Speaking Part 2 · ObjectsIn the May–Aug 2026 forecast
Describe an Old Object Your Family Has Kept
In short
“Describe an Old Object Your Family Has Kept” is a common IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card. You get 1 minute to prepare and should speak for 1–2 minutes, covering all four points below. This page gives you a Band 9 model answer, an idea map so you can make it your own, the Part 3 follow-up questions with answers, and the vocabulary examiners reward.
The task card
Describe an Old Object Your Family Has Kept. You should say:
- •What the object is
- •How long your family has had it
- •Where it came from
- •And explain why your family has kept it
Band 9 model answer
The object I'd like to describe is an old mechanical wall clock that hangs in my grandparents' sitting room — a dark wooden pendulum clock, about the size of a small suitcase, with Roman numerals and a slow, deep tick you can hear from two rooms away. As far as anyone can establish, it's been in the family for over seventy years.
The story of where it came from is half the reason we treasure it. My great-grandfather bought it in the 1950s with his very first proper salary — the family legend is that it cost him nearly two months' pay, and my great-grandmother didn't speak to him for a week. He was a railway stationmaster, obsessed with punctuality, and apparently he considered a household without an accurate clock to be a household in moral decline. That detail tells you everything about the man, and I love that we still know it.
Since then it has outlived him, survived two house moves, one flood — it hung just above the waterline, the family says, though I suspect the story has improved with age — and decades of children, including me, being lifted up to watch the pendulum. It needs winding once a week with a little brass key, and that job is a jealously guarded privilege. My grandfather does it every Sunday morning, and I'm not exaggerating when I say the family treats the sound of that winding as the real start of the week.
Why do we keep it, when every phone shows perfect time? Partly memory — it's the last physical object we have from my great-grandfather, and the whole family history is somehow stored in its ticking. When it chimes, my grandmother still says 'your great-grandfather is announcing the hour.' But I think it's also become a kind of anchor. Furniture, houses, even the family business have changed completely over seventy years; the clock is the one witness that has seen all of it.
There was actually a small family drama a few years ago when a dealer spotted it and offered a genuinely surprising amount of money — apparently that make of clock is collectable now. My grandfather refused so instantly and so fiercely that nobody has dared mention selling it since. His line was, 'You can't buy back time,' which the family now quotes at every possible opportunity.
I fully expect that clock to outlive me too. Someday it'll hang on some future relative's wall, ticking away, and somebody will lift up a child to watch the pendulum and tell them about a railway stationmaster who spent two months' pay on punctuality. That's why we keep it — objects like that don't really belong to us; we're just its current caretakers.
Make it your own: three angles
A clock, radio or piece of furniture with a purchase story
An object bought by an ancestor gives you a named character and an era — the model's stationmaster does more work than any description of wood and brass.
Jewellery or clothing passed down at weddings
Rich in ceremony and continuity — describe the moments it appears (weddings, festivals) and who is promised it next.
Letters, photos or documents from a past generation
Quieter but very moving — focus on one specific letter or photo and what it revealed about a relative you never met.
What the examiner is listening for
This card rewards storytelling across generations — the examiner wants to hear past simple for the origin story, present perfect for the decades between ("it has survived, it has outlived"), and present habits for the weekly winding. Give the object one named human character in its history; an ancestor with a personality lifts this from furniture description to band 9 narrative.
Part 1 warm-up questions
- Do you prefer old things or new things?
- Is history a popular subject in your country?
- Do you keep things that you no longer use?
- Are there any old buildings in your neighbourhood?
Part 3 follow-up questions & answers
Why do people keep old objects even when they are no longer useful?
Because usefulness was never really the point — these objects are memory made solid. A dead relative's watch does something no photo quite manages: it was physically there, touched daily by the person. There's also identity: family heirlooms tell people where they come from, and in a world where everything else updates annually, one unchanging object is strangely comforting.
Is it better to preserve old things or replace them with new ones?
It depends entirely on what the thing carries. For purely functional items, replacement is usually rational — nobody should preserve a dangerous old heater out of sentiment. But objects and buildings that carry memory or craftsmanship are irreplaceable by definition; a reproduction has the shape but not the history. The wise policy is to replace the disposable and fiercely preserve the meaningful.
Do young people in your country value old things?
More than the stereotype suggests, but selectively. Plenty of my generation ignores the family china while paying real money for vintage clothes, vinyl records and film cameras — so the appetite for old things exists, it just follows fashion rather than family duty. I'd say young people value old things they choose, and undervalue old things they inherit, at least until someone dies and the inheritance suddenly means everything.
How do family heirlooms help people understand their history?
They turn ancestors from names into people. A dry fact — my great-grandfather worked on the railways — becomes vivid when you're holding the clock he overpaid for in 1955. Heirlooms also smuggle stories across generations: each object carries its anecdotes, and retelling them at gatherings is how family history actually survives, far more than any written record.
Should valuable old objects belong to families or to museums?
For objects of genuine public significance, museums have the better claim — conservation expertise, security, and access for everyone rather than one living room. But below that threshold, I'd side with families: an heirloom's meaning is partly its location in daily life, and a clock behind museum glass stops being a grandfather's clock and becomes a specimen. The best compromise I've seen is families lending pieces for exhibitions.
Do you think today's objects will become tomorrow's treasured antiques?
Far fewer of them, and that's a real cultural loss. Antiques survive because they were built to last and repairable; most modern products are designed for replacement, and digital goods leave nothing to inherit at all — nobody will pass down a streaming account. I suspect our era will be remembered through oddly few physical objects, which makes the well-made exceptions more precious.
Useful vocabulary
| Word / phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| an heirloom | a valued object passed down through generations of a family |
| to pass something down | to give something to the next generation |
| a pendulum | the swinging weight that drives an old clock |
| to wind (a clock) | to turn a key or handle to keep a mechanism running |
| to outlive | to continue existing longer than someone or something |
| family legend | a story retold in a family, possibly exaggerated over time |
| a caretaker | someone who looks after something on behalf of others |
| collectable | valued by collectors and worth money |
| irreplaceable | impossible to replace if lost or damaged |
| to improve with age | (here, humorously) to become more impressive each time a story is retold |
More cue cards
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