Wisdom Highlights

  Specific Tips For The Absolute Beginners Well, for those of the IELTS aspirants who haven’t yet stepped into the arena, and are planning to face the exam, I am going to share insights from my distilled experience of being an IELTS Trainer from more than a decade now. For the absolute beginners, the worrisome part is challenging open ended syllabus of the exam which requires proficiency in English language in all the four major skills, that is, Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. In times of information explosion, there is so much you can read before you can actually begin to prepare for acquainting yourself with “what all to expect”. The beginners need to know that IELTS Band score of 6 or 6.5 is often required in universities or colleges worldwide. Let us begin by understanding grading part of the IELTS ACADEMIC Exam for getting the score of 6.0, 6.5 or 7. SECTION-WISE BREAK-UP OF IELTS BAND SCORE 6 & 7 Check the following table to understand the section-wise SCORE t...

  The most repeated question: “Is there really a shortcut to success?” The answer to this varies greatly from one person to another. Some people ascribe success to dedicated efforts while others believe that its destiny/luck that plays it hugest part in attaining success. Well, this is one of those question types which has no “right” or “wrong” answer. Our experiences have solidified into our belief systems over a period of time, and hence what worked for us became our reality. After so many years of experience with IELTS Training, I have realized that for every student the success is derived from varied factors, although the common remains, taking the “smart way” rather than the “hard way”. That “smart way” simply means what is desirous from examiner’s point of view, what is the present level of the candidate, and what practically achievable plan can be made looking at the time period left for the exam. This, though, needs a skill in itself. With guidance from expert, of cou...

Goddess Durga's Spirit This Time! This time seems to be a time of revolutionary spirits. Suddenly, we are reading about the hurt sentiments of women echoing in the messages such as "This Navaratri lets pray that no Durga is aborted, no Saraswati is stopped going from school, no Lakshmi has to beg for money for living, no Parvati is sacrificed for dowry, no Sita has to suffer in silence and no Kali is given a tube of fairness cream".  This is a strong message, and for a change, the one which is liked and not trolled. It gave me such pleasure to wake up to this message one morning because in an instant my yesterday walk-time musings that left me with the thought "it will take another 100 years for India to change for good still" changed into hopeful smile for " CHANGE is coming ". Though the change is still crawling because it is more worded than in action but at least it is being finally talked about.  Just when you as woman n...

Life's Autobiographical: Part Made, Part in Making I know the brow-raising on listening to the title "Life is Predictable"  because we feel offensive these days if we are told we have made our lives however it is today - miserable, full of disappointments, void of relationships to put trust on, not being successful, or rarely joyous! "This" is so because it is such a heavy burden to take and such an easy thing to bestow upon others. By "this", I mean " responsibility " or " owning up ". Introspection is a real bad thing to go for because most often either we stand guilty in that or we simply evade it for the fear of the result. There are those who don't feel it necessary. Those are happy people whether because  of ignorance of it, or simply because whatever they are doing is accidentally proving to be the right decision for them until now.  To explain myself, I need to journey with you. Look at any...

Who’s Responsible for This? Image Source: Google Images While we often wonder on “ what went wrong ” and also that “ who did it to me ?”, we rarely invest thought and time in thinking that “ where were we when this was happening to us ?” It has been long that we have accepted ourselves to be victim of circumstances and relationships. Whether one accepts it or not but nothing could have passed through him/her without his/her knowledge. Since we were the part of all that we were going through, it is high time to own up responsibility, and thus understand that  we have the key to make amends. just an honest poetic musing this morning: Curse that and crib this As things went off road "Who did what" was a big deal Until I discovered Power of acceptance That I let it happen! I saw it through me I wasn't sleeping or absent I did not wish though at all For unpleasantness to take over Nor did I want situations to command But then ...