Describe a time when you received money as a gift belongs to the topic group “Describe an experience” which is a very common topic in IELTS Speaking Part 2.
Describe a time when you received money as a gift
You should say:
- When it happened
- Who gave you money
- Why he/she gave you money
And explain how you felt about it
Sample Answer
I am going to tell you about a particular birthday of mine, many years ago. Oddly enough, I actually can’t remember which birthday it was, it was that long ago, but that isn’t really important. What is important is that my grandparents gave me a $100 Euro bill.
As I lived in Vietnam at the time, I had yet to see one. This also opened my eyes to the fact that people all over the world use different forms of money, and that they are valued differently at different times against each other. This was a huge realization for me as I had never considered the complexity or the scale of the numerous global financial systems. Of course, this one scenario wasn’t enough to bring all of that information to me, but it was the scenario that opened my eyes to how deep and interesting the field could be.
As I have gotten older I am less and less inclined to end up working in the financial sector, but I nevertheless find it very interesting and worthy of scrutiny, as it does dramatically impact the lives of absolutely everyone on the planet. And it causes these impacts regardless of whether we want them to or not, as these structures or so embedded in our societies that it is essentially impossible to live without interacting with them in some way.
Follow Question Part 3
- Why do people rarely use cash now?
For many years, credit cards and debit cards were the main driver moving people away from cash based transactions. Now though, it seems that the majority of people tend to use digital banking to do most of their buying and selling. If you went to a street market, even a vegetable seller is likely to have a QR code that you can scan with your smartphone to buy your groceries. It is just too convenient not to be used.
- Why do restaurants and shopping centres give free gifts?
I think it is to give incentives to people to get them inside the door. While the companies are sure to lose money when giving out anything for free, I think it is a pretty safe assumption to make that once a potential customer is in the door that they will likely buy something else, and offset the loss of the free gift. Even if not all customers who get something for free spend money, they only need to get some to buy things to offset the prices.
- Can the excess of free gifts have a negative impact too?
I think this is certainly possible, though maybe not easy to do. The only situation in which I could see this leading to less sales is if the free gifts being given were of very low quality and the sales people trying to recuperate on their losses were very pushy. If the business seemed to be very transparent in their desire to only give gifts to make you spend money, then people would likely be turned away by that. It would need to be really obvious though.
