I want to inaugurate my new category "Wireless Life" with this quotation of Albert Einstein describing the radio :

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

ref: http://nocat.net/

I’m back again as I promised to speak about my experience with the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) which is known as the equivalent of the TOEFL exam. Almost all the British Council centres all over the world are testing centres like all the Amideast centres for the TOEFL.

Few weeks before the exam, a friend told me that the TOEFL exam is easier, less expensive and more recognized all over the world, so I decided to make a visit to Amideast and ask about it. I was surprised to hear that the new examination system is based only on internet (only in the exam centers of course), includes a speaking test and the fees should be paid in US dollars. I’m wondering about all the students who have no bank account and need this exam to apply for a scholarship or so. Anyway, I went after to the British Council and paid in Tunisian dinars to book my seat for the date of the following month. During the entire month, I haven’t had any free time to prepare anything but to read quickly a preparation book for the IELTS. It was imperative to be prepared to the first not-gratis exam I had ever.

About 4 stressing hours with a very fast rhythm to complete the 3 first sections of the exam. The first of all was the listening section of 30 minutes to listen to 4 speeches only once and to answer to the questions on the paper while hearing. Just after, the reading exam including 3 long texts to read and answer to questions in only one hour. Like the first section, the last text and the questions were so complex that you are obliged sometimes to put anything just to not leave the answer blank. Then came the section I hate: the writing. We were asked to write 2 texts, one as a report of a given graph and I forgot the topic of the second one. What is sure that I wrote less than the asked number of words in the 2 texts.

The speaking section was on the same day on the after noon. For some it was the day after. The beginning was so serious but I was prepared to be as open as I can since it was important to have a good mark. And what was funny is that I answered to the questions really from personal experience. And from the silent feedback I had from the examiner who was smiling to my comments I thought it will have the same result when the tape will be heard by the examiners in the UK. 13 days after, I had the result sheet and found 6.5 as overall score (over 9)

As usual, I've done it again. For a while, my blog took the last position on my priorities list and event if I had (and still have) many reasons to do that, I feel sorrow for that and I hope (I'm not promising) I'll not do it again .... after :)

Well, I don't want to publish all the reasons that made me so « rough » with my blog but I may say it was a mixture of many reasons on the professional and the personal level. Also, being involved in many activities related to civil society on the local and the international level, was supposed to give me a lot to say and to comment but the lack of time is very commun nowadays and I see that I'm not the only one living this crazy and fast life.

At the end, and even if I'm still living all the reasons not allowing me to blog my life, today I had finally a good news which gave me enough power to write these sentences. And this is because I had the marks for my IELTS exam and it was 6.5 which is not bad at all for my needs. I'll write soon about my experience with this exam which may be interesting for the ones who are planning to make it.