IELTS Speaking Part 2: Describe a Creative Person Whose Work You Admire – Model Answers 2025

This is one of the most personal cue cards in the IELTS Speaking Part 2 question bank for September–December 2025. You have one minute to prepare and two minutes to speak. The examiner is not just listening for correct grammar — they want to hear a real person described with genuine detail and genuine feeling. Go straight into it.

Cue Card

Describe a creative person whose work you admire.

You should say:
– Who he/she is
– How you knew him/her
– What creative things he/she has done
– And explain why you think he/she is creative

Model Answer

Joel is a cousin of mine, and I would consider him one of the most creative people I have ever been close to — and probably one of the most creative people in our wider circle as well.

He spent a significant part of his early adulthood working abroad in the Middle East — around a decade or so — doing physical labour, the kind of work that most people would not associate with creativity at all. After he saved enough money and came back, he decided to open a flower shop. And what surprised everyone, including himself I think, was just how naturally talented he was at it.

Here is what made it remarkable: this was a man who had spent years doing manual labour, and he had this exceptional eye for colour, arrangement, and composition. He became the person that new businesses would call when they needed floral arrangements for their opening. Customers would ask the shop owners where the flowers came from, and that is how his name started spreading — purely through word of mouth.

At a time when the standard for floral arrangements in our area was a simple bouquet of roses, Joel was doing something completely different. He was reflecting the identity and character of each business through the flowers he chose and how he arranged them. One of the pieces I remember most clearly involved dried petals — which was not common in our area at the time. He may not have been the pioneer of that style globally, but locally, he was among the first.

What made him truly creative, in my view, was not just the technical skill. It was what he did at home. He lived with his mother — my aunt — in a modest house, and without spending much money at all, he made that space genuinely beautiful. He had this ability to take ordinary, random objects and turn them into something that felt intentional and considered. That, to me, is the clearest definition of creativity: making something meaningful out of what most people would overlook.

Sadly, he passed away in his late thirties. He was overworked. But he remains, without question, one of the most creative people I have ever met.

Why This Works

The answer opens with a genuine person and a genuine observation rather than a generic description. The detail about Joel transitioning from manual labour to flower arrangement creates immediate contrast and interest. The closing definition of creativity — making something meaningful out of what most people overlook — is analytical and memorable.

📌 Band 7-8 Vocabulary:
– exceptional eye for — a natural ability to notice and judge something well
– word of mouth — reputation spread through personal recommendations
– intentional — done with clear purpose and thought
– pioneer — the first person to develop or use something new
– composition — the way elements are arranged to create a pleasing whole

IELTS Speaking Part 3: Creative Person Questions and Model Answers

Question 1: Do you think children should learn to play musical instruments?

Model Answer:
There are well-documented cognitive benefits to learning an instrument — most people know that side of the argument. But there is another reason that tends to get overlooked, especially given the state of most economies right now: learning an instrument gives children more options in life.

Let’s say you build a successful career. That is great. But if harder times come — and they do — you could always teach. If you learned guitar as a child and learned it well, that becomes a skill you can pass on and actually earn from. It is a kind of financial fallback that most parents do not think about when their child is six years old, but it genuinely matters.

I speak from personal experience. I learned an instrument back in high school, and even now, if I needed to, I could teach it at a basic level — well enough to pass it on to beginners. That is the kind of quiet insurance that early music education gives you, and I think it is worth more than people realise.

Question 2: How do artists acquire inspiration?

Model Answer:
Based on the autobiographies I have read and some of the podcasts I listen to, inspiration for artists seems to come from the most unexpected places — and there is no single formula for it.

For some, it comes from other artworks. For others, it comes directly from emotion — pain, grief, even illness. Take Van Gogh. Part of what drove his work came from his mental illness, and that is why something like The Starry Night has that particular quality — that swirling, distorted movement. That is how he perceived the world. Then you look at Picasso, whose inspiration was almost the opposite: more intellectual, more structural, more about pushing the boundaries of form itself.

The point is, you cannot define a universal source. Some artists create from passion. Some create from pain. And honestly, some create because they need the income. What makes them artists is not where the inspiration comes from — it is what they do with it.

Question 3: Do you think pictures and videos in news reports are important?

Model Answer:
Absolutely — and that importance is exactly what makes them dangerous as well.

We have seen this clearly in the modern media landscape: the same photograph, from the same event, can be presented in completely different ways depending on which outlet is publishing it. Change the angle, change the framing, add a particular caption — and the narrative shifts entirely. The picture itself has not changed. What changed is the context built around it.

This is especially visible in political reporting, particularly in the US, where the same event can generate completely opposite interpretations depending on which side of the political spectrum you are reading from. That is how powerful visual media is. It does not just report a story — it shapes how people feel about the story before they have even read a single word.

Pictures and videos can spark controversy. They can even spark outrage. That is why they matter — and that is exactly why the people selecting and framing them carry so much responsibility.

Question 4: What can we do to help children stay creative?

Model Answer:
The most important thing — and the one most people overlook — is simple: stop interrupting them.

That sounds obvious, but in practice, most parents do the opposite. When children are very young, there is often space for exploration — for mess, for random play, for things that do not make immediate sense. But somewhere around the age of ten or eleven, the restrictions start. The focus shifts to arithmetic, science, memorisation — the practical things. And in doing that, without realising it, we cut off the very processes that creativity requires to develop.

I am guilty of this myself, and I was raised that way too. It is not malicious — it comes from stress, or from how our own parents raised us. But the impact is real.

So if there is one thing we can do to keep children creative, it is to resist the impulse to redirect them every time their attention goes somewhere that does not look productive to us. Creativity needs uninterrupted time. That is probably the most important thing.

Examiner Tips for IELTS Speaking Part 2 Creative Person

Tip 1: Use a real person, not a famous one. Describing someone you actually know — a family member, a neighbour, a colleague — sounds significantly more genuine than recycling a celebrity. Genuine personal detail is what the examiner remembers.

Tip 2: Show creativity through specific acts, not adjectives. Do not say “he was very creative.” Show what he did with dried petals, with a modest house, with other people’s brands. The acts carry the argument.

Tip 3: End with a definition or observation. A closing line that defines or reflects on what creativity actually means lifts your answer from descriptive to analytical. That shift is worth marks.

Common Mistakes on This Topic

Describing only famous artists or musicians without any personal connection
Saying “creative” repeatedly without showing what that looks like in practice
Part 3 answers that give only a personal opinion without any example or reference
Opening Part 2 with “I would like to describe a person who is creative…”

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this a confirmed IELTS Speaking Part 2 topic for September–December 2025?
Yes. Describe a Creative Person appears in the official IELTS Speaking question bank for this period.

What if I do not know a creative person personally?
Adapt someone you have observed — a neighbour, a colleague, someone from a documentary. The examiner is assessing your English, not verifying your social circle. What matters is the specificity and depth of the description.

How long should the Part 2 answer be?
Aim for around 300 words at a natural speaking pace. That covers the full two minutes without rushing.