cue card to pick something heroic — rescuing someone, donating to charity, a grand gesture. But examiners hear a lot of those, and they often sound exaggerated. A small, true story about a quiet act of help is usually more convincing and far easier to tell with genuine feeling.
The model answer below sits around Band 8. It's about a small thing — helping a stranger — and that modesty is exactly what makes it land.
Model Answer
Band 8I'll tell you about a fairly small thing that happened a few months ago, because although it wasn't dramatic, it stuck with me. I helped an elderly man I'd never met before who was struggling at a train station.
I was rushing to catch a train, as usual, and I noticed this older gentleman standing in front of the ticket machine looking completely lost. He clearly couldn't work out how to use the touchscreen, and people were just streaming past him — you could see he was getting flustered and a bit embarrassed. So I stopped and offered to help.
It turned out he needed to get to a hospital appointment across the city and he'd never used one of these new machines before; he was used to buying tickets from a person at a counter, and they'd recently closed the ticket office at his local station. So I walked him through it, bought his ticket for him, and then, because I had a few minutes, I took him to the right platform and made sure he knew which train to get on. The whole thing probably took ten minutes.
What struck me was how grateful he was for something so tiny. He kept thanking me, and he said something I haven't forgotten — that as you get older, the world quietly stops being designed for you. And honestly, that's why it affected me so much. I felt good about helping, obviously, but more than that it made me realise how often we walk straight past people who need a small bit of assistance simply because we're in a hurry. Since then I've genuinely tried to slow down and notice, and I think that ten minutes taught me more than any big charitable gesture ever has.
Why This Answer Works
- It chooses small over heroic. A ten-minute act of kindness is believable and easy to describe with real emotion, whereas a dramatic rescue often sounds invented.
- It includes a line of reported speech — the man's remark about the world no longer being designed for him — which adds depth and a genuine emotional turn. A single well-placed quote can transform an answer.
- It covers the bullet points through the story, not as a checklist: who (an elderly stranger), how (walked him through the machine, took him to the platform), why (closed ticket office, unfamiliar technology).
- The reflection is honest and specific. Rather than a clichéd 'it feels good to help', the speaker draws out a real, slightly uncomfortable observation about how we ignore people when we're busy. That specificity is what earns the higher band.
Key Phrases to Steal
“people were just streaming past him”
Vivid imagery that sets the scene economically.
“getting flustered”
A precise, natural word for mild panic — good lexical resource.
“I walked him through it”
An idiomatic phrasal verb meaning to guide step by step.
“the world quietly stops being designed for you”
A striking line of reported speech that gives the answer emotional weight.
“it taught me more than any big gesture ever has”
A reflective comparison that elevates a small story.
Part 3 Follow-Up Questions
Why do some people help strangers while others don't?
I think a big part of it is simply attention — a lot of people genuinely don't notice others struggling because they're absorbed in their own day, rather than being deliberately uncaring. Beyond that, there's a well-documented psychological effect where the more people are present, the less responsible each individual feels, because everyone assumes someone else will step in. So I'd say most people are willing to help; the barrier is usually noticing and feeling that it's specifically their job to act.
Is it the government's responsibility or individuals' to help people in need?
Realistically it has to be both, working at different scales. Governments are essential for the systemic stuff — healthcare, social security, things no individual could provide — and it's dangerous to assume private charity can fill those gaps, because it's far too unreliable. But there's a whole layer of everyday, human help that no policy can deliver: noticing a lost stranger, checking on a neighbour. So I'd say the state handles the structure and individuals handle the texture of daily life, and you genuinely need both.
Do you think people are less willing to help others than in the past?
I'm a little sceptical of that idea, to be honest — every generation seems to believe the previous one was kinder, and the evidence for an actual decline is thin. What has changed is the pace of life and how anonymous cities have become; it's harder to help people you don't know and never see again. So I wouldn't say people are less kind at heart, just that modern life provides fewer natural opportunities for that kindness to show up.
Now Try It Out Loud
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