Describe an experience you had as a member of a team.
You should say:
- what type of team it is/was
- who were the members of the team
- what role you played in this team
and explain how being a member of this team is/was helpful to you.
[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]
Model Answer:
I have always thought of myself as a good team player, and I have learnt it by playing different roles in different kinds of teams in the past. Today, I would like to share my experience as a team member of one of those teams.
I had this experience, as a team member, when I was attending my high school, and when I was a member of my high school debate team. By the way, apart from me, 3 other members of my high school were included in that debate team. Even though we were not of the same age, we managed to build up a good rapport among ourselves since we all knew about our roles and responsibilities in the team. Besides, we all knew our strengths and weaknesses as far as our individual contribution to the debate was concerned.
Now regarding my roles in the team – the captain of the debate team assigned me mainly to note down the critical and important points, discussed by the opposition debate team, for the purpose of refuting their arguments. Apart from that, I was also assigned to summarise my team’s case by listing different important points of all of my team members, including my points as well as that of my captain. Finally, I was also responsible to assist my team captain in finding out the bad or controversial facts of the opposition debate team so that he could order the facts of our team in sequence in order to support the theme of our debate.
Well, being a team of that debate team has helped me greatly in my professional life by making me calm and confident during adverse condition. Besides, it also has helped me learn how to separate facts from fiction without being biased. Needless to say, being a member of the debate team has also helped become a reasonably confident public speaker. Finally, becoming a debate team member in the past has also taught me about how to coordinate nicely with each other in a team setting without imposing my views on the other team members.