Hobby # Discussion Topic

You could be given a cue card on hobby and then the general question in section III are related to hobbies. Let us have a look at some of them. The answers are of level Band 8.

We have been talking about hobbies and I would like to discuss with you some general questions related to hobbies.

What do you think are the most popular types of hobbies in India?

For males it is probably cricket or football. For females I think it is either shopping or travelling.

Why do you think these hobbies are so popular?

Because, I think you need balance in life. The working life is quite hard, and one needs balance to be able to go back to work the next day. These hobbies help people to relax a bit and then give their best at work. Also sports is a good way of releasing stress, so they prefer it.

What do you think are the social benefits of hobbies?

Well, it depends on what your hobby is. For instance, if you have a hobby of reading, you are usually doing it alone and there is no such social benefits but if you are doing something like playing soccer or cricket, you are interacting with lots of people and get to know how to interact with people and make friends. It helps in exchanging ideas and opinions’ and more importantly more about them from inside.

Do you think there are any dangers in spending lot of time with hobbies?

Well, if you are spending more time in your hobby rather than your work or may be family, it could turn quite upside for you. You may end up losing some important relationships.

Well, thank you.

This is the end of your speaking test.

IELTSBAND7

 

IELTS Speaking Part I # Band 9

IELTS speaking has three sections; the first one consist of general questions related to you. Let us have a look at some possible questions that can be asked in IELTS, with a band 9 answer for each question.

Hello my name is Chris.

What is your full name?

My full name is Anmol Tanubhrt.

Can I see your id?

Yes, sure.

In the first part I would like to ask some general questions about you. Let’s talk about where you are from?

Where is your hometown?

I come from a town in north of India, called Almora. It is a small town surrounded by mountains from all the sides and is a major tourist attraction. Tourist from all across the world come to visit the natural beauty of Almora. Houses in my town are quite close to each other and so we all are kind of a big family.

Which places do or should tourist visit?

Well, there are lot of places a tourist can visit. Chitai temple which has a unique collection of brass bells of all sizes. Then there is the Bright End Corner’s Unforgettable sunset. Nanda Devi temple and kesar Devi are some of the other exciting places to visit in almora.

There are also some restaurant and areas where you can walk or cycle.

Is there anything that you don’t like about home town?

I think that the biggest problem is that sometimes it becomes really congested with lots of people who come there to visit. It is a small town and if more than a certain number of people come to live in there, the roads sometimes give a feeling of stampede.

Let us move on to the weather.

What is the weather like where you live?

Almora has a very pleasant weather. The summers are warm in the morning but are pleasant in the evenings and the winters are warm in the morning but by night it gets really cold.  The monsoon season in almora is really beautiful.

Do you prefer summer or winter?

I prefer summer because of the perfect balance between the day and night. It is neither very hot during summers and the nights are really beautiful with steady winds blowing past our ears. So, one can do a lot things in summers.

What do you like to do when it is raining?

I love rains, so during rainy season I mostly go out with my friends and have dance parties in rain. It is quite fun to dance in rain and then drink tea or eat hot pakodi, an Indian dish made usually of onion and potatoes. When the rain sets off I usually like going on long walks.

Now, l would like to ask you some questions about shopping.

Who do you like going to shopping with?

I really like going to shopping by myself. I hate going with other people because it takes ages to go around when you are with someone, because sometimes they want to go to different shops and then maybe you have to wait for them.

Do you prefer shopping malls or markets?

I definitely prefer shopping markets. If you go to traditional markets there is lot more than you can do than shopping. You will find various vendors and street sellers trying to sell things off. Even more there is so much happening in a market and you can actually go buy things and also get a good feeling along with the shopping.

IELTSBAND7

Origin Of Punctuation # Practice Reading

As readers and writers, we’re intimately familiar with the dots, strokes and dashes that punctuate the written word. The comma, colon, semicolon and their siblings are integral parts of writing, pointing out grammatical structures and helping us transform letters into spoken words or mental images. We would be lost without them (or, at the very least, extremely confused), and yet the earliest readers and writers managed without it for thousands of years. What changed their minds?

In the 3rd Century BCE, in the Hellenic Egyptian city of Alexandria, a librarian (a person in charge of a library, especially the chief administrative officer of a library)named Aristophanes had had enough. He was chief of staff at the city’s famous library, home to hundreds of thousands of scrolls, which were all frustratingly time-consuming to read. For as long as anyone could remember, the Greeks had written their texts so that their letters ran together with no spaces or punctuation and without any distinction between lowercase and capitals. It was up to the reader to pick their way through this unforgiving mass of letters to discover where each word or sentence ended and the next began.

Yet the lack of punctuation and word spaces was not seen as a problem. In early democracies such as Greece and Rome, where elected officials debated to promote their points of view, eloquent (having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful, and appropriate speech)and persuasive (able, fitted, or intended to persuade)speech was considered more important than written language and readers fully expected that they would have to pore over a scroll before reciting it in public. To be able to understand a text on a first reading was unheard of: when asked to read aloud from an unfamiliar document, a 2nd Century writer named Aulus Gellius protested that he would mangle (to spoil; ruin; mar badly)its meaning and emphasise (to lay stress upon)its words incorrectly. (When a bystander (a person present but not involved; chance spectator; onlooker)stepped in to read the document instead, he did just that.)

Joining the dots

Aristophanes’ breakthrough was to suggest that readers could annotate (to supply with critical or explanatory notes)their documents, relieving the unbroken stream of text with dots of ink aligned with the middle (·), bottom (.) or top (·) of each line. His ‘subordinate’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘full’ points corresponded to the pauses of increasing length that a practised reader would habitually insert between formal units of speech called the comma, colon and periodos. This was not quite punctuation as we know it – Aristophanes saw his marks as representing simple pauses rather than grammatical boundaries – but the seed had been planted.

Unfortunately, not everyone was convinced (to move by argument or evidence to belief, agreement, consent, or course of action)of the value of this new invention. When the Romans overtook the Greeks as the preeminent (eminent above or before others; superior; surpassing)empire-builders of the ancient world, they abandoned (forsaken or deserted)Aristophanes’ system of dots without a second thought. Cicero, for example, one of Rome’s most famous public speakers, told his rapt (deeply engrossed or absorbed) audiences (the group of spectators at a public event)that the end of a sentence “ought to be determined not by the speaker’s pausing for breath, or by a stroke (the act or an instance of striking, as with the fist, a weapon, or hammerinterposed (to place between)by a copyist, but by the constraint of the rhythm”.

And though the Romans had experimented for a while with separating·words·with·dots, by the second century CE they had abandoned that too. The cult (a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing,person, ideal, etc)of public speaking was a strong one, to the extent that all reading was done aloud: most scholars (a learned or erudite person, especially one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject)agree that the Greeks and Romans got round their lack of punctuation by murmuring (a low, continuous sound, as of a brook, the wind, or trees, or of low,indistinct voices)aloud as they read through texts of all kinds.

Source :BBC

Tips For Speaking Section

Speaking in English is often a challenge for vernacular speakers. Let us have a look at ten important tips to get a higher score in IELTS speaking section, rather any English exam with examiner one on one interaction.

  1. During your speaking test, be formal i.e. treat it like a job interview. Don’t take it casually.
  2. Give a full answer, whenever possible. You have 11-14 minutes to use the best English that you have learnt all your life. So, in the first section, about you or your family. For instance, if they ask you where you from are, don’t just say Delhi, try to be more specific. Rather say, I am from Delhi, capital of India.
  3. Be polite to the examiner. For instance, if you don’t understand something, don’t just say, what or sorry. Rather say, excuse me, could you please repeat that?
  4. Your posture effects the way you speak or your confidence or your voice is projected. So maintain a good posture. Make sure you sit straight and not put your hand on your face.
  5. Don’t worry too much about your accent and as long as you enunciate the word clearly, that is all required. So, work on your pronunciation and not on your accent.
  6. Don’t use boring words or overly used words. For example, don’t use good, okay, sad. You can rather use depressed, excited etc.
  7. Make sure you speak loudly enough that you are heard properly.
  8. Don’t speak too fast or too slowly, if you are not sure, speak slower than it is necessary. And practice by recording.
  9. Explain any foreign words used in speaking. But then why will you use a foreign word. This happens when for instance, you say, I come from Kochi (a place not very famous), you better say, I come from a city in southern part of India, called Kochi.
  10. Even though you must use sentences, make sure you don’t lot of them. Try to remain on focus.
  11. Make sure you are aware of slangs and try not to use them. For example, kids is a slang and you must use children.
  12. A lot of students read sample answers and it is a good idea to read them and listen to them but don’t try to memorize them. All you need to understand is how to answer and try to pick some good vocabulary words.

Go on, give your best and strive for band 9.

IELTSBAND7

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