IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card

Describe a time when you had to wait in a traffic jam

: You should say

when and where it happened
how long you were in the traffic jam
what you did while waiting
and explain how you felt when you were in that traffic jam

: Sample Answer

Well, traffic jam in our city is not unusual and the regular commuters often suffer from horrible congestion on roads. A recent study shows that around 20 hours of time is wasted for an average commuter each month in our city and that statistics depicts how heinous the traffic jam in our city is. While thinking about a time when I had to wait in a traffic jam, I could remember many such events and for this cue card topic, I will talk about a particular event when the traffic jam was so pathetic that I literally went mad

It was about a year ago when I went to our national airport to see off a relative who would leave for the United Kingdom. On our way to the airport, the traffic was usual and we reached there in a taxi that took around 45 minutes. After I saw off this relative, I went to the nearby bus station to pick a public bus to return home. I got a bus within 15 minutes and in next 10 minutes the road traffic was good. All of a sudden the bus stopped at a traffic signal and it did not move for the next 20 minutes. People on the bus got anxious and they started talking about what happened. I got off from the bus to investigate what actually happened. I tried to talk to a traffic police but he was so busy that I could not even grab his attention. I got back to the bus and heard more bad news. Some passengers were talking about an accident and how that had created the deadlock on the route

I bought a newspaper and waited next 30 minutes very patiently and was expecting that things would get back to its normal condition soon. However, it did not and I heard that many students have blocked the road as one of their classmates died because of the accident. Police and those students had a hot debate and they were adamant to leave the road until the bus driver who caused the accident was arrested and punished. It was a situation that would not be resolved soon and that’s why many bus passengers left the bus to get back to their home. I had to reach home and I heard that the alternative road was also blocked. I was quite furious at that time but had nothing to do. My cell phone battery was beeping to indicate that it will be turned off anytime and the distance was more than 2 miles to reach home. I decided to walk and then again waited for few more minutes. Thus two hours passed and at that time I left the bus to walk

The walking experience was not that good. There were people everywhere and I felt stupid not to leave the bus earlier. I saw so many police officers and traffic police who were trying to handle the situation but I noticed things were getting even worse. Luckily I had no bag or anything to carry with me. Thus I walked for another 2 hours and finally I reached home quite exhausted and in awful condition