The Queen Been # Practice Reading
A group from IIT which went to meet her in the avatar of HRD minister had this to tell: the minister declared at least “seven times” that she was not illiterate. She was somewhat offensive, said one of the members, as she had perhaps decided that offence was the best form of defence. For if Smriti has had to cover a thin skin behind a thick hide, so to speak, she has done a commendable job of it. She has developed a persona of being aloof and indifferent. Says a woman leader from the BJP, “Smriti has also beneath butt of sexist burbs and comments in parliament and under normal circumstances we should all have been rallying around her.” Still, to Smriti’s credit, she has endured those controversies involving sexist remarks well, eventually giving it back in a dignified manner. For instance, when Sanjay Nirupam of congress called her a ‘thumkewali’, she just took him to court.
“The problem in Smriti’s approach to politics,” says a BJP insider, “for which she has the talent and the ambition, is that she has found it necessary to seek godfathers, and if they don’t exist, to invent an imaginary closeness to powerful male figures.” Her first patron in politics when Smriti jointed the BJP in 2003 was the late Pramod Mahajan. Just a year into the party, she wanted to contest a high profile election from Mumbai or Delhi.
Source : Outlook; April, 20, 2015
Learning vocabulary is very essential if you want to score high in IELTS. However, no matter how many words you know, you surely cannot learn the entire dictionary (unless you are Eminem), given the short time you have. So, what is the trick?? Take a phone with internet in it during exam or take the entire dictionary in the exam?? Well, if you do either of them, you are surely going to be at a great loss ( you will be thrown out of the exam). Well, the trick is to understand words sometimes. Rather than learning the dictionary meaning, you need to figure out what words you understood just by reading the entire sentence.
For instance –
“A group from IIT which went to meet her in the avatar of HRD minister”. What possibly could avatar mean?? Just go few words back and few words ahead of avatar in the sentence. Read it and read it again. Once you have done reading, you would understand that it means, in the form of HRD minister. Avatar’s dictionary meaning is surely not form, but then, you can get a bit of idea by the sentence.
Let us take another example – For if Smriti has had to cover a thin skin behind a thick hide, so to speak, she has done a commendable job of it.
When you read this sentence, do you think in any ways the person is trying to bring Smriti in bad light? No, she says that if we talk about covering a thin skin behind a thick skin she did a commendable job. This means a good job.
Obviously, this understanding the vocabulary comes once you have read a lot of material and you have developed a habit of understanding the text. When you have reached the level, those small high vocab words, whose meaning you don’t know won’t annoy.
Even more, this trick if for those people who have their exams nearing up and can’t seem to have a hold of the reading section.
By the way, what is going to happen with the words you just read? Well, don’t worry, you can find the meanings of the words HERE.