[The examiner asks the candidate about him/herself, his/her home, work or studies and other familiar topics.]
Topic: Your friends
Q. Do you prefer to have one particular friend or a group of friends? [Why?]
A. I had many friends in my childhood and over time, the number has shrunk. These days, I have a few close friends, four to five to be precise, and all them are dear to me. To answer the question, I like to maintain my friendship with all of them rather than a single friend.
Q. What do you like doing most with your friend/s?
A. I like to discuss personal issues with them, talk about contemporary news and events, express our opinions on political news, share our plans, sometimes play sports and watch movies together. Being able to discuss anything without any hesitation is the best part of having good friends.
Q. Do you think it’s important to keep in contact with friends you knew as a child? [Why/Why not?]
A. I think childhood friends are special to us in many ways and they share the most magical memories of our childhood. So whenever possible, we should contact them and keep in touch with them. However, with the passage of time, we often lose contact with these friends and cannot meet them even though we wish we could.
Q. What makes a friend into a good friend?
A. I believe trustworthiness and commitment are really important to develop a good friendship. I would want a friend to be trustworthy to become a close friend on mine. Besides, common interests, similar mentality and shared objectives often make some friends special to us.
[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.]
You should say:
and explain how you felt when you were making this choice.
Cue Card Answer:
In life, we make our choices whether we like it or not. Some of those choices, that we make, prove out to be wise while the others, let’s say, not “so-wise”. However, choosing between two choices, that seems to be equally promising and beneficial, can really be a tricky business. But, that’s exactly what I did almost fifteen years ago when I had to choose between staying with my loving and elderly parents in my small town and leaving to study economics on scholarship at one of the best universities in my country which was almost 300 miles away from my parents’ place. Of course, after a long debate and deliberation with myself and all of my well-wishers, I finally decided to stay with my loving parents in my own little town.
After making my choice, initially, I didn’t exactly make too much of it as I knew exactly what I was doing, and why I was doing it. In fact, when I made the decision, I listened to my heart instead of my head. I just felt, since I have a rather traditional frame of mind where families and friends always come first, that I did the right thing as it at least made my elderly parents very happy and assured. When I was making the choice, I also knew that I almost surely would lose the opportunity to build a very successful career later on in my life. So, I was already preparing myself to work even harder to make up for the “loss” while staying and studying in my own little town with very limited working opportunity. Besides, I was also a bit nervous about how my friends would “treat and accept” me since I would be studying at a local college instead of a “university”.
But, after fifteen years, when I come to think of my decision, I certainly think that I made a good choice as things have turned out to be just fine for my life and family. In fact, it was because of that decision I feel that life is all about how we choose to feel about ourselves rather than trying to fit into the “definition of others”. Besides, having seen how my elderly parents have appreciated my presence close to them every moment for the last 15 years or so, I have no doubt in my mind that it was one of the best decisions in my life.
Discussion topics: Important choices
Q. What are the typical choices people make at different stages of their lives?
A. Well, in our childhood, our parents make most of the choices for us, but as we grow up, we start doing more and more of it ourselves. We become selective about our attire and friends in teenage, and often decide which subjects to study and what activities to get involved in. Then we pick up our majors at the college and chose the music we like, the sports we play, the friends we make, the food we eat and we plan for our future. Afterwards, we chose our life partner, chose a career, pick our tour destinations, select a house to live in and make many financial decisions. At a later stage, when we get old, we decide a place to live in and take some leisure activities to spend our time and wish to live the rest of our life happily. In between, we make a thousand other choices and few of them are so ordinary like picking a dress for a party while some of them are so important that they determine our future till we leave our last breath on earth.
Q. Should important choices be made by parents rather than by young adults?
A. I think that depends on the type of choices we are considering. If it is about which school to pick for a teenager, parents are better suited to do so. However, if it is about the sports the young boy or girl should take part in, then the children’s choice should get a priority. I believe, parents should make most of the important choices for their young children but should leave very personal choices like music, sports, leisure activity and type of friends for their offsprings to decide. Parents can, however, provide guidance and support to their children to make sure they do their best.
Q. Why do some people like to discuss choices with other people?
A. I believe every important choice we make has a great influence on the later courses of our life. This is why we often seek advice or opinion of others we trust to be assured that we are on the right track. Some people are not good decision makers and often rely on their close friends and relatives for the guideline. Others, however, just want to get a second opinion before deciding something.
Discussion topics: Choices in everyday life
Q. What kind of choices do people have to make in their everyday life?
A. I believe we are knowingly and unknowingly making a large number of choices every single day of our life. People decide what to have in their breakfast and then what to wear before leaving home. A mom decides what to do for her kids and an officegoer decides which route to take to reach the office. Thus we decide our food, clothes, routes, tasks, shopping list, to do list, a book to read, a movie to watch, whom to contact, which websites to browse, and so many ordinary things on a daily basis. We are, however, often forced to make important decisions every now and then like switching our job, taking a course, buying something expensive, making a lifestyle change, taking a new activity and so on.
Q. Why do some people choose to do the same things every day? Are there any disadvantages to this?
A. I believe some people are happy to follow a strict routine as they think a daily routine is much better to follow than not having one at all. Others, however, find it difficult to take up challenges and thus want to stay in their comfort zone all the time. These people love to lead a secure life and often become contented in things they do regularly. So they end up doing the same thing over and over again. Some of these people are convinced that they have nothing more interesting and rewarding to do.
I think this approach has some downsides. They often miss out the excitement of life and never try something challenging yet highly rewarding. I believe, they often miss the hidden opportunity in life and career.
Q. Do you think that people today have more choices to make than in the past?
A. I quite believe so. We are living in an ultra modern age where we have so many options and choices. Despite this fact, the number of choices we have to make has increased with the passage of time. With the ever-increasing number of the world population, things are highly competitive and our lifestyle shift has forced us to make frequent choices than ever before.
The good news is that the spectrum of options we have in our lives today has increased significantly than the past, and these choices range from simple consumer products to major life decisions and we have the internet to do research before we decide something.
This post was last modified on 23rd April 2019 5:09 pm