The Cloze Test - Tips to Tackle Cloze Test

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Barriers to listening skills

Barriers to listening skills

Why Don't We Listen? Unmasking the Barriers to Effective Listening

Listening is fundamental to strong communication, yet truly effective listening can be surprisingly challenging. We all experience moments where our minds wander, or background noises pull us away from a conversation. But what are the bigger barriers that prevent us from truly hearing what others are saying?

This blog post dives into the common roadblocks that hinder our listening skills, both internal and external. By understanding these challenges, we can become more mindful listeners and strengthen our communication in all aspects of life.

External Barriers:

• Environmental Distractions: A noisy coffee shop, a ringing phone, or an uncomfortable temperature can all make it difficult to focus on the conversation at hand.
• Physical Barriers: Hearing impairments or even simply the distance between speaker and listener can hinder clear communication.

Internal Barriers:

• Information Overload: In our fast-paced world, we're constantly bombarded with information. This overload can make it difficult to stay present and absorb new information during a conversation.
• Self-Centeredness: Getting caught up in our own thoughts and experiences can prevent us from fully engaging with what the other person is saying.
• Prejudgement: Walking into a conversation with preconceived notions about the speaker or topic can make us closed off to their message.
• Emotional State: Anxiety, anger, or other strong emotions can cloud our judgment and make it difficult to listen attentively.

Tips to Become a Better Listener:

• Minimize distractions: Find a quiet, comfortable space for important conversations.
• Practice active listening: Make eye contact, nod your head, and offer verbal cues like "uh-huh" or "I see" to show you're engaged.
• Be patient: Give the speaker time to fully express themselves before responding.
• Ask clarifying questions: This demonstrates your interest and helps ensure understanding.
• Park your judgments: Approach the conversation with an open mind and a willingness to learn.

By recognizing the barriers to listening and actively working to overcome them, we can strengthen our communication and build stronger relationships. Remember, listening is a skill that takes practice. Be patient with yourself, and you'll find yourself becoming a more effective listener in all your interactions.

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Three Days to See by Helen Keller

THREE DAYS TO SEE 

                                                                                 - Helen Adams Keller

Helen Adams Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. But at the age of 19 months, she contracted an illness and loses sense of sight and hearing. She always longs to have the sense she can enjoy and feel things, nature, and people around her. In her essay Three Days to See she writes that if she is gifted with the sense of seeing and hearing for three day how would have she enjoyed.

She says that how enthusiastically we live each minutes and day as if we need to die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which is often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. It is always neglected that we have to die one day and death is inevitable but we feel it is in a far distance. The attitude of negligence continues and the importance of the sensual organs is not at all felt. Its importance is known to those people who lost or do not have all the faculties.

We see around us, but all the time it goes unnoticed the beauty of nature, and rarely we use it in the fullest way.  Helen Keller longs to see and hear.  She says that if, by some miracle I was granted three seeing days, after a long relapse into darkness.  She illustrates that she would divide all three days into three parts. On the first day, she wants to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and companionship have made my life worth living.   Firstly, she wants to look at her teacher Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who made her exposed to the outer sphere of the world.   Helen Keler longs to feel her sympathetic tenderness and patience with which she could accomplish the difficult task of education; additionally, the strength of character that made her to be firm to face the difficulties and compassion for all humanities has touched my heart so deeply.

She further writes that on the first day she would be busy calling up all her dear friends and look long into their faces imprinting upon her mind the outward evidences of the beauty that is within them.  And she wishes to see the warm colors in the rugs, the pictures on the walls, the intimate trifles that transform a house into home. In the afternoon, she wants to take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate her eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature, and on her way she yearns to observe the patient horses ploughing in the field and the serene content of men living close to the soil. She composes to serene glory of a colorful sunset. She appreciates the invention of the artificial light which gave sight to the world after the dusk.

The second day she longs to see the man’s progress and inventions, the kaleidoscope of the ages.  And wishes to see the New York Museum of Natural History to tough with her hands many of the objects that were exhibited. She longs to see the condensed history of the earth and its inhabitants displayed their animals and the races of men pictured in their native environments: gigantic carcasses of dinosaurs and mastodons which roamed the earth long before man appeared. And her next sight would be the metropolitan museum of Art, and Museum of Natural History reveals the material aspects of the world, and Metropolitan show the myriad facets of the human spirit.

In the second day of sight, she says that the things she knew though touch but she want to see now. The magnificent would of painting, from the Italian Primitives with their serene religious devotion to the moderns, with their feverish vision.  She wants to see deep into the canvases of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian and Rembrandt and she wishes to feast her eyes upon the warm colors of Veronese, study of the mysteries of El Greco, and catch a new vision of nature from Corot. She sights that there is so much rich meaning and beauty in the art of the ages for all of us who have eyes to see, feel and enjoy!

In the evening, she longs to spend her time at a theatre or at the movies. The fascinating figure of Hamlet, or the gusty Falstaff amid colorful Elizabethan trappings!

In the third last day of sight, she wants to start from her home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island, surrounded by green lawns, trees, and flowers are neat little houses, happy with the voices and movements of wives and children. She wants to go ahead the rise of fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy story.  And she wants to go around of the city.  First, she would like to stand at a busy corner, merely looking at people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives.  She quotes beautifully that “I see smiles, I am happy.  I see serious determination and I am proud.  I see suffering, and I am compassionate.”  These are the compassionate words she draws from her observations and she feels and experiences the pain of others and she appreciates the determined people and show her compassionate nature towards the suffering.

Finally, she wants to make a tour of the city – to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to parks where children play. Her third day would end after watching the hilariously funny play. 

She finally writes that although she could not see all the beauties but the memories remains fresh in her mind. 

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Polymer Banknotes - the Cyber age

THE CYBER AGE

PolymerBanknotes

Summary of Cyber Age

Polymer Banknotes

Polymer banknotes are made from a polymer such as biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP). Such notes have many security features such as metameric inks and these notes lasts two and a half times longer than paper notes.  Modern polymer banknotes were first developed by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), CSIRO, which is Australia’s national science agency, and The University of Melbourne and first issued as currency in the country in 1988.  

The (BOPP) substrate is processed through the following steps:

Opacifying: Two layers of ink (usually white) are applied to each side of the note, except for an area(s) deliberately left clear for creating on OVD.

Sheeting: The substrate is cut into sheets suitable for the printing press.

Printing: Traditional offset, intaglio and letter press printing – three different printing techniques/process are used.

Overcoating: Notes are coated with a protective varnish.  BOPP is a non-fibrous and non-porous polymer. Compared to paper banknotes, banknotes made using BOPP are harder to tear, more resistant to folding and soiling, are waterproof, easier to machine process and are shreddable and recyclable at the end of their lives.

Security Features:

The security features include intaglio, offset and letterpress printing, latent images, micro-printing and intricate background patterns. Polymer notes can be different olours on the observe and reverse sides. Like paper currency, polymer banknotes can incorporate a watermark in the polymer substrate. Shadow images can be created by the application of optically variable ink, enhancing its fidelity and colour shift characteristics. Security threads like magnetic, fluorescent, phosphorescent, micro-printed or clear text-or windowed can be embedded while paper production process.

Polymer banknotes are easily identifiable, difficult to counterfeit and transparent window where the OVD is located is a key security feature.

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R.K. Nararyan's Leela's Friend

R.K. Narayan's Leela's Friend

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan (10 October, 1906 -- 13 May, 2001) is one of the best Indian novelists in English. His popular novels are Swami and Friends (1935), The Bachelor of Arts (1937), The Dark Room (1938), The English Teacher (1946), The Guide (1958), The Man-eater of Malgudi (1962), etc. He also wrote many short stories and published as Malgudi Days (1941), Dodu and Other Stories (1943), Cyclone and Other Stories (1944), etc. His writings are simple and easy to comprehend. He won numerous awards and honours for his works. His novel, The Guide won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1961. He was awarded the Padma Bhusan in 1964. In 1980, he was awarded the A. C. Benson Award by the Royal Society of Literature.

The present story Leela’s Friend is one of his best known short-stories and is taken from his Malgudi Days.

Mr. Sivasanker is deeply thinking about his servant. Sidda, a homeless poor boy, comes to his gate just then in search of a job. Sivasanker looks at him and finds nothing objectionable. Yet he asks a few questions about his previous work. He calls then his wife who turns satisfied after meeting the boy. Leela, their five-year old daughter comes out and likes the boy. Sidda is selected on an agreement of two meals a day and four rupees a month. In return he is to wash clothes, tend the garden, run errands, chop wood and look after Leela.

Sidda is a likeable boy who gets on well with the family. He becomes a good friend with Leela. Sidda and Leela play together with a ball. Sidda throws the ball upward. When the ball comes down, he tells her that the ball has touched the moon. Even he has touched the moon many times from a coconut tree. The innocent girl believes every word of Sidda. She also expresses her desire to touch the moon. She is surprised to see that wherever they move, the moon is there. She claps in joy. Sidda informs her that he really knows the moon which follows up his command.

At day’s end Leela plays the teacher to Sidda. She tries to teach him with her little knowledge. She writes a letter or draws a kind of cat or crow, and asks him to copy it. But he is a very poor performer. Yet Leela does not give up her effort. She does not allow him to leave his task. The game of teaching goes on for a long time. Sidda gets relief only when he falsely tells her that her mother is calling her to dinner.

Every night Sidda tells a nice story to put Leela to sleep. Day by day he becomes her constant companion. A sweetening relationship is established between them.

One evening Sidda goes out to buy sugar and Leela accompanies him. When they come home, Leela’s mother noticed that the gold chain around Leela’s neck is missing. Being furious she slaps Leela and calls Sidda at once on suspicion. Sidda defends himself feebly but leaves the house stealthily.

At this Mr. Sivasanker and his wife are convinced that Sidda is the culprit. He lodges a complaint against him in the Police Station. But Leela is not ready to believe this. She longs for his company. She is deeply sorrowful. She thinks that her parents are responsible for her friend’s leaving their house. The loss of gold chain does not matter to her.

Mr. Sivasanker learns from the Police Inspector that Sidda has criminal records. He has been in jail for several times for stealing jewellery from children. He assures his wife that the police will arrest Sidda very soon. Four days later, the police Inspector and a constable brings in Sidda. Leela is very happy and runs to meet him. The Inspector stops her and presses Sidda to confess his guilt. Leela’s mother abuses him for his treachery. Sidda only replies that he has not taken the chain.

The Inspector tells his constable to take him back to the police station. Leela requests him to free Sidda. But nobody listens to her. She starts to shed tears.

A few days later, Leela’s mother discovers the lost gold chain from a tamarind pot. She comes to know that Leela has dropped it there and forgotten all about it. Mr. Sivasanker learns all and informs the police about the chain’s discovery, but does not allow Sidda to continue his job. Sidda’s position does not improve. He remains a confirmed criminal in his eyes.

It is clear from the title Leela’s Friend that the story is about Leela and her friend Sidda. The story brings forth the class-conflict between the high and the low of the society. Sidda becomes the victim of that conflict. Poverty leaves a permanent wound to Sidda’s life. Though he tries to overcome his dark past and is proved guiltless at the end of the story, he is not either allowed to continue his job neither provided with an apology. The so-called society remains indifferent to his sorrows and sufferings.

Sidda’s punishment is unjust and also a blunder. But the protector of the law escapes counter punishment. This is not a case to Sidda only, but its roots lie in the every sphere of the society making it worse and gloomy. R. K. Narayan has raised his voice to protest against this through the present story. Herein lies his craftsmanship.

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Source: Malgudi Days


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SIR MOKSHAGUNDAM VISVESVARAYA

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

"Progress in every country depends mainly on the education of its people. Without education, we are a nation of children. The difference between one man and another, apart from birth and social position, consists in the extent of knowledge, general and practical, acquired by him. We may safely assume that man in all countries within certain limits start with the same degree of intelligence. A civilized nation is distinguished from an uncivilized one by the extent of its acquired intelligence and skill."– Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

'Remember, your work may be only to sweep a railway crossing, but it is your duty to keep it so clean that no other crossing in the world is as clean as yours'              -Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

Born to Venkatalakshmamma and SrinivasaSastry was a well known astrologer and physician on August 28, 1860 at Muddenahalli, a village in Kolar District of the then Mysore State. Sir Visvesvaraya has left behind a sublime spirit of great vision, dedicated and disciplined service and infallible integrity that can serve as a constant guide to the present and future generation. Living a centenarian is fulfillment of the Vedic Blessings and Sir Visvesvaraya has rendered 80 years of yeoman services and has significantly contributed to the countries all round development with a view to transform our country into a new and modern India. In recognition of his distinguished public service, the Government of India conferred on Visvesvaraya the award Bharat Ratna (the highest honor that the Republic of India can confer on the most illustrious among its citizens) in 1955.

Visvesvaraya's ancestors had migrated from Mokshagundam/ Siddanur village in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh to Mysore. His father SrinivasaSastry died when Visvesvaraya was only 15 years of age. After his father's death Visvesvaraya moved with his mother Venkatalakshamma to Bangalore where his maternal uncle H. Ramaiah lived. Visvesvaraya studied at the Chickballapur Middle and High School, where he completed his lower secondary courses, later at Bangalore his maternal uncle had him admitted to the Wesleyan Mission High School in 1875. After finishing his high school education Visvesvaraya joined the Central College from where he graduated with distinction. He then moved to Pune to join the College of Science, in those days the College of Engineering was so named, to study engineering. He passed his engineering examination with sheer determination and hard work earning every penny as a tutor and met his expenses as a student himself and in 1883, he stood first in the L.C.E and the E.C.E examinations. He specialized in Civil Engineering.

Sir M.Visvesvaraya applied his mind to solve very intricate problem’s, his vision and forethought were astonishing. His inventive genius, has manifested itself in many ways and we find the imprint of this greatness in his multifaceted personality in all that he has done.

He has contributed significantly to – the Irrigation Project, Water Supply Scheme& Drainage, Heavy Industry Establishment, Consumer Industries, Development of education, Upliftment of the Poor & the Weaker Sections of the Society, Promoting Organizations, Democratization of Administration making him popular both in India and abroad. His name is mentioned with great reverence for his contributions to the National life which has been of enduring value.

Sir Visvesvaraya’s efforts in establishing the Mysore University, the Iron and Steel Factory, the Krishna Sagar Project and even trying to manage the Iron and Steel factory when it went into financial crisis are instances to learn from and eye openers for all engaged in National Building.

Sir Visveswaraya’s inspiring guidance is extraordinary and immortal.

Points to remember

Date of Birth: 15 September 1860 Place of Birth: Muddenahalli village (Kolar District, Karnataka)

·         1881: Completed B.A. from Central College Bangalore.

·         1883: Completed Civil Engineering from Science College in Poona.

·         Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was an eminent engineer and statesman and played a key role in building of modern India.

·         When Sir M. Visvesvaraya cleared his engineering, Government of Bombay offered him a job and appointed him Assistant Engineer at Nasik. As an engineer, he achieved some marvelous feats.

·         He planned a way of supplying water from the river Sindhu to a town called Sukkur. He devised a new irrigation system called the Block System. He devised steel doors to stop the wasteful flow of water in dams. He was the architect of the Krishnaraja Sagara dam in Mysore.

·         Sir M. Visvesvaraya led a very simple life. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was known for his honesty and integrity.

·         In 1912, Maharaja of Mysore appointed Visvesvaraya as his Dewan. Before accepting the position of Dewan of Mysore, he invited all his relatives for dinner. He told them very clearly that he would accept the prestigious office on the condition that none of them would approach him for favors.

·         As Dewan of Mysore, he worked tirelessly for educational and industrial development of the state. When he was the Dewan many new industries came up. The Sandal Oil Factory, the Soap Factory, the Metals Factory, the Chrome Tanning Factory, was some of them. Of the many factories he started the most important is the Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works.

·         In 1913 Bank of Mysore renamed as State Bank of Mysore.

·         Sir M. Visvesvaraya voluntarily retired as Dewan of Mysore in 1918. He worked actively even after his retirement.          

·         In 1920 Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works – as its Chairman he rescued it from becoming extinct & Published a Book named Reconstructing India

·         1934 – Planned Economy for India

Awards Received:

1906 – “Kaisar-i-Hind” in recognition of his services

1911 – C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire) at the Delhi Durbar

1915 – K.C.I.E (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire)

1921 – D.Sc. – Calcutta University

1943 – Elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Institution of Engineers (1)

1944 – D.Sc. - Allahabad

1948 – Doctorate – LLD. Mysore University.

1953 – D.Litt – Andhra University.

1953 – Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India.

1955 – Conferred BHARATHARATNA -

1958 – ‘Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal’ by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of Bengal.


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Previous Bit Questions

1. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born on ____________. [ b] 

a) 15th September b) 15th September 1861 c) 15th October d) 15th October 1869

2. Visvesvaraya’s father Srinivasa Sastry was a great_________. [d ] 

a) Lawyer b) Engineer c) Priest d) Sanskrit Scholar

3. Visvesvaraya exemplified that the price of success is ___________. [a ] 

a) hard work b) money c) truthfulness d) honesty

4. Visvesvaraya was a good and diligent student. Diligent means…. [c ] 

a) Beautiful b) Studies c) Industrious d) Dignified

5. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born on ______ [ a]

a. 15th of September b. 16th of October c. 15th of August d. 5th of September

6. Esi is a tributary of ________ river. [c ]

a. Sindhu b. Krishna c. Musi d. Hussain Sagar

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