Describe a news story that you followed with interest.
A card about a story you kept checking for updates — a local campaign, a rescue, a scientific discovery, a decision in your town. A small local story is often easier to tell well than a huge international one.
The task card
Describe a news story that you followed with interest.
You should say:
- what the story was about
- where you first heard about it
- how you followed it over time
and explain why it interested you.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Choose a story that developed over time, because the third bullet asks how you followed it. Something that unfolded over days or weeks — a building saved, a lost pet found, a local team's unlikely run — gives you a natural beginning, middle and end.
Summarise what happened in a few sentences, then move on. Reporting language — 'it turned out that', 'according to the local paper', 'the latest update said' — shows range without needing complicated content.
For 'how you followed it', be honest about your sources: a news website, a neighbourhood group chat, the radio in the car, a friend who lived nearby. Comparing two sources, and saying which you trusted, is an easy way to add depth.
The final bullet needs a personal reason, not 'it was important news'. It happened on a street you know, it involved someone like you, or it changed your mind about something. Avoid stories you cannot discuss calmly and clearly in two minutes.
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The story I followed most closely in the last couple of years wasn't national news at all — it was about an old oak tree on the edge of my town that was due to be cut down to make room for a new road junction. I first heard about it in the most local way possible: a neighbour posted a photo of a notice pinned to the tree in our street's group chat, with the caption 'Did anyone know about this?' Nobody did. Within a day the local news website had picked it up, and it turned out the tree was something like three hundred years old — older than any building in town. Over the next two months I followed it almost like a series. The local paper covered every stage: a petition with about eight thousand signatures, a group of retired engineers who drew up an alternative design for the junction, and then a council meeting that was streamed online, which I actually watched for two hours on a weeknight. The group chat was faster than the paper but far less reliable — at one point someone announced the chainsaws were arriving the next morning, which was completely untrue. In the end the council accepted the new design, so the road now bends slightly around the tree, and there's a little fence and a bench beside it. Why did it interest me? Partly because it happened ten minutes from my front door — I'd walked past that tree hundreds of times without really seeing it. But mostly because it showed me that local news still matters. National stories feel enormous and unchangeable, whereas this was one where ordinary people read about a problem, turned up, and genuinely changed the outcome.
Why this works: A local story with a clear arc — discovery, campaign, decision — makes the 'how you followed it' bullet easy to fill, and the comparison of sources (a fast but unreliable group chat against a slower newspaper) adds analysis without leaving the story. Reporting language ('had picked it up', 'it turned out') appears naturally, and the final bullet contrasts local and national news, which sets up Part 3 without turning into an essay. Borrow the arc, not the story — your own local news will sound more natural than this one.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- to hit the headlines
To become major news suddenly.
- to keep up with
To follow developments regularly — 'I kept up with it through the local paper'.
- a developing story
A story that is still changing as new facts appear.
- according to
Simple, essential phrase for showing where information came from.
- the story took an unexpected turn
Natural way to introduce a development nobody predicted.
- a reliable source
A person or outlet you can trust; useful when comparing sources.
- to capture the public imagination
When a story becomes something many people care about.
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
- 1Why do people seem to pay more attention to bad news than good news?
- 2Is local news still important when people can read about the whole world?
- 3Should social media companies be responsible for false stories on their platforms?
- 4How can young people learn to tell reliable news from unreliable news?
- 5Do journalists have a duty to report stories that are not popular?
- 6Will printed newspapers survive in the future?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Media, technology and culture. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.