Cue cards without panic: a 60-second plan for IELTS Speaking Part 2
Sixty seconds is enough — if you spend forty of them on structure and only twenty on content. Here is the drill our speaking mentors run every week.
Speaking Part 2 anxiety comes from candidates trying to remember a story. Better candidates build one on the spot with the same three rails, every time.
The 40/20 split
Spend the first 40 seconds sketching structure: who, where, when, why it mattered. Spend the last 20 collecting vivid nouns and one specific number.
The rails
- Anchor — one named person, place, or object.
- Turn — the moment the story shifts.
- Reflection — what it taught you, said naturally.
Delivery
Speak at 130 words per minute. Faster than that and clarity drops; slower and fluency scores drop. Practice with a metronome for one week — it changes the ceiling.
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