IELTS Speaking Part 2: Practise Any Cue Card with a Real Exam Timer (Free Simulator)

Ali Gharji

Oct 12

8 min read

“You have one minute to prepare.” The examiner hands you a task card, a pencil and a sheet of paper, and starts the timer.

For many candidates, the next three minutes decide their Speaking score. Some spend the minute writing full sentences and then read them out. Others cover every point on the card in 50 seconds and stop, while the examiner waits.

Both problems are easy to fix with practice, as long as the practice feels like the real thing. So I built the Cue Card Simulator. It gives you a task card, a one minute planning timer, the two minute long turn, the examiner’s follow up question and a check based on the official marking criteria. It is free, there is nothing to sign up for and it works on your phone.

Quick answers

How long is IELTS Speaking Part 2? About three to four minutes, including preparation. You get one minute to plan, with a pencil and paper from the examiner, and then you speak for up to two minutes. The examiner stops you when the time is up and may ask one or two short questions on the same topic.

How long should I speak in Part 2? Keep going until the examiner stops you at two minutes. The task is designed so that your notes help you talk for the full time, and a longer turn gives the examiner more evidence of your fluency, vocabulary and grammar.

What should I write in the preparation minute? Keywords, not sentences. Write two or three words for each point on the card, plus one detail or short story you want to tell. Sentences take most of your minute to write, and they are hard to say naturally.

Can I make up my answer? Yes. The examiner marks your English, not your life story. If no real example comes to mind quickly, a believable invented one is far better than a long silence.

Does my accent affect my Speaking score? Not on its own. The Pronunciation criterion is about how easily you can be understood. At the higher bands, the descriptors say your accent has little or no effect on how clear you are. Word stress, rhythm and intonation matter much more than sounding British or American.

Is the Speaking test still face to face now that IELTS is on computer? Yes. From mid 2026 IELTS is delivered on computer, but Speaking is still a face to face conversation with a certified examiner, and it is recorded. Here is what changes now IELTS is computer based.

The Cue Card Simulator: free IELTS Speaking Part 2 practice

A card is ready below. Press Start 1 minute preparation and treat it like the real test: no pausing, no restarting.

The simulator follows the five stages of the real Part 2:

Draw a card. Pick a topic type or take a random card. There are 16 practice cards covering people, places, things, experiences, and media and ideas.

Prepare for one minute. Make notes in four boxes, one for each point on the card. The timer starts straight away, as it does in the exam.

Speak for two minutes. Keep talking until you hear “Thank you”. If your browser allows it, you can record yourself and listen back afterwards. The recording stays on your device and is never uploaded.

Answer the follow up question. In the real test, the examiner may ask one or two short questions after your talk. Give a two or three sentence answer.

Check your talk. Tick what you heard. The simulator shows which criterion to work on next and gives you a short drill for your second attempt.

How Part 2 is marked

The examiner gives you a band for each of four criteria, and they count equally. Your Speaking band reflects your performance across all three parts of the test, so Part 2 matters, but it is not the whole picture. Here is what each criterion means for a long turn, in my words, based on the public Speaking band descriptors.

Fluency and coherence. Can you keep going without long searches for words, and is your talk easy to follow? At Band 7, the descriptors describe a speaker who is

“Able to keep going and readily produce long turns without noticeable effort.”

At Band 5, a speaker usually keeps going but relies on repetition, self correction or slow speech to do it. Spoken signposts such as What I remember most is or The reason I mention this is help the listener follow you.

Lexical resource. Do you have the words for this topic, and can you find another way to say something when a word is missing? Higher bands show some less common vocabulary and natural word combinations. Paraphrase counts too: describing a word you cannot remember is a skill the descriptors reward.

Grammatical range and accuracy. Do you use a mix of simple and complex sentences, and how often do you make errors? Many Part 2 cards ask you to tell a story, so narrative tenses (past simple, past continuous and past perfect) do a lot of the work. At Band 7, error free sentences are frequent.

Pronunciation. How easy are you to understand? Examiners listen for clear sounds, sensible chunking into groups of words, stress on the important words and natural intonation. Speaking fast because you are nervous makes all of these harder to hear.

The one minute plan: four boxes, not sentences

Every Part 2 card has the same shape: a topic, three points under You should say, and a final point that begins and explain. Use that shape for your notes.

Divide your paper into four boxes, one for each point, and write two or three keywords in each. Then choose one box for a short story or a specific moment. One real moment is easier to talk about for 30 seconds than a list of general facts.

Here is a one minute plan for Describe a quiet place you like to go to:

Where it is: canal, Brentford, 10 min walk How often: Sunday mornings, phone in bag What I do there: walk slowly, narrowboats, the lock, plan my week Why I like it (story): first walk after final exams, city noise faded, calm

Spend about 20 seconds on each of the first three points and save the last minute for explain. That final point is where you show the most language: reasons, feelings, comparisons and a look back or forward.

Before and after: the same answer at two levels

Both answers respond to the card above. The first stops after about 40 seconds. The second keeps going to two minutes; only its opening is shown here.

Before: I want to talk about a quiet place. It is a canal near my house. I go there on Sunday. I go there because it is very quiet and very nice. I walk there and I see boats. It is very relaxing. I like it because it is quiet. So that is my quiet place. After: The place I’d like to describe is a stretch of the Grand Union Canal, about ten minutes’ walk from my flat. I usually go on Sunday mornings, before the cyclists and families arrive, and I leave my phone in my bag. What I do there is fairly simple: I walk slowly, watch the narrowboats squeeze through the lock and plan the week ahead. The reason it matters to me goes back to my final exams. After the last paper I was exhausted, and a friend suggested a walk along the towpath. I remember noticing how the noise of the city had just faded…

Here is what changed.

The opening paraphrases the card. The place I’d like to describe is sounds natural; I want to talk about a quiet place repeats the task.

Precise words replace general ones. Stretch, lock, towpath and narrowboats do the work that very nice and boats cannot.

Spoken signposts organise the talk. What I do there is and The reason it matters to me goes back to tell the examiner where you are going.

A short story fills the explain point. It brings in narrative grammar naturally: I was exhausted, a friend suggested, the noise had faded.

Less repetition. The first answer uses quiet four times and very three times.

Five habits that cost marks in Part 2

Reading your notes aloud. If your notes are sentences, you will read them, your eyes go down and your voice goes flat. Keywords make you speak.

Stopping at the last bullet point. Many candidates treat the card as a checklist and finish in under a minute. The explain point is meant to be the longest part of your talk.

Rushing the first 20 seconds. Nerves make people start too fast, which hurts pronunciation and leaves them breathless by the middle. Take a breath and begin more slowly than feels natural.

Memorised answers and idioms. Examiners are trained to recognise memorised language, and a prepared paragraph that only half fits the card is easy to hear. An idiom such as a piece of cake only helps if it fits naturally.

Silence instead of paraphrase. When a word will not come, describe it: the part of the canal where boats go up and down, I think it’s called a lock. You stay fluent and show the paraphrase skill that Lexical resource rewards.

A 15 minute daily routine for Part 2

Do one full timed attempt (4 minutes). Draw a card in the simulator and record yourself if you can.
Listen back and tick the check (4 minutes). Note the one thing you will change.
Do the same card again (4 minutes). Repeating a task is a classic way to build fluency. The second time, your brain is not busy finding ideas, so it can focus on language. Use Try the same card again in the simulator.
Write down three phrases from your better attempt (3 minutes) and reuse them tomorrow with a different card.

Part 3 of the test continues with the topic from Part 2 in a more general, abstract discussion, so the follow up questions in the simulator are good warm ups for it.

Get your speaking assessed by a teacher

A self check shows you patterns. A teacher can hear exactly which sounds, structures and habits are holding your band back, and give you a plan to fix them before your test date.

Ali Gharji has more than 13 years of experience teaching English in UK colleges and universities. He holds an MA in International Education and Development from the University of Sussex, a BA in English Language and Literature and the Cambridge CELTA, and has completed the British Council IELTS Trainer Masterclass.

One to one IELTS lessons last one hour, take place online on Zoom or Google Meet, and include full practice tests, written feedback and a study plan built around your test date.

Book an IELTS lesson

Share the Cue Card Simulator with a friend who is preparing for IELTS. It is free and works on any phone.

Important

The Cue Card Simulator is an independent practice tool, not an official IELTS product, and it does not give you a band score. The cue cards are original practice topics written for this page, not real test questions. The quotation is from the public IELTS Speaking band descriptors. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP IELTS and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Updated October 2026.