Describe a hobby you had in your childhood

IELTS Cue Card # 160 – Describe a hobby you had in your childhood

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Last Updated: Saturday, 26 June 2021 19:10

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

Describe a hobby you had in your childhood.

You should say:

• what hobby it was
• how you adopted this hobby
• why you liked doing this

and explain if you still enjoy this hobby or not.

Model Answer 1:
This is such a tough topic for me because, frankly speaking, I was more of a “homely” child who didn’t exactly like to get out of his home except for just going to school. In other words, I didn’t really have many hobbies, which required me to go outside of the home, other than watching cartoons. Then again, watching cartoon itself can also be considered a hobby. Isn’t it?

Not sure, why exactly I adopted this hobby, but I guess that it must have something to do with the cat that I raised as my pet. So, when I first saw “Tom and Jerry” (the famous Disney cartoon) and found out that the cat named “Tom” was getting into trouble just like my little pet cat, I became hooked on it. After that, of course, I have seen many, many other cartoons, but I never found them as funny as “Tom and Jerry”.  

But that didn’t stop me from watching those cartoons during my childhood because they always stimulated my mind and brain to draw some sort of parallel between a real world, in which we live, and the imaginary world, in which the cartoon characters live, only to find out, of course, that the world, in which we live, is not as rosy and nice as they try to portray in cartoons.

I adopted this hobby also because my parents didn’t really want me to go out too much, lest I would get influenced by bad company or social elements. So, I guess that I didn’t have any other option except to keep liking watching the cartoons because it at least kept my parents happy while I also kept getting my favourite chips and the toys for my pet cat.    

Anyway, watching cartoon is not my hobby anymore because, for better or worse, I have grown much older to figure out that even though cartoons can make us laugh, they don’t do anything to solve our real-world problems. Besides, now I have found much better hobbies to try, and they are way more interesting than “Tom and Jerry”.

Sample Answer 2:
In different stages in my childhood and teenage period, I was attracted to different activities and hobbies. Some of the hobbies I had back then no longer attracts me, while some still seem appealing. One such hobby of my childhood was collecting stamps which I no longer have.

I was a 4th grader when I first learned about this exciting hobby. I noticed that two of my classmates had a good collection of stamps, and those were catalogued based on countries in their stamp books. The idea of collecting stamps impressed me as soon as I saw a diary full of stamps of different looks, shapes, origins and colours.

When I started collecting stamps, I had no particular reason for doing so. But the idea of collecting stamps and having a good collection seemed an appealing idea to me. But later, I found that it was a great hobby that helped me learn about many different countries, cultures, persons, occasions and customs. For instance, after I found a stamp from the USA that had the Statue of Liberty printed on it, I asked my teacher about it. She then explained detailed information about it to me and the class. On other occasions, I came to know about Alfred Nobel, Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln, Vasko da Gama and so on from the stamps I had.

The stamps also bore the marks of many historical and cultural events which helped me learn about those events. Some of the stamps I had back then were from countries that I never knew about. Thus this hobby helped me enhance my knowledge. Apart from that, I found that kids who used to collect stamps then had many common interests. So it helped me make new friends as well.

In my childhood, I liked this hobby because of my pure passion and excitement for it. But, I am not sure how and when I stopped nurturing this special hobby. But I believe when I was in high school, I started becoming more interested in sports and other kinds of stuff. So I do not have this hobby now.

Interestingly, the stamp books, three to be more specific, I had in my childhood contained more than a few hundred stamps in total. They have been kept in a safe place by my mother as a memory.

Similar Cue Card Topics

Your ability to talk about this Cue Card Topic would enable you to talk about the following Cue Card Topics as well:

1. Describe something you enjoyed doing in your childhood.
2. Describe a hobby you had.
3. Describe an interesting activity you had in your childhood.
4. Describe a habit or hobby you had in your teenage period.
5. Describe an activity you once had.