Toastmasters has become an integral part of my life and going to its meeting is a beautiful time spent. The organization organizes few competitions every year and among them, I took part in the evaluation contest. In the contest, there was a speaker and I had to evaluate him on his speech, giving him ideas on where the speech can be improved. There were 16 participants and three judges.
I remember I had a work priority on the day and I was juggling between the competition and the workplace. And when it was my turn to speak I missed it. They were gracious enough to let me speak at the last. Once my evaluations were over, the results were announced and I had come at the first place.
The feeling was amazing because I had never given evaluations before and it was my first experience. The best part was the feedback that I got from the audience and the speaker. The speaker felt he had never received a better evaluation and the audience wanted to listen more. For me, the prize had become secondary in front of the feedbacks.
Disappointment in life is a part of life and no one has ever been through life without having any disappointments. This time we are looking at a cue card where you need to talk about something that disappointed you.
Talk about something you were disappointed about.
You should say:
what it was about
when it happened
why it disappointed you
and explain how you felt about it.
SAMPLE ANSWER 1
We have shifted our roots to buying online rather than going offline with friends and buying things. For a long time I had been skeptical about buying things online, but after a few purchases, I once ordered a phone from Amazon. It was my first phone from my salary and I was very excited about it. The company did an amazing delivery and the phone reached to me before the expected time.
I had ordered a Motorola G4 and was expecting to be able to use it for better clicks and my writing. But, it seemed that the phone came with a bit flaw. It had heating issues and the phone used to hang up in every fifteen minutes. Frustrated and agitated I decided on returning the phone. I had bought the phone on 15 June 2015 and returned it on 18 June. My expectations were that the phone would be returned by 25 and then I will buy a new one for myself.
But, somehow it did not happen. I did return my phone but did not get any refund. Initially, I had asked for a cheque and it got delivered to my old address from wherein I could not pick it and the processing began again. It was only after 5th July that I could get my money and hence a phone.
It was truly a very irritating and more disappointing one because I had some plans with my phone and wanted to execute them, but because of phone and money problems, things got messed up.
SAMPLE ANSWER 2
Disappointments are a part of life and I have realized it by now. There have been many times when I have been disappointed because of various things. But, I think the biggest disappointment for me till date has been my failure of being not able to buy a Macintosh. I remember planning for a cheap laptop and maybe a DSLR to start off. But then my love for Macintosh pitched in and I started working for it.
I remember doing extra shifts for my laptop and working even on weekends and long weekends. It took me around 5 months of hard work after which I was able to save money for Macintosh. But, when the time arrived, it so happened that I could not get a major amount of money that I had saved for it and I lost hope. When that happened, I could no longer buy Macintosh for myself. I thought it is not a major thing, but with passing time I did realize that it was important for me.
The one thing that disappointed me the most was initially when searching for Macintosh in my city, I could not find them. However, after some time when the money was gone, there were a lot of places that displayed it. It was only after seven months after buying a DSLR that I was actually able to feel good.
There are so many times that we do certain things to make us happy. Sometimes, traverse the planet, sometimes go visit our friends, sometimes meet our family members. We try to do lot of activities to make sure that we have a great time. But, then there are some times when we fall in a trap. It could be a boring party or for that matter a boring activity you get assigned to. This time we are looking at a cue card that talks about a boring activity that you did.
Describe an activity that you found boring. You should say –
when was it?
where was it?
why did you find it boring?
also, explain, how do you think it could be made interesting?
SAMPLE ANSWER
Activities do bring out the best in me. I love all those activities where one has to interact with the other person or a group of people. Also, if an activity allows me to be creative, it really makes so much sense to me when compared otherwise. But, there are some that do bore me as well. I remember a few days back I went to a workshop for public speaking. It was taken by a toastmaster and had to be an all interactive workshop where one gets to find out how good or bad they are as speakers and then improvise on themselves.
Reaching the place, I met a very enthusiastic person but sadly when the workshop started, it was all presentation. The formal presentation, the do’s and the not to do. For a simple fact that it is important to have a connect with audience, instead of an example there was a line graph, which did bored me.
Towards, the end of the workshop, many people came forward and appreciated the work that he did. The reason, I found the seminar too boring was probably because I had certain other expectations from it. Also, not being very academic I do not like much of lecture pattern. For me to be able to grasp something better, it is important to be indulged in doing it.
To make the presentation more interesting, he could have given us more examples, rather than just stating facts. Also, if one of us could have come forward applied his teaching right there, it might have worked other way round.
Disasters happen frequently all across the world. Some of them are natural while there are many which are man-made disasters. Some of them are of low frequency while many have the power to shake up the world. This time we are looking at a cue card that talks about natural disasters.
Describe a natural disaster that happened in your area. You should say :
when did it happen?
what was it?
how did people react near you?
also, explain what were the major changes that happened post it.
(Download CUE Card)
SAMPLE ANSWER
The year was 2013 and our state was shook from its core. I live in Uttarakhand and in a multi-day cloudburst, it all led to massive floods in the year 2013. It was actually the worst natural disaster to happen in India post the tsunami. There was a lot of destruction of pilgrimages and so many people were left stranded all across the state.
I was in Dehradun at that moment, and the floods did not strike us directly but they did indirectly. Our family members who were living in parts of Tehri happened to be all around with floods. The water came in their houses and they had to evacuate. Although their lives were saved their livelihoods were badly impacted. They lost their house, their clothes and had to start afresh.
The huge was so grave that the prime minister took an aerial survey of the entire state and announced 10 billion to the state. There were many other states and countries as well that came in to help the state financially in the crisis situation. After around a year the state is again back to its normal workings. But the remains of the flood sometimes still remind us of how much it impacted all of our lives.
