13. Describe something you did with a group of people

You should say:

What the activity was
When and where you did it
Who you were with
And explain how you felt about being part of this group

I would like to describe a person who I had to be friendly to, although I did not really like her. I think this situation is quite common in our lives, especially when we have to act as part of a team.

A couple of months ago, I was assigned to a team at my workplace in order to tackle a big project. As part of the team, I had to cooperate closely with this person. However, we had never really liked each other for several reasons. Firstly, she is much older than I am, so she always thinks she is right and disregards the opinions of others. I would describe her as both bossy and officious, although she did not have a more senior position than I did in the company. Secondly, I considered her irresponsible because she did not appear to me to pay serious attention to the project. So, although it was supposedly a group project, I ended up working all on my own as much as possible in order to see the task through.

As the work was vital for our company, we had to be successful. I therefore had no choice except to collaborate with her in order to finish the job. I would rather have done all the work alone, but if I had refused to work with her as part of the team, then the evaluation of my job performance would have been affected at the end of the year. So, knowing her personality as I did, I swallowed my pride and tried to be patient. Despite our many arguments, we completed the task on time. I learned that sometimes people can work together, even though they don‟t get on with each other. It just needs a little bit of time and patience to work things out, and each person has to compromise to achieve a common goal.

IELTS Band 8 Sample Topics