New Effort, Last Effort

Years ago, in early 2007, I had a freelance work on a book about a girl fought her way out of depression. That was my first time confronting this issue. I learned about depression from her stories, and I remember thinking I can relate to her struggle to some extent. But back then I didn’t consider the possibility seriously, perhaps because I wasn’t losing myself, perhaps because I still can handle it.

Between 2008 to 2010, I had moments when I just wanted to disappear. Accepting the fact that I failed to study abroad costed me three days zombie-ing in my room. And my family’s undergoing turbulent challenges put me—all of us, indeed—in constant stress. All I wanted was to go to school again.

I started graduate school in 2010 and things declined steadily. Some of my friends were young women dreaming of a happy marriage—one of the reasons why I wanted to study abroad, avoiding this kind of talk. I started PhD classes in 2011, a nervous little girl among experienced lecturers and researchers. Soon I realized that a PhD thesis was beyond my league. And I had to work. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

How to Tackle the Paper-Based IELTS Reading Comprehension

The basic rule is DON’T SKIM. You just have to do everything in moderate speed. As long as you don’t slack while doing the test, you’ll be fine. Surely, it is advised that you get adequate practice to improve your so-called “moderate” speed.

If you have some difficulties in understanding the reading passage, well, those in the paper-based IELTS are actually simple. A paragraph consists of a main sentence and some supporting sentences. Meanwhile, a sentence’s core has a subject and a verb. Have yourself some exercises to mentally break the passage in this way. Don’t get confused with long paragraphs or seemingly endless sentences, because they are all basically the same.

1. Read the first three sentences, look if there is any question related to what you’ve found there. Make a temporary answer if it is possible.
2. Read the rest of the paragraph, look again at the questions. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to answer most of them by then.
3. Repeat step 1 for the next paragraph(s).
4. After reading the whole passage, check the answers you’ve made so far. There may be something you misunderstood when you only had read the first paragraph.

This way, you would not waste your time reading without answering any question (and likely to forget what you’ve just read). Moreover, it would be safer than getting lost in the passage when you try to answer the questions directly.

Dealing with the vocabulary questions is tricky when you have very little knowledge in the area. The best way to prepare yourself is reading everything and make sure that you look for the difficult words (and memorize them, of course). Books specifically telling you about what and how to memorize the most popular words occuring in IELTS would also help you much.

However, if your time is running out, go get yourself a lot of IELTS practice tests. Coin new words there, find their meanings. Make sure that you learn something from the answers’ explanation because experience would make you remember at best.

To Hit the Books or To Surf the Net

People nowadays are enjoying the benefits generated by the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is possible for you to look for many kinds of information by surfing the Web without having to go out of your house, even get out of your bed. By a few clicks and keywords, you are led to anything you want to know about your favorite rock star or the recipe of a Korean dish you have just had the other day. Moreover, our fast-paced busy life should thank the existence of online media, both text and video, for it allows us to keep up with the hot issues with the slightest distraction from our demanding daily activities. That is how the Internet cover our need of conventional radio, newspaper, and television. Now, when it is compared to the classic source of information, books, does the Internet still able to emulate them?

In case of learning something, the Internet can help you catch the gist of it but books are vital to give you a thorough and credible information. You can say, hey, there are websites out there with the same weight of content! It is a flawed argument for there is a fatal weakness in the Web: anyone can post anything freely there. You can not do the same thing with books, especially those printed by the notable publishers. There are copywriters and editors who conduct tough selections among the scripts. This kind of process is extremely rare in the Web.

The next point that is going to be elaborated in this paragraph is the fact that the Internet is also a medium to access books. Books, in nature, are pages containing some accumulated information which were written for a certain purpose and function. In this advanced world, it is not necessary for books to be tangible. To avoid shipping problems and limitations, you can buy the digital version of particular books and print them by your very own printer or you can just read them on your screen. What help you to do this? The Internet. Therefore, even though you begin with the cyberspace in your study, you will end up reading books available there.

Eventually, it is not possible for us to learn just as much by surfing the Internet and the World Wide Web as by reading books. The information available in the cyberspace are overall and superficial. To learn something at best, reading books are still the most helpful way.

GRE Issue Task 5

No business should sacrifice the quality of its products or services for the sake of maximizing profits.

The speaker asserts that, in any business, maximum profit goals should not render the quality of products and services to be sacrificed. I strongly agree with this claim. I see that instead of leveraging profit by reducing cost, the loss of quality will only stimulate a downward trend of revenue. This inclination works out for all kinds of businesses, as elaborated below.

Let us begin with tangible products, namely toys, food, and electronic devices. A corporation may skip a single step in its production to cut its production cost. Assuming that it is the safety check such as rounding sharp tips in children toys, bacterial scanning in food, or electrical stability in home theater sets, those products will be harmful. As soon as they find it, people will throw it away and the company will lose its market. Even worse, there is a possibility that consumers will sue the company because its products have hurt them.

Service-based business is our next target. How do you think of a hotel with a bad service quality would be? People will not recommend it to their peers, let alone they will come back again. What about an airport which always make its passengers feel stressful due to its lack of friendly officers and complicated administration? Even if there is no rival to worry about, individuals will fly more often if they know they will find themselves feel comfortable in the airport. Furthermore, I suggest that the airport should add more facilities related to its passengers’ needs, such as a free hotspot area or a handphone charger booth. Despite of their maintenance costs, these facilities will attract more customers, and result in more profit as what every corporation strives for.

Last but not least, this issue is also viable in the internet, particularly the social media sites. Facebook, for instance, has to restrain itself from accepting too many advertisements in its site. A bigger number of marketing deals with big companies will generate a bigger sum of money in the short term, but visitors will consider it as a quality loss. They will distaste Facebook for its letting a bunch of third-parties attacking them with unnecessary campaigns, and eventually rely on other sites in the same category. As lack of visitors means the death of an internet-based business, Facebook would wither and die as a consequence. This possible disaster is why Facebook should strictly maintain its quality rather than pursuing profit maximization.

As now it is clear that sacrificing the quality for profit will only result in undesirable ends, I appeal that every business leader should find a way to gain more profit by maintaining or even increasing the quality of its products and services. In the end of the day, the market will respect it and the corporation will stand out among its competitors.

GRE Issue Task 4

As adults, we prefer to define ourselves more by our occupation than by our affiliation with social groups.

The speaker claims that grown-ups have a bigger inclination to identify themselves to their occupations compared to which social groups they belong to. In my point of view, it is a reckless statement for its generalizing every adult and every single occupation to have the same attitude toward his job. Such behavior, I am certain of it, differs based on some factors explained below.

First of all, let us see how the speaker could make such assertion. I admit that there are those who are happier to be associated by their professions than to be highlighted as a part of any social groups. It is mostly seen, as far as I am concerned, in the eyes of people love their jobs by heart. They pick up their job for their passion to it despite of what others say about this job. For a painter, for instance, drawing his pieces is in his heart and soul, and he can only recognize himself as a painter since he does not mind of being a part of any larger community. Other individuals with a strong proclivity to their employment are those with conventionally-successful profession such as doctors, business directors, and lawyers.

However, we must not forget that there are those who are not fortunate enough to grab the job of their dreams. What about an agriculture faculty graduate whose only choice is working in a bank? Could he identify himself as a banker? Moreover, if his family members are farmers and he used to live between them, there is a big possibility that he would relate himself more to his family background than to his livelihood. Another factor is the society’s negative assumption to certain professions. Low-income occupation, namely factory labors and drivers, might not be something people want to define themselves by. In addition, we should not forget that rich people tend to associate themselves with their wealth, no matter what they do for their living.

Now it is viable that someone’s occupation may not always be his first choice to identify himself. How he loves the job, how people think about it, and how he used to live would affect this inclination. Therefore, the speaker’s statement is only accessible to some adults, not all.

GRE Issue Task 3

I made this issue myself.

The existence of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has led to various criminal acts, especially to teenagers. Therefore, such sites should be banned completely from the Internet.

The speaker stated that social networking sites should be abolished for its risking the safety of us and our family. I assert that this strong opposition is based on tangible reasons, but stripping these sites from our life forever is unnecessary. In that case, I propose the idea that this risk is preventable and we can live side by side with them in peace if we know how to do it.

To begin with, I will provide you with a brief elaboration on what “risk” means in this issue. Some people believe that as you joined these sites, you exposed your identity. Facebook is full of advertisements craving for not only the users’ eyeballs, but also specific details about them—yes, about you! These preys have a wide range of tricks to manipulate you to give them your identity as well as your friends’. There are those fascinating applications, namely quizzes, games, and groups who can obtain an access to your profile and use it for their ends. I think it is still insignificant, of course, when their intentions are to use this information as their research for a new product or to attack you with a whole lots of other product campaigns. The problem is what about if such tricks are used by deliberate villains? These malign individuals might find out where their potential victims live, when they go to school, what do they like, and then they might create a perfect plan to lure them out to the real world. That is how we ended up having a portion of undesirable news about kidnapping, rape, fraud, and even murder stemmed from these sites some people cannot live without.

As a counter-attack, I would like to point that Facebook has a privacy setting, as well as other sites in this category do. Any member can protect themselves from anyone, including those in her own Facebook friend list, prohibiting undesired and unexpected parties to take a peek on her photos, notes, profile information, and others. Even if you do not touch the privacy setting, you do not have to share genuine specific information about yourselves. Just use a nickname and go tell your friends that it is you by the private message service or when you see them offline. In addition, the applications’ sharing your identity always asks your permission to do it. If you want to be safe, you can simply ignore them.

Nevertheless, I regret to admit that some users are not aware of this rule, and hence their very private identities are viable to random people. This incognizance is caused by the complicated items in the privacy setting. These ignoramuses just want to have some fun, and reading the “cryptic” explanation hurts their delicate brains. Another possibility is they do not have any idea that this setting exists because there are those young users interacting in Facebook or Friendster as their first online experience.

What should be done, then? The U.S. Senators have urged Facebook to simplify their rules and setting, but it is not only the Facebook administrator team’s job to ensure our young people are safe. Parents and teachers have the same obligation to raise online safety awareness among teenagers, to explain the rules and consequences to them, and to forbid those under sixteen years old to maintain an account in these sites. In the end of the day, social networking sites will remain exist with minimum risk.

GRE Issue Task 2

Statement
In any field of endeavor, an individual’s best critics are the individual’s own colleagues or other peers in that field.

In your view, how accurate is the foregoing statement? Develop and support your viewpoint with relevant reasons and examples and by considering ways in which the statement may or may not be true.

Essay
It is reasonable that someone have to develop and improve themselves in order to survive in his life, including in his occupation. To ascertain that he is progressing, an individual must have critics from others. Are not self-critics enough? Apparently, anyone has an inclination to see what they want to see only, missing many things essential to his evaluation. To lose this subjective manner is exactly why everyone need to be evaluated by other individuals. Now, the remaining question is whether critics from those engaged in the same field or critics from the rest of the humanity is the best.
I can see why someone goes straightly to his peers from the very same pool of professional when he needs some critics or encounters any problem, especially when he is dealing with a very specific field being understood only by particular parties—physics, computer programming, pharmacy, etc. Undoubtedly, a pharmacist can not ask a businessman if there is something wrong with the new formula of the sleeping pill he just made since this “simple” question requires an understanding which takes years of reading and experimenting.

In different cases, critics from common people are more enlightening than those from someone’s colleagues of the same field. For instance, a marketer can learn why his last campaign failed by consulting a number of individuals among his targeted market. It is better than spending his whole time with his colleagues, wondering about what people think about his methods that led to no avail. A politician, similarly, may generate evaluations from the citizens—his people—about his achievements. They will be far more objective from his peers who want to tackle him down or merely laud him for a better seat. Despite the fact that they have limited professional knowledge of marketing and politics, these “outsiders” are to who the marketer presents his products and for who the politician works.

From the given arguments above, it is clear that people of some fields depend on their peers to get critics. Nevertheless, listening to common individuals can be more useful to professionals of other fields. In the end, by contemplating these critics, an individual can improve himself and become a lot better in his endeavor.

GRE Issue Task 1

Issue Statement
“Schools should be responsible not only for teaching academic skills but also for teaching ethical and social values.”

Essay
Addressing the issue of involving ethical and social values in schools is apparently more complicated than it is stated by the speaker. Despite my concordance to this idea, I am aware that its application is rather intricate and inherent to various aspects, not only that of the students but also that of others associated to the educational system.

First of all, the school must decide which ethical and social values necessary to be taught. In a homogenous environment, such as an all-Christian school or an all-Chinese school, this problem might not entail too many concern and mystification. On the other hand, it would be more difficult for any level of educational institute with diverse backgrounds among its teachers and students. However, there are universal values decent enough for students of any upbringing to learn. Simple values such as respecting others and solving problems without conflict can be taught in neutral contexts.

An argument to support the critical need of teaching ethical and social values at schools is that students spend almost one-third of their time a day there. Therefore, schools play an important role as places where children and teenagers develop their attitude and behavior. If the pedagogues ignore this and only focus on their students’ academic achievements, these youngsters would have to learn such values from the rest available sources, namely family, friends, and media. The problem is however good-natured their parents are, they simply cannot always follow the children at schools and tell what is good and bad. Meanwhile, friends do not feel like they have responsibility to guide others to good deeds, and media is exploiting anything sold well regardless of its impacts.

Unfortunately, there is a drawback of imposing the teaching of such values at schools. Teachers will bear a larger responsibility, exhausting their time and energy. This fact might end up in teachers’ demanding a payment rise, and then trigger a rise of the school fee as well. Curriculum would have to be reconstructed, and it would take a while before managing to establish a proper one to pursue both academic record and values teaching. Nevertheless, these are trivial compared to what might and had happened to children studying at schools which neglect this issue. There are those bullied by his or her friends, being called as a “gay” or a “whore” continuously until they cannot stand it and then they commit suicide. It is very likely to happen when these children do not understand that they should not intimidate others and the consequences that might follow.

In the end of the day, schools must also teach ethical and social values at any cost. Any problem and complexity occur is expected, but letting schools to abandon it is a worse alternative.

My IELTS Tips: Personally Proven to be Effective!

I’ve got my second IELTS result. It’s a big success, since my overall score is 8.0, having improved from 7.0 in the test taken nine weeks previously. I really want to share it with you. I won’t tell you the whole long journey though, but I’ve read many books and done tons of exercises (nah, it's "only" 40 modules, yuck). Hence, not only I found that some of them were useful for me; I also developed my own method.

General Tips
Study grammar and improve your vocabulary. They are essential for every part of the test. It would be best for you if you do it with books specified for IELTS, and make contact with English as much as possible by reading English articles, watching English news, and so on. You can download a lot of practice test in the internet, including the listening recordings, as long as you are persistent. These cool links will help you to get started!

IELTS blog

IELTS-exam

examenglish



Tips for IELTS Reading
DON’T SKIM. I know that many people out there advise you to skim and scan the texts because you won’t have enough time for careful reading. In fact, I read my texts in moderate speed, and I got 9.0 (between one mistake and none at all). I’ll tell you how.

In my first test, I skimmed and scanned the texts, and then I confused, panic and lost my direction. Worst of all, in the last desperate few minutes, I still have four questions waiting to be read. My score was 7.0 back then (it’s good, I know, but it’s not satisfying for my intended universities).

Now, this is what I did in my second test—yes, the wonderful one (big thanks to my friend Andy who reminded me not to skim the text, he's a strong reader himself). First of all, I read the title (if available), and the very first line to grab the topic of the reading text. Then I went on to the questions. Usually, there are three sets of questions in one text (let’s call it SET A, SET B, and SET C). I didn’t have to memorize them, but I did try to know what they were about—choosing headings/opinions, describing a process/event, labeling an equipment, etc. This step cost me not more than 2 minutes.

At this point, I went back to the text, and start reading it. As soon as I found that the first paragraph contained information I need to answer questions in SET B, I made my answers and gave a bold underline and a number (of which the line provided its answer). In other words, when I was reading the first two paragraphs, I was also answering questions in SET B. As I arrived in the third paragraph, I figured out that they belonged to questions in SET A. I did what I had done with the previous paragraphs, and then repeated it for the final ones. After copying these answers to the answer sheet, I repeated the whole process in the next two texts. Each text only took me 15-18 minutes.


Well, don’t forget to GIVE NUMBER MARK in every line contains information for each question. The last free 10-15 minutes provided you with a chance to reconsider your answers (or to look for them if you decided to leave them for this final inning). These marks will save you a great deal of time because you don’t have to look around for this information again. If you aim for a perfect score in reading, DON’T GUESS. Make sure that you find every line for every question, and you have to be one hundred percent certain about it.

If SET A requires information from every paragraph (such as choosing headings), don’t focus on this set. You can do it by reading and answering SET B and SET C. This strategy if more efficient.

Overall, STAY CALM. Every question refers to (at least) a line in the text. Just don’t give up looking for it.

Tips for IELTS Listening
I have no special method here. What I will tell you is available in the books I read. The key is STAY FOCUS and STAY AHEAD. Read the questions before you hear the recordings, and MAKE GUESSES. Don’t lose your concentration, check your answers carefully when removing them to the answer sheet, and you’ll be just fine. If you want to achieve a very high score in listening, consult the answer keys of previous tests to learn how to avoid small mistakes (spellings, parts of speech, capital letters, etc).


Tips for IELTS Writing
Make no grammatical mistake, use a wide range of sentence structures, and avoid using the same words (the examiners love synonyms, but you have to pick them appropriately). Practice makes perfect and you would do better if you had read articles relevant to topics regularly appear in IELTS tests (humanity, lifestyle, transportation, poverty, environment, health, education, etc) because you will have more ideas to be organized in your writing. Asking someone with advanced writing skill to check your practice sheets is recommended as well.

Tips for IELTS Speaking
I thought my speaking performance in the second test was worse than in the first one, but thank God I was wrong. After a brief contemplation, I suspect it’s because I spoke more FLUENTLY and CLEARLY with no pause, especially in the second part (the two minutes monologue). Remember, the examiners will not ask you to tell the truth. You can tell them anything as long as it is logical and grammatically correct. Just be creative with your stories!

In the second test, I only used four basic tenses, one or two passive voices, and some difficult words (to behave, to cooperate, childish, similar…—See? They are not even that difficult). Well, I also played with my intonation a little to convey what I really meant. Later I found out that my speaking score is 7.5, despite the fact that I never went abroad and have no native speaking partner (speaking English with your friends, though they don’t speak well in this language, will help you much). Just be confident and be careful. Surely, if you need a higher score than mine, speak with more complex structures and sophisticated vocabulary.


Further Tips
Please let me know what you want to know (or what you have already known in addition to my tips) by leaving comments below. I’ll try my best to answer them. Good luck!

They Are My Dreams

University of Cambridge

University of Oxford

I hope everything will be fine.
If I end up reading in one of them,
I think I'd be happy for the rest of my life.
Amin.

I'm Free and I Will Flee

(A few days ago I've had a beautiful correspondence with my friend as I wrote the note "Starting My 20s". I want you to check this one out ^^)

From Christina:

I know you have some anxiety about starting your 20's, but this is the best part of your life. You are young and in your prime, but old enough to be smarter, have a better idea of who you are and what you believe in, and you can also do more things and explore more of life than you could as a teenager. This is the time to travel, explore, and meet new people! Don't worry about things - everything will come into place, you will see. Here is a quote for you which is one of my favorites:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain

So don't be scared, just be excited! I am sure many good things await you Melody :)

My Reply:

Christina… thank you sooo much for your beautiful message ^^

I received many supports lately, and I’m so glad to have yours today.

As writing the note (starting my 20s), somehow I felt like releasing all my fear. I’m growing stronger day by day ever since. Maybe writing it was some kind of therapy for me.

Now I feel grateful to know that I’m able to start my “life” earlier and with more opportunities than most people in my country. And yes, this is time to travel, explore, and meet new people. Next week I’m going to submit my scholarship application to study a master degree in USA. Even if I fail, I’ll be ready to submit other applications to Australia and Netherlands. I also have some projects and some exciting upcoming projects. Right after those projects, I will start a definitely new stuff next year.

And yes, everything will come in place. My cultural environment is a bit tightening but I won’t worry about it anymore. I’m free and I will flee.

Peace and Love,

Melody Violine

Seminar and Something to Think of

Today was nice with a little silly bad news in the end. But I won’t let myself down because of it. No way. Thus I won’t tell you about the silly bad news, ahaha...

This morning I attended a four session seminar on linguistics. The first speaker was the current Netherlands Ambassador for Indonesia, Dr. Nikolaos van Dam. He spoke about Arab-loan words in Indonesian language. His lecture was in English. I can catch every words but I can hardly remember them. Most of the audiences were lecturers. So I felt like having a class in graduate degree, ha-ha.

The second speaker was Dr. Anton Moeliono—rival of my professor Dr. Harimurti Kridalaksana. During my first years in the university, I thought both of them had already died. Then suddenly I had Dr. Harimurti in my course. And today was the first day I saw Dr. Anton alive. He spoke about multilingualism, polyglots, and their impact on Indonesian language.

The third one was Dr. Uri Tadmor from an anthropology institute. He was attractive. Listening to him speaking Indonesian was no boring. Strangely he gave me different impression when speaking English debating. He told us about the implication of loan-words in Indonesia on the archipelago’s history recognition. He exposed some remarkable facts and stories about how and what other languages have influenced Indonesian.

The last one was Dr. Jérôme Samuel from Paris. His paper was about the word “sepuh” (temper)—how it developed into various meanings. It was very analytical that I got sleepy during his speech. I knew I shouldn’t since I’m going to study in graduate degree but I couldn’t make it.

It was raining after the seminar. My friends asked for my help in a Portugal poetry reading and music. Actually I would have had a class this afternoon but it had been canceled. So I helped my friends and got a tip and two nice books in revenge. Meanwhile all I’ve done was welcoming guests and eating snacks.

I also got another reference letter from my lecturer Mr. F. And I met my lecturer Dr. M who works in the university main office. She told me that I might be able to ask for school fee payment suspension. So there’s a possibility for me to start my graduate study this year on September in University of Indonesia. But there are so many consequences I have to think about. What about Hawai’i, Australia, and Leiden? And that I’m still yearning to study at Cardiff? Studying in Indonesia self-funded will be crazy. I’ve experienced studying and working in the same time and how I wish it wouldn’t happen to me again!

Well, I’ll be thinking of it tomorrow. Now I have 12 pages to work on. Yaaawn, English again. No time to stop studying :)