Places
Place cards look easy and are quietly the hardest to fill for two minutes, because pure description exhausts itself fast. The candidates who do well turn the place into a habit or an episode: what they do there, when they go, what happened there once. Description gives you the vocabulary marks; the habit or episode gives you the fluency.
What the examiner is listening for
Descriptive precision — can you name what you see rather than calling everything nice — and whether you can move from describing to explaining without a visible gear change.
How to spend the preparation minute
You get exactly sixty seconds with a pencil and a sheet of paper. This is how to divide them on a card of this shape.
- 0:00–0:15
Fix the place
Choose one specific place and write its name and where it sits: 'the reservoir path, twenty minutes north of the flat'. Specificity kills hesitation.
- 0:15–0:30
Three senses
Note one thing you see, one you hear, and one you smell there. Sensory notes are the cheapest way to sound descriptive under pressure.
- 0:30–0:45
Your habit there
Write when and how often you go, and what you do. A routine gives you present simple, frequency adverbs, and a natural second minute.
- 0:45–1:00
Why it matters
Note the feeling and its cause — not 'peaceful' but 'the only place my phone has no signal'. Causes are speakable; adjectives are not.
Language that transfers across every card here
- it is tucked away behind…
Precise phrase for somewhere hidden or hard to find.
- a stone's throw from
Idiom for very close by; use once, not twice.
- it gets packed at the weekend
Informal, natural way to describe crowding.
- off the beaten track
Somewhere tourists have not found.
- there is a real buzz about the place
Atmosphere collocation that beats 'lively'.
- it has a lot of character
Used for older buildings and streets with a distinctive feel.
- within walking distance of
Standard collocation examiners hear as accurate rather than showy.
Grammar this family pulls out of you
Grammatical range is a quarter of your Speaking band. These structures arise naturally on these cards, so you do not have to force them in.
- There is / there are with quantifiers
- “There are only a handful of tables, and half of them are outside.”
- Prepositions of place in sequence
- “It sits at the end of a lane, opposite a garage, just past the level crossing.”
- Present simple for routine plus adverbs of frequency
- “I tend to go early on a Sunday, before anyone else is up.”
What costs people marks on these cards
- Describing a whole city instead of one place. The card almost always wants a single location you can stand in.
- Running out at ninety seconds because the answer was pure description. Plan the habit or the episode before you start speaking.
- Overusing 'beautiful' and 'nice'. Each one costs you a chance to use a real descriptive word.
Cue cards in this family
16 cards- PlacesDescribe a small change in your neighbourhood that made daily life easier.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe an improvement to local transport that you found useful.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a small business that provides especially good service.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a quiet place you like to go to when you need a break.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a place you visited that you would like to visit again.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a natural place you like to spend time in.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a city abroad that you know mainly through someone who lives there.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a building in your town or city that has been given a new use.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a little-known historic place that you think deserves more visitors.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a crowded place where you unexpectedly enjoyed yourself.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a place where you used to study that you remember well.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a long journey where the travelling itself was the best part.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a holiday when you stayed somewhere unusual.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a park or garden in your city that you think is well designed.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a shopping area where you like to spend time.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
- PlacesDescribe a waterside place in a town or city that changes a lot during the day.Ideas, model answer & Part 3
Where Part 3 usually goes after these cards
The examiner follows your long turn with a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, worked from two related discussion topics. On this family the discussion tends to travel in these directions.
- Who should decide how public space is used
- Whether cities are becoming more or less liveable
- The tension between tourism and the people who live somewhere
- How working from home is changing what neighbourhoods need
- Whether access to green space should be treated as a right
The timing you are rehearsing against
- 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.