IELTS Speaking part 2: Describe a useful math lesson that you remember learning as a child

Topic cue card:

Describe a useful math lesson that you remember learning as a child.

• What it was
• How you learnt it
• You like math now
• It was easy/difficult to learn.

Answer:

Thank you for giving me this interesting topic. I had a math lesson that was really impressive to me and I still remember it clearly today.

That was one day when I was in my 6^th grade, my old math teacher retired and a new teacher came to take over the class. After introduction, he gave us a challenge and promised that if anyone could solve it, he would give that student full mark for the mid term exam. My classmates and I immediately got excited at this promise.

My teacher drew nine points on the blackboards. They were evenly spaced and formed what looked like a square. He asked us to connect the dots using the least numbers of straight lines. The students eagerly copied the dots on paper and tried to draw lines connecting them together. Most of us ended up with 5 lines and we thought that 5 was the smallest number possible.

To our surprise, our teacher smiled and said that we did not get the right answer, which made us really disappointed. Then he encouraged us to continue trying, and gave us the hint of using only 4 lines. We tried again and again but the most we could do with 4 lines was to connect 8 points only.

When we all surrendered, our teacher finally gave us the answer. He drew what looked like an umbrella which connected the 9 dots with exactly 4 straight lines, and the lines went beyond the square shaped by the 9 dots. We were really impressed to see him drawing the lines on the blackboard – it was so easy yet no one could think of!

After solving the problem, our teacher told us that we should not limit ourselves when facing a problem and look for the answer outside the box instead. This way of changing perspective would be a great way in tackling not only mathematic problems but also any challenges in life. We were really moved to listen to his speech – it was not only the math lesson anymore, it became a lesson about life.

Over fifteen years have passed and I still remember clearly what my math teacher said that day. Whenever I get stuck in what seems like an unsolvable problem, I’ll try to look at it from different perspectives and sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple. I am truly grateful for my math teacher who gave me the lesson that day.

Comment:

This answer can be adjusted to use in similar topics, for example:

Describe an interesting lesson which you learnt at school.

• What was it
• Who taught it and how was it
• When did you learn
• Please mention why do you find interesting.

or

Describe an interesting talk or lecture I heard recently.

• when and where you heard it

• what the talk or speech was about

• who was the speaker

• why you think it was interesting.