Describe an Event You Are Looking Forward To: Cue Card + Band-9 Answer
A Band-9 answer to the 'event you look forward to' cue card with anticipation structure, future language, and excitement vocabulary.
Anticipation cards run on countdown energy — preparations, imagined scenes, and what the wait feels like.
The cue card
Describe an event you are looking forward to.
You should say:
- what the event is
- when it will happen
- who will be there
…and explain why you are looking forward to it.
Your 1-minute prep plan
Pick an event with a date — countdowns create natural structure. Note the event, your preparations so far, and the single moment you picture most. Preparations prove the anticipation is real.
Band-9 sample answer
"The event I am counting down to is my best friend's wedding in December — back home, after three years of celebrating everything important over video calls. One hundred and twelve days at last count. Yes, I am counting.
The preparations have become a second hobby. I have my sherwani tailored already, hanging where I see it daily. I am in the family group chat planning the dholki night performances — our dance rehearsals happen over video, me practicing steps in my living room at midnight, neighbors presumably concerned. I have even started a shared photo album titled 'December,' currently containing screenshots of venues and menus.
But the moment I actually picture is smaller: landing at the airport and seeing my whole chaotic crew holding a misspelled welcome banner, the way they did when I left. That reunion hug is what three years of distance compresses into — ten seconds that repay a thousand video calls.
I am looking forward to it because expatriate life runs on deferred joy — you postpone celebrations, stack them up, and cash them in on visits home. This wedding cashes in three years at once. Anticipation, I have decided, is happiness with a waiting room. December cannot come fast enough."
Vocabulary to steal
- counting down — anticipation ritual
- second hobby — preparations as pastime
- neighbors presumably concerned — self-aware humor
- distance compresses into ten seconds — time-emotion physics
- deferred joy — postponed happiness (precise phrase)
- happiness with a waiting room — definition-as-close
FAQs
Big event or small gathering?
Anticipation scales to meaning, not size. A sibling visit after years apart generates more genuine excitement than a generic festival.
What if the event might not happen?
Hope is enough. Conditional anticipation — if my visa arrives, I will attend — shows natural conditional structures examiners love.
How do I express excitement without repeating very excited?
Count down, preparation rituals, imagined scenes: I have the playlist ready, I check the dates weekly. Behaviors prove excitement better than adjectives.
Good things come — more future topics in the speaking cue cards library.