my experience and lessons in preparation for ielts..

listening - speaking

Listening is not worrisome for most of those with average level of English. Mostly, people watch holly-wood movies, which imparts a sense of language, but the accent used is not a standard one, which is actually, what we hear in a listening test.
I learned, and want to share, that listening 'good English'* helps a lot in improving not only listening score but speaking, as well.
the benefits I feel are as follows:-

in listening

helps understanding accent well...

makes easy to catch words...

in speaking

helps developing ideas..

helps developing accent...

helps improving style... intonations etc.

*good English:- 

I suggest listening to BBC, as much as one can. The BBC radio telecasts, Podcasts, and many more available at the BBC website( www.bbc.co.uk, or www.bbc.com). There is a section dedicated to the purpose, "BBC learning English" which is very much helpful in assisting the language development, daily usage of English terms etc.

So, here also, I think one should allow enough time for a sound foundation of language development.

The approach at the beginning, shall be, to listen to each of the listening task again and again to get all the answers, rather than moving to next test. This will ensure all answers to be correct and improve the score as well as timing.

 In addition, for speaking one should have a partner, to practice with. Finding someone on SKYPE is also followed by many, and is a good thing to do. 

that was all from my experience with the IELTS .. hope it may, somehow, help to understand IELTS better :)

THANK YOU for reading :)  cheers :)

city design concept Chandigarh, the city beautiful

Recently I came across a very interesting e course provided on www.coursera.org by univ. of Pennsylvania, USA. The contributing professors interact in a very easily understandable way.

As part of its first assignment I wrote about the city beautiful, Chandigarh.

                          

how stuff works in India..

3 years ago I worked hard day and night to appear for one of the most prestigious exam of India i.e Engineering services examination 2012.
I cleared the exam in very first attempt without leaving office and without coaching institute all on my own.
I was very happy to do that, as I should be.
I was called for medical examination to railways hospital Gorakhpur, UP, India in July 2013 and to my misfortunes I was declared unfit for any of the services falling under engg. services.
As per the procedure I had a chance to appeal before the railway board. Which resulted in constitution of a appellate medical board at Central hospital northern railway New Delhi in Sept 2013.
Medical examination at central hospital New Delhi
I was made to appear before a doctor (whose name I don't know remember now), he was not a senior doctor. I was astonished by the im-professional behavior he showed. In the corridor of the hospital without seeing any document he said you are unfit. I asked him about the reference to rules of medical examination then his reply was even more disheartening "agar rules se fit hote ho to hum rule badal lenge rules humne bnaye hain na ki bhagwan ne".
He then went and asked me to wait outside the room of Dr. Sanjeev Singhal ( DMO/Surgery). At around 2 in the afternoon he came and saw my papers and said that you will be communicated the decision.
After reaching home I immediately mailed to railway board about the proceedings and asked them to kindly get my final result be verified from someone specialized in endocrinology( as my issue pertains to this field). But railway board never gave a thought to it as if they never reads the e mail (not so surprising as in 68 years after independence we are not so developed yet). My father went to Dr. Singhal with 4 fitness certificates one from railways itself during my recruitment as Sr. section er. one from CMS hospital Chandigarh( it is a very reputed trust hospital set up by the dean of PGI Dr.Chuttani and is headed presently by Dr. IC Pathak retd. Director PGI), a certificate of Endocrinology dept.  PGI Chandigarh and already I had submitted certificate of Dr. Muralidharan       ( retd. from PGI and presently working in Fortis hospital Mohali).
But to no result as he said if PGI is declaring you fit then go and ask them for your job.


we asked for help from railway board but to result in nothing.
Despite many verbal requests and written communication including a legal notice in Jan 2014 my result was not declared and held because I was chasing the file and they were hopeful of something out of my condition.
( kindly note the dates here they explains a lot about the attitude of working)
on 17th Jan I filed court case in High court Punjab and Haryana, On the first date justice Daya Chaudhary ordered interim orders to keep one post vacant till outcome of the case. I sent a copy of the writ with court orders to Railway board on 22nd and as per delivery report it was delivered on 24th Jan 2014. It was quite surprising that the medical report which could not be prepared for more than 4 months was dispatched on the same day i.e 24th Jan ( as per stamp on the postal envelope).
On next hearing the court case was declared in-fructous as result had been declared meanwhile so I had to file it again with stay orders to be there for 1 week ( It was not at all objected by advocate Sh. Nitin Kumar (Railways) that the case shall not be filed here because of jurisdiction barrier but pertains to the jurisdiction of CAT (central administrative tribunal)). In the first date of the case one post was again kept vacant till outcome of the case. The case went on till Nov-2014 when due to jurisdictional bar it was to be withdrawn from High court and filed in CAT within 3 days.

In the next proceedings railways took 4 extensions to file the reply though reply was there in the earlier case. On the 4th date they asked registrar that they will file the reply just after court, and actually asked for another date. So after 5 extensions and one for preparation of court the matter was heared on 7th May2015.
In the detailed orders court pointed out most of the wrong doings on part of the doctors of railways and the proceedings there and the case was remitted back to the railways to consider it again under the light of observations of the court.
On 10th June a medical examination was held at Kolkata ( Thank gof My future was in the hands of these kind hearted Bengali people), I was declared fit for all services on 1st July 2015 as per the letter from railway board.( this time they were quite quicker as in the afternoon they received the result from Kolkata and in few hours the board accepted the report and letter were typed and got signed from concerned persons and was e-mailed to me).

The proceedings after that were not relieving but actually more pathetic.

On 17th July I called MoWR to ask for status of my joining as one post should have been vacant for me ( by orders of Ho'ble High court from Jan 2014 to Nov 2015 and no vacancy of MoWR for civil engg through ESE2014 and ESE2015). But it was denied as they said they were never informed by railway board about keeping the post vacant.
On 20th July I raised my concern to RB through e mail and now again they didn't respond( as if they read and reply to mails at will not to sort the matter).

despite continuous efforts with 4 written requests telephonic inquiry and RTI ( I wrote about RTI on another blog), I couldn't get any response for my appointment.

I am fed up of complaining and I should be because I have problem with the way they are working.