0Communicating ideas understandably and impressively is a skill that is desired in all fields of life. Most of us have been using at least two means of communication: speaking and writing. Test of speaking and writing skills demands grammatically correct, coherent and fluent answers.
During any speaking test one should focus on the question asked and try to present the answer in the following format:
* one line concise answer to the question.
* elaborate the opinion/argument/claim keeping in mind to use a wider vocabulary.
* Conclude using a statement.
Note that using different types of sentence structures, phrases, idioms and fitting adjectives would do your writing and speak more impressive. However, this should not be done at the expense of fluency in speaking.
Examples Speaking:
Q. What is your opinion about punctuality in life?
A. Respecting and managing time should be everyone's priority, and this can be efficiently inculcated in our lives by being punctual. (This is your opinion)
By being late for something, we waste precious time of others and ourselves. From our school days, we were taught to be punctual. This is still helping us in managing our time without being stressed. For example, I am always the first one to reach my workplace, and hence, I can also leave my office on time. As a result, I get time for personal activities and feel satisfied at the end of the day. I am not very proud to say that in my country many people are in the habit of being late for everything. On a lighter note, even the trains are never on time here, and this has become a reason for a great loss to our economy.
(This elaborates your thought, and the last statement ends the conversation on a good note so let it be the conclusion)
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Writing tests are both easier and difficult as compared to reading. Easier because one gets time to think, organise, present and edit. Difficult because one is expected to include more elements of the language to embellish the piece. Writing should be organised in the following way:
* Before actual writing-Read the question carefully and draw a flowchart to organise your writing. The flowchart may be roughly divided into four sections- 1) Intro 2) Fact/ Reason1 3)Fact/ Reason2 4) Conclusion.
* Intro can be started using a fitting phrase or quotation. The intro should be short, crisp and to the point. The last line of intro should provide transition platform for next para.
* If you asked to give your opinion/ argument/ agree/disagree type question, start with the most important point in favour of your opinion/argument. First line should be a statement to the same effect. Next elaborate the idea with examples.
* The second fact should be the one which is relevant to your topic and has content to back it up.
* The last para should be a conclusion/ suggestion as required by the question.
To obtain an impressive piece of writing, transition words, phrases, idioms and adjectives should be used smartly. Also, keep the writing within or close to a word limit.
Please look up for my next lecture for an example of writing.
Hope this helps and good luck with writing and speaking!
