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[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]
Topic – Giving gifts:
Q. When do people give gifts or presents in your country?
Answer: People in my country like to exchange gifts whether there is an occasion for it not. However, they love to give gifts or presents, even more, when people are celebrating any ceremonies like birthdays or wedding. People also love to give gifts when they are celebrating the Chinese New Year.
Q. Do you ever take a gift when you visit someone in their home? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: Yes, I do take gifts with me when I visit someone because giving gifts to friends and families help create a stronger bond among each other. This is true for neighbors and colleagues as well. I take the gifts with me in order to show that I actually value and appreciate their presence in my life and thankful for all of their love and help.
Q. When did you last receive a gift? [What was it?]
Answer: I actually feel lucky to be among one of those people who receive gifts from his friends and family members. The last time I received a gift was about several months ago when my elder brother gave me a beautiful smartphone which he purchased when visiting a foreign country.
Q. Do you enjoy looking for gifts for people? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: Yes, I just enjoy looking for gifts for people, in fact, so much so that I even sometimes spend the entire day looking for perfect gifts. I enjoy it so much primarily because it is just fun to be able to look at new things and new gift ideas. It even feels more satisfying when my friends and relatives ask me about what kinds of gifts to buy as if I am some kind of “gift expert”!
[The topic for your talk will be written on a card which the examiner will hand you. Read it carefully and then make some brief notes.]
Describe a person who has done a lot of work to help people.
and explain how you know about this person.
[ You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]
[Examiner: All right? Remember you have one to two minutes for this, so don’t worry if I stop you. I’ll tell you when the time is up. Can you start speaking now, please?]
Model Answer:
“Cricket” isn’t exactly a popular sport in China, at least not popular in the part of China where I live. So, about a few months ago, when my Indian friend and co-worker asked me to join them in a friendly cricket match, I was a bit skeptical, to say the least, not because I didn’t enjoy the game, but because I thought that the game was a bit too difficult for me to learn. Nevertheless, I agreed to join since my Indian friend promised to “train” me well before the start of the match.
So, my training started at a local football park since we didn’t exactly have any “cricket field” in China. By the way, my friend had asked me earlier, before the training started, if I would prefer throwing a “ball” to someone or hitting a ball out of the park with a bat. Without thinking much, I said that I would rather like to hit the ball out of the park! So, my friend declared me as a “batsman”. Anyway, my friend tried his best to teach me how to “hit” ball with my “bat”, and once the training was over, I was told by my Indian friend that I would play in his “team” as a batsman.
Anyway, being a part of a cricket team was really a new experience for me primarily because I never really played that sport before. It was also exciting for me because, in the process of learning the game, I actually did manage to hit a few balls out of the park by hitting them with my bats which, I thought, wasn’t possible! Besides, I also realized that “cricket” was not only about “hitting” the balls as hard as one could, but one also would need to make a lot of smart calculations and “moves” before trying to hit the ball in order to avoid getting caught or “out” by the opponent team. It was also exciting for me because I finally realized “cricket” wasn’t really a very difficult sport to learn and play!
Discussion topics:
Doing new things:
Q. Why do you think some people like doing new things?
Answer: It is just in our human nature to try out new things. Some people try new things just for the “fun” of it while others like doing new things because they genuinely want to help out their fellow human beings by discovering or inventing something completely new. Then, there is another group of people who like to try new things simply because they are just too bored with doing the same things over and over again. Anyway, whatever is the reason for which people like doing new things, they usually open up the doors for new opportunities. In fact, if we didn’t like doing new things, we, as the human race, would still be wearing leaves of trees and eating raw meats!
Q. What problems can people have when they try new activities for the first time?
Answer: When people try new activities for the first time, a major problem they face is that they become nervous simply because it is our human nature to fear the “unknown”. The next problem they probably face is that they get “discouraged” by their so-called well-wishers not to try out anything new. But, even if we “cross” this first hurdle, the next thing we worry about is whether we will able to do them properly or not – just the way they are supposed to be done. But, then, when we finally do try the new activities after crossing all the hurdles, the chances are we will fail. And once we fail, we will probably give up trying new activities, which is, of course, a worst-case scenario.
Q. Do you think it’s best to do new things on your own or with other people? Why?
Answer: Well, it depends on what we are trying. But, I think that it is best to do new things with other people mainly because they will probably be able to guide us from the very start to ensure our success. But, in case we fail, we won’t probably feel so bad and embarrassed since there is a chance that somebody else also has failed. Besides, trying new things together with other people won’t make us feel as nervous as we would have tried it alone, in case if we need help.
Learning new things:
Q. What kinds of things do children learn to do when they are very young? How important are these things?
Answer: As very young children, the first things, they learn are ‘smell’ and ‘taste’, followed by recognizing “speech” and ‘faces’ as growing up further. By the time a toddler is two, his or her language skills are at “peak” and start to pick up “bits and pieces” of conversations from their fathers, mothers and siblings. By the age of 5, children start to learn reading, throwing/catching a ball, drawing images and writing their names neatly. By the age of 7, they learn how to ride a bicycle as well as learn how to become “competitive”.
Whatever the children learn, when they are very young, prove out to be very important for their proper cognitive development which is remembering, problem-solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.
Q. Do you think children and adults learn to do new things in the same way? How is their learning style different?
Answer: There are fundamental differences between the way in which children and adults learn. Children depend on adults to learn something while adults usually learn through a self-learning process without necessarily depending on others. While children usually are motivated by the idea of rewards and punishments to learn something, adults learn something mostly out of “curiosity”.
Besides, while children, in principle, are opened to the idea of learning pretty much anything, adults mostly choose to learn what, they think, is “relevant” to their lives. Finally, while children treat “learning” as their first job and priority, the adults think of learning as a “secondary” thing to their careers and families in general.
Q. Some people say that it is more important to be able to learn new things now than it was in the past. Do you agree or disagree with that? Why?
Answer: I do agree with it when somebody says that it is more important to learn new things these days than it was in the past mainly because life, in general, has become much more difficult and competitive in the modern era than in the past. For example, in the past, it was enough to have a simple graduation degree in any subject and get a respectable job, but now even a doctoral degree in a very demanding subject isn’t enough to get even a very simple job in some cases. Besides, these days, we demand more from our lives, as opposed to what we demanded in the past, which forces us to come up with new ideas and opportunities to make our life more comfortable. And, without learning new things, it is just not possible to create new opportunities for our as well as others lives.
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