IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card 718 with Model Answer

Describe a TV documentary you watched that was particularly interesting

: You should say

 what the documentary was about
why you decided to watch it
what you learnt during the documentary

and explain why the TV documentary was particularly interesting

: Model Answer

Owing to my occupational engagement, I am unable to manage much time to enjoy television documentaries but in last December of 2015, I had watched a documentary on becoming an astronaut

The documentary was about becoming an astronaut and titled – “Tim Peake Special: How to Be an Astronaut”. The video documentary was filmed for about two years. This is about the event of a British man who tries to be an astronaut. Moreover, he was the first among the British people who was becoming an astronaut. The documentary was aired on Horizon on BBC. Tim Peake had to take some major risks and pressures to be the astronaut. He had also undergone different extensive training before the final flight. The most important part of his training was to adjust with the environment of the outer space and he repeatedly tried to perform the adjustments. Besides, he also experienced the issue of weightlessness and participated in mockups over the issue during the training period

There were some specific reasons for watching the documentary and I selected this one carefully. Since my childhood, I had some dreams to be an astronaut but could not materialise the dreams for different reasons. Whenever I got chances, I tried to gather some knowledge about the space. Space attracts me strangely. I am stuck in the space and in the moonlit night, I look at the stars through a telescope. So, when I came to learn about the documentary from a friend of mine, I decided to watch it. I knew that normally the documentaries are made with real events and footages. I was right about this one and saw many exclusive footages of the training. I was curious about the walking and weightlessness issue on the space. Eating, sleeping and performing other daily tasks etc. were different from the earth. Thereby, all such issues made me inquisitive to explore the documentary

I had learnt a good number of issues from the documentary. Before watching the documentary, I did not have any idea how life in space was about. My idea was only bookish and I tried to imagine the situations and failed each of the times. When I watched the documentary, I came to know about how life really is in space. I also had no idea about the training and exercises which should be done to live in the space. Moreover, I came to know about the eating habits of the astronauts, how they slept in the weightlessness, drank water and did the other necessary activities. It was a very good lesson for me

As I told earlier that I was highly interested in space, I did not have the chance to meet my dream. During the admission in my college, I was told to take the Arts faculty as the authority believed that I could do better in the subjects of arts instead of science. So, I missed the chance to get prepared to be an astronaut from the early age. But whenever I got any chance to know about the space, I did not miss the chance. I read all the available articles and essays, watch movies and recently have started watching documentaries. Movies are in fact not that much reliable as everything here is made for enjoyment and many of the information is falsified to attract audiences. But the documentaries are different. They contain the real life events and those are enjoyable. The documentary on Horizon was about the British man Tim Peake. He was the first British ever to travel in the outer space. Before starting the trip on space, he undertook different training, exercises and experiments. The most important thing about the documentary is that it took about two years to make it by adding all the available video clips. I learnt a lot from the documentary and many of my former ideas have been sharpened. Thereby, the documentary was particularly interesting and enjoyable to me