32. Describe a mistake that you once made

You should say:

What the mistake was
When, where you made it
Who was with you
And how the mistake affected you

Ok right then, I had a project I was working on, and while I was in the middle of typing up my documentation, my computer started acting weird. It froze for a while and so I rebooted. After 10 minutes, the computer showed a blue screen saying that there were problems and recommended that I reboot the computer again. After another reboot, everything appeared to be ok. I continued my work and finished for the day. I spent two days on this assignment and when I went to retrieve my data the next day to double check my work, my computer wouldn't start up. A technician came and found that my hard drive malfunctioned. I lost all the data and lost two days of work.

I was disappointed and thought I would never trust a computer again, but there was a great lesson to be learned. I had a couple of warnings and I ignored them. From then on, I practiced being someone who can anticipate problems. I now think of potential problems ahead of time and pay attention to details along the way. If I applied this sooner, I would have saved the data on another computer and I wouldn't have lost a couple days of work. But I can't say I regret making the mistake because it made me someone who can anticipate problems better."

IELTS Band 8 Sample Topics