IELTS Speaking Part 2: How to Describe a Person You Admire (Model Answer & Method)

The "describe a person" cue card is one of the most common tasks in IELTS Speaking Part 2, and versions like describe a person you admire, a person who influenced you, or a family member you are close to appear again and again. The good news is that a single flexible method covers all of them. This guide gives you that method, a full model answer, and the language to hit band 7 and above.

How Part 2 works

In Part 2 the examiner hands you a cue card, gives you a pencil and paper, and allows one minute to prepare. You then speak for up to two minutes, and the examiner may ask one or two short rounding-off questions afterwards. This is the only part of the test where you speak at length uninterrupted, so it heavily influences your Fluency and Coherence and Lexical Resource scores — two of the four equally weighted Speaking criteria.

A typical card looks like this:

• Describe a person you admire.
• You should say:
• who this person is
• how you know them
• what they are like
• and explain why you admire them.

Use your preparation minute properly

Do not write full sentences — you will run out of time and end up reading. Instead, jot one keyword per bullet plus two or three pieces of vocabulary you want to use. For the card above, your notes might read: uncle Sam / met at 12, mentor / patient, generous, driven / taught me resilience, self-made. Five words is enough to give you a next idea every time you pause, which is exactly what keeps you talking for the full two minutes.

The structure that covers every bullet

Follow the bullets in order — they are a ready-made outline. Aim for roughly four short chunks:

1. Who + how you know them (2–3 sentences).
2. What they look like or what they are like — focus on personality, it gives you more to say (3–4 sentences).
3. A specific story or example that shows the quality (3–4 sentences). This is where most candidates gain marks, because it lets you speak naturally and use past tenses.
4. Why you admire them — the "explain" bullet, which examiners weight most (2–3 sentences).

A band 7+ model answer

"I'd like to talk about my uncle, Sam, who's probably the person I admire most. He's my mother's younger brother, and I've known him my whole life, but we got really close when I was about twelve and he started coaching my football team at weekends.

In terms of personality, he's remarkably patient and level-headed — the kind of person who never seems to lose his temper, even under pressure. He's also incredibly hard-working; he built his own business from scratch after leaving school early, so he's completely self-made.

What really stands out, though, is something that happened a few years ago. His company nearly went under during a bad year, and instead of giving up, he retrained, changed his whole approach, and slowly turned things around. Watching him stay calm through all that taught me a lot about resilience.

So I suppose the main reason I admire him is that he leads by example rather than by lecturing people. He's living proof that determination matters more than where you start, and honestly, whenever I'm struggling with something difficult, I try to ask myself what he would do."

That answer runs close to two minutes, covers all four bullets, tells one clear story, and shows a range of vocabulary and tenses without any rare or memorised-sounding words.

Useful phrases you can reuse

• Introducing the person: "I'd like to talk about…", "The person who springs to mind is…".
• Describing character: "he comes across as…", "she has a real talent for…", "what stands out about her is…".
• Personality adjectives: down-to-earth, easy-going, quick-witted, generous, driven, supportive, level-headed.
• Explaining why: "the main reason I look up to him is…", "what I find inspiring is…", "she's the sort of person who…".

Common mistakes to avoid

• Listing adjectives with no evidence. "He's kind, nice, good, friendly" scores low. Give one quality and back it with a story.
• Reciting a memorised speech. Examiners are trained to spot rehearsed answers, and they sound flat. Learn the structure, not a script.
• Stopping after 40 seconds. If you finish early, extend the "why" bullet or add another example — keep going until the examiner stops you.
• Only describing appearance. Physical description dries up fast; personality and actions give you far more to say.

Be ready for the Part 3 follow-ups

After the card, Part 3 broadens the topic into discussion questions such as "Do you think young people today have good role models?" or "Should famous people be seen as role models?" These are more abstract, so use a clear Point → Explain → Example shape. See our guide to Part 3 discussion answers for the full technique.

Practise this week

Take three "person" cue cards — a person you admire, a friend, and someone who influenced you — and record a two-minute answer for each on your phone. Listen back and check one thing: did you tell a real story, or just list traits? For the underlying method behind any cue card, read our guide to the Part 2 cue card, pull fresh prompts from our IELTS Speaking practice questions, and once you have a feel for all four skills, use the free band score calculator to see where a stronger Speaking performance would move your overall band.