Describe a time when you saw an interesting animal
You should say:
- What animal it was
- When and Where you saw it
And explain how you feel about this animal.
Sample Answer 1
Well, I’m going to talk about an occasion on which I got to see a group of small monkeys. As we all know, monkeys are one of the funniest animals in nature. They are full of curiosity, adventure and mischief, and have great intelligence. They often live in the jungle, mostly in tropical rain forests, and jump from tree to tree to seek out food and play. The diet of a monkey includes nuts, berries, fruits, anything that smells good, and not to mention, bananas, which is always at the top of their list.
Anyway, back to the main point, the first time I saw a ‘real’ monkey was a long time ago, when I was in secondary school. My friends and I travelled to a mountain located somewhere on the outskirts of Hanoi, and when we were climbing the mountain, suddenly a group of small monkeys appeared in the middle of the road ahead in the distance. They were jumping up and down from trees before they approached us. Then the monkeys stared at me and my friends as though they wanted to communicate and ask for food, so I decided to give them some of our snacks. They were really cute creatures, you know, their hands are like a mini version of ours, which makes them look like little kids.
However, although I’m quite into monkeys, I have to admit that they are unexpectedly sneaky. In some tourist attractions around Vietnam, you can easily spot a troop of monkeys stealing food from street vendors, and other unsuspecting tourists. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do but watch them run off into the jungle
with our food as they are way faster and smarter than you may think.
Anyway, the trip was truly a once-in-a-life-time experience for me as I got to touch and feed wild monkeys. Seeing them first hand also made me realize that they share more common features with humans than I’d previously thought, which really evoked my curiosity about the theory of how people evolved from apes over millions of years.
Vocabulary highlights
1. curiosity – a strong interest in something
2. mischief – behaviour that is slightly bad or causes trouble but not intended to cause harm
3. seek out – to find
4. outskirts – on the edge of a town or city
5. approached – to come near or closer
6. sneaky – to be secretive or dishonest
7. troop – a group of
8. street vendors – someone who sells something on the street eg. food, drinks or clothes
9. unsuspecting – not aware of any danger or harm
10. once-in-a-life-time – a unique or very special opportunity
11. first hand – personal experience
12. evoked – brought into your mind
Sample Answer 2
It takes some special courage and passion for learning about animals and being around them. Of course, while I never claim to have such special passion or courage, I find a few animals interesting enough to talk about, and the elephant happens to be just one of them.
I am pretty sure that I don’t need to introduce the elephant anew as we all happen to know that it is the second-largest mammal in the world, right after the blue whale. Depending on which part of the world an elephant comes from, its weight can vary from anywhere between 2700 kg to 6000 kg. They can also be of varied length and height. For example, the Length of an Asian elephant can be anywhere between 5.5 – 6.5 meters while the height of an African bush elephant can be 3.2 meters.
By the way, I have learned a great deal about this animal by visiting a local zoo in my town where the authority has kept varieties of elephants from different parts of the world. However, while zoos are a great place to learn and get ideas about how elephants really look or behave, they are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and are also found in different habitats, including savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. And as far as the diets of elephants are concerned, they eat between 149 and 169 kg of vegetation daily while consuming grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. However, a large number of these large mammals are being killed today all over the world for their ivory.
Anyway, I find elephants very interesting because even though they are such strong animals, they can be just as emotional as humans. In fact, elephants are found to be crying when they are hurt or lose their baby calves. In fact, much research shows that elephants are very intelligent and social animals that are drawn to humans rather easily. Besides, elephants are also known to have reconciled with each other after conflicts, which I find most fascinating.
Sample Answer 3
The elephant is the largest land animal, and they are very fascinating. In my childhood, I saw some elephants which their owners brought to show to the public – a common trend in the Indian subcontinent. Later on, I learned about elephants from different TV programmes and the Internet.
The elephants are found in many countries in Asia and Africa. They are wild animals and are found in forests and hill areas. There are many interesting facts about this animal and some of them are quite unique. First of all, the elephant is the largest land animals. They are huge in size and an average baby elephant is usually 3 feet tall and weight almost 200 pounds or more than 90 kg! The largest elephant, ever recorded, was more than 13 feet tall, and over 11,000 kg!
Secondly, they are very ancient animals and evidence shows that there were 6-7 different elephant species even during the Ice Age in North America and Eurasia. Another interesting fact is that the wrinkled skins of elephants help them regulate the temperature and humidity. It helps them retain 5-10 times more water than a smoothly skinned animal. This wrinkled skin also helps them cool down their body temperature by losing more heat. Another interesting fact about the elephant is that the herd of the elephants is usually led by a female elephant. Interestingly, the tie of the elephant herd is so strong that they mourn when a member dies.
A matured elephant eats around 170 kg of foods and 80 litres of water and this amount increases in the rainy season when an elephant eats more than 200 kg of foods. Elephants can walk almost noiselessly because of the soft cushions they have under their foot. Finally, elephants are social animals and they live in a herd. They obey the rules and responsibilities of their society and the mother elephants teach the baby elephants about the rules and responsibilities much like the humans do, which I find very impressive.