[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]
Topic: Neighbours
Q 1. How often do you see your neighbours? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: I live in a busy city with lots of busy people in it. Needless to say, my neighbours are also as busy as others in the city, and that’s probably why I don’t get to see them more than once a week, and that too only if/when we are lucky to bump onto each other during the weekends.
Q 2. Do you invite your neighbours to your home? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: Yes, I do invite my neighbours once in a while to my home because it actually allows me to enjoy some light moments from time to time without going out of my home. Besides, it also keeps me updated with the news and events that are taking place in my city. I also like to share special events like a birthday party, or a religious event with them, and during such an event I invite them to my house.
Q 3. Do you think you are a good neighbour? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: Well, I think that this question should be asked to my neighbours because they are the ones who should be able to answer this question in an objective manner. Having said that, however, I do think that I am a reasonably decent human being with some traits of a good neighbour. Since I think and act rationally, avoid doing anything that might disturb my neighbours and extend my helping hands, I believe my neighbours would say that I am a decent neighbour.
Q 4. Has a neighbour ever helped you? [Why/Why not?]
Answer: Yes, I have been lucky enough to have lived among some good neighbours who never hesitated to help me during my bad days, mainly because I have always treated them well and respectably, like a good neighbour. Recently, a good neighbour of mine helped me take my old mother to the hospital after she fell in the bathroom, and without her prompt act and help, things could have been much worse.
You should say:
and explain how you felt when you had successfully completed this task.
[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.]
Cue Card Answer:
Well, for better or worse, junior professionals like me don’t usually get entrusted with very challenging tasks except when companies are left with no better alternatives. And that’s exactly what happened with me when my previous company had to rely on me to actually complete a very difficult task.
The challenge, I am talking about here, was to train a few new recruits – a few junior accounting assistants that are – to work on new accounting software which my company had installed on our desktop computers only recently. Not to mention, I got startled and nervous, to say the least, apparently because it was indeed a very challenging task for a junior employee like me who had been with the company only for 2 years!.
Of course, we all had received some kind of training from the vendor of this software, but it just wasn’t enough to put none of us in a comfort zone as far as training some junior staff was concerned. Besides, what made this task even more challenging for me was that I was ordered to complete the training in just one week! By the way, it is still a mystery to me as to why my managing director had chosen me to accomplish this task, but I am assuming that it probably had something to do with my “computer programming training” a few years ago.
So, moving forward, I got on with the task and started to learn the software again, part by part, from start to finish, to understand all of its features. I even drove 3 times to the vendor’s office, who had built the software, outside of my regular office hours to learn the complicated features of that software before I could actually finish the training successfully.
In the end, I felt really happy and relieved by the fact that I had successfully conducted the training for the new recruits of my company. Besides, I also felt a bit proud of my achievement because my boss could finally keep some confidence in my ability and skills to complete a challenging task successfully even though I was not one of the senior employees who usually do such tasks.
Discussion topics: Difficult jobs
Q 1. What are the most difficult jobs that people do?
Answer: Depending on how one defines “difficult”, I would venture to suggest that the most difficult jobs are the ones that require a high level of physical fitness, as well as those which pose a significant threat to one’s life and health. Now, based on this definition, I would say that heavy-duty truck driving jobs, road and building construction jobs, and wild/deadly animal training jobs are some of the most difficult jobs that people do. Some people would also consider the jobs of building heavy machinery and tools, and the job of a firefighter as some difficult jobs.
Q 2. Why do you think some people choose to do difficult jobs?
Answer: Well, there could be various reasons for which some people choose to do difficult jobs. The first reason could be that they actually don’t see those jobs as “difficult” as others do. Rather they actually do those jobs because of their “adventurous” nature. Then, some people do those difficult jobs because they actually pay good money too, sometimes. Not having enough skills or education could also force some people to do difficult jobs which other people don’t like to do.
Q 3. Do you agree or disagree that all jobs are difficult sometimes?
Answer: Yes, I do think that all jobs can be difficult sometimes because of the circumstances under which they are performed. For example, delivering a pizza to someone’s door can be a fairly simple task on a regular day under normal weather conditions. But the same job can pose a big challenge if it is done in a cold winter when the temperature is below “minus” and when roads and streets are filled with “slippery” ice. I hope that I have managed to explain my viewpoint with this example.
Discussion topics: Personal and career success
Q 4. How important is it for everyone to have a goal in their personal life?
Answer: Well, I have a feeling that majority of the people would vehemently here disagree with me, but I am of the opinion that it is not that important for everyone to have a goal in personal life. After all, it is not always easy to choose a goal that would complement our lifestyles, family expectation, and professional affiliations, perfectly, meaning having a goal in our personal life can actually rather complicate things. Besides, why bother to set a goal when you are just “happy” to live one day, at a time?!
Q 5. Is it always necessary to work hard in order to achieve career success?
Answer: Well, since there is no “universally accepted definition” of “working hard” and “career success” as yet, I will have to simply disagree with such a sweeping statement that suggests that working hard is the only way to career success. In fact, if a person keeps working hard all his life, there is a very good possibility that he will either become physically and mentally unwell or become very bored with his life. After all, we are only “human”, as opposed to being “robots”, and therefore, we also need other things, except just “works”, to live a balanced and happy life.
Q 6. Do you think that successful people are always happy people?
Answer: Well, I can’t talk for all the successful people in this world, but the successful people, I have met so far in my life, are always seemed to be projecting themselves as some “happy people”. Of course, there is a very good reason to believe that the “parameters of success” for these people probably differ from each other rather significantly, but that in no way should be considered an obstacle to being truly happy and content. So, finally, I would like to say that successful people are not always happy people but all of us should try to be happy no matter if society considers us successful or not.
This post was last modified on 21st April 2022 3:42 pm