IELTS

http://www.learnielts.com/ielts-writing.htm
http://www.engvid.com/category/english-exams/ielts/
http://www.toeflvocabulary.com/
http://www.goodluckielts.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/themeridianschool
http://www.world-english.org/ielts_free_tests.htm
http://www.essayforum.com

Here you can see the several equivalency tables for TOEFL and IELTS scores.

TOEFL Paper	TOEFL Computer	TOEFL iBT	IELTS Equivalent
625 - 680	263 - 300	113 - 120	7.5 - 9.0
600	250	100	7.0
575	232	90 - 91	6.5
550	213	79 - 80	6.0
525	196	69 - 70	5.5
500	173	59 - 60	5.0
475	152	49 - 50	4.5
450	133	39 - 40	4.0
425	113	29 -30	3.5

Source: English Language Center

This is another conversion table, where the levels proficiency in English are shown.

OEIC	TOEFL Paper	TOEFL CBT	TOEFL IBT	IELTS	VEC Online Score	Approximate VEC Level
0 - 250	0 - 310	0 - 30	0 - 8	0 - 1	0 - 34	Beginner
	310 - 343	33 - 60	9 - 18	1 - 1.5	35 - 38	Middle beginner
255 - 400	347 - 393	63 - 90	19 - 29	2 - 2.5	39 - 45	Upper Beginner
	397 - 433	93 - 120	30 - 40	3 - 3.5	46 - 53	Low Intermediate
405 - 600	437 - 473	123 - 150	41 - 52	4	54 - 57	Middle Intermediate
	477 - 510	153 - 180	53 - 64	4.5 - 5	58 - 65	Intermediate
605 - 780	513 - 547	183 - 210	65 - 78	5.5 - 6	66 - 73	Low advanced
	550 - 587	213 - 240	79 - 95	6.5 - 7	74 - 81	Middle advanced
785 - 900	590 - 637	243 - 270	96 - 110	7.5 - 8	82 - 90	Upper Advanced
905 - 990	640 - 677	273 - 300	111 - 120	8.5 - 9	91 - 100	Upper Advanced
Top Score	Top Score	Top Score	Top Score	Top Score	Top Score	Top Level
990	677	300	120	9	100	Upper Advanced

Source : Vancouver English Centre

Sie wissen eigentlich nichts über mich

Viele kennen mein Lachen,
aber keiner weiß, was ich fühle...
Viele hören was ich sage,
doch keiner weiß, was ich denke...
Viele sehen was ich schreibe,
doch keiner weiß, was sich dahinter verbirgt...
Viele sagen sie kennen mich,
dabei wissen sie nur wie ich aussehe

Manche Dinge kommen im Leben nicht mehr zurück

Die Erfahrungen die du gesammelt hast,
die Tage die du gelebt hast,
die Chancen die du verpasst hast
und die Worte die du gesagt hast..."

Happiness is a chemical

There's a Jewish joke that I love. An old man is asked if he's happy. He answers: "I'm not 'HAPPY'" (said with arms in the air, voice raised loudly), "I'm 'happy'" (said quietly with a bit of a shrug). Which reminds me of myself. Most of the time I am happy. Not 'HAPPY', I'm 'happy'. So-so, happy enough.

Which isn’t enough in this happiness-obsessed world. Suddenly the race is on to find the Big H, with conferences, books and gurus all giving advice. It’s become an entire industry, with the million-dollar promise being: “How to find happiness.”

I think the real question is not how to find happiness. Which is relatively easy. Just give someone a chocolate, a romp in the hay, a sunny day, a holiday, a new love interest. It’s how to keep it that’s the problem.

Buddhists say that happiness is the precursor to suffering. Because it doesn’t last. It can’t, for two simple reasons: First, everything changes. Second, happiness is a chemical reaction.

When we feel happy or in love with something or somebody the body floods with pleasure. This pleasure is a rush of chemicals with a similar structure to amphetamines or speed, including adrenalin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. The heart races, the face flushes in delight as the neurotransmitters send chemicals into our nervous system. Later, opiates become involved to prolong the bliss.

Happiness is a natural high, and it’s healthy and wonderful for both body and soul. But, like any intoxicant, be it alcohol or drugs, it comes to an end as the body builds up tolerance. Or as circumstances change in the rough-and-tumble of reality. Happiness then becomes an addiction. And we become happiness junkies in search of the next fix, destined to suffer, to seek out a dealer who can keep us high, often trapped in a constant state of unhappiness while searching for the illusory Happy Ever After. In his masterpiece Three Sisters, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov captured this in the sisters’ obsessive lament: “When I get to Moscow…”

More real and more sustainable is contentment. As one contented person told me: “I find pleasure in simple things nowadays. My life isn’t thrilling, but it’s deeply satisfying.” Perhaps as a species we need the quest for the Holy Grail to keep us performing. But for me and many other recovering happiness junkies, the thing we most crave now is an end to the craving. Contentment is the road home.

www.theaustralian.com.au

The most beautiful thing in our life is the willing to share the happiness.

Learn How To Live Fully
Michele Thompson, MS

What are the secrets to happiness and meaning? Why do some people find a deep sense of purpose while they are here and die with few regrets while others end their lives bitter and disappointed? John Izzo, Ph.D., author of The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, asked several thousand people to identify the one person they knew who had lived a long life and found true happiness. He interviewed over 200 of the nominees and discovered five clear themes – or secrets – that embody a happy and meaningful life. Here is how you can incorporate these five secrets into your life and live an enriched and fulfilling existence.

Happy Woman

1. Be true to yourself
Izzo explains, “Being true to yourself often means drowning out other voices that would ask you to live their dreams instead of yours.”

Knowing what brings you happiness and focusing your life on what matters to you is essential in living a life that sates your soul. In your daily life, it means you know what brings you joy and you live your life to ensure that you follow your joyful destiny.

Izzo says, “One of the people I interviewed was a Latina woman who talked about the importance of following our ‘destina.’ He adds, “Destina is the idea is that each of us has a path that is most true to us, which is not so much a destination as a way we are meant to be in the world. For example, I am a teacher and philosopher by nature and when I stay close to that path I experience true joy.”

According to Izzo, to find genuine happiness and experience true joy, you must follow your heart – have the discipline to listen to your heart and the courage to follow it. This means asking if the life you are living is true to your deepest sense of self. Ask yourself, Are you being true to yourself right now?

2. Leave No Regrets
One of the most interesting things that Izzo learned from talking to the 235 wise people he interviewed is that almost none of them regretted risks they took – even if the ventures did not work out – and most even said they wished they would have risked more.

Izzo says, “It seems to me that what we fear most as we age is not death, but rather it is to come to the end of our life feeling that we never truly lived. The saddest words ever spoken at the end of life are ‘I wish I had….’”

Izzo suggests that one of the keys to moving towards what you want instead of what you fear is to focus on the best possible result and not the worst. Ask yourself, Are you going for what you truly want in your life or acting with fear?

3. Become Love
Izzo says that, according to the wide variety of people he interviewed, the greatest source of happiness for them and the largest place of regret had to do with other people.

He says, “What I discovered is that those who made people a priority in their lives and who developed deep personal relationships found true happiness. Many of them told me that ‘things’ rarely brought true joy, whereas family and friends brought lasting happiness.” He suggests, “One way to focus on relationships is to get intentional goals for our personal relationships just like we do in our careers.”

Another interesting thing Izzo gleaned from his interviews was that the choice to give love is even more important in determining happiness than getting it. He says, “These people talked to me about the importance of choosing love and kindness as your way in the world. They taught me that when we choose to be a loving person we find a deep sense of meaning in life.” Ask yourself, Are you choosing to love or fear it?

4. Live the Moment
“One of the most common things people told me was how fast life goes by and how important it is to enjoy each moment,” says Izzo.

Among the secrets Izzo learned from the people he interviewed was how they placed great importance to live in the present. Living in the present means to fully enjoy whatever experience you are having (and not to wish you were somewhere else), and to live with gratitude focusing on what you are grateful for rather than what you don’t have.

Izzo explains, “They told me that we have no power over the past and little power over the future. Many of them said that whenever you find yourself saying ‘I will be happy when… or I will be happy if…,’ that it is important to remember that happiness is a choice we make inside.”

He adds, “One woman told me: ‘You have to stop judging your life and start living your life. Stop keeping score trying to decide if you are winning. Instead, live each day fully and stay in the moment.’” So ask yourself, Are you living with gratitude right now, focusing on enjoying your life rather than judging it?

5. Give More Than You Take
Izzo shares, “When I asked people what gave their lives the greatest meaning, people told me again and again that being of service and knowing that they made things better because they were there for others was by far the greatest source of meaning.”

Izzo says that it is what you give, not what you take that gives life meaning. He says, “Many of them also reminded me that we have little control over what we get from the world every day (whether people will love us, whether we will win the lottery, etc.) but we have complete control over what we give to the world – whether we choose to be kind, charitable, and to give to others. These people reminded me that everything we take from the world dies with us, but everything we give to the world gets recycled.”

“All the spiritual traditions remind us that true happiness comes from focusing on being of service and in the process joy finds us,” he concludes. Ask yourself, Are you focused on giving or getting each day?

Put the secrets in practice
Izzo says, “It is not enough to know the secrets, we must live them. Someone once told me ‘If you want to live a happy life; ask someone who has lived one.’ This past year I had the privilege to sit at the feet of 235 of the wisest people I have ever met and I was amazed how clear they were on what mattered, what didn’t matter, and how each of us can create a life of meaning and happiness.”

source sheknows.com SyntheticHappiness

When Does Human Life Begin?

• Day 1 - conception takes place.
• 7 days - tiny human implants in mother’s uterus.
• 10 days - mother’s menses stop.
• 18 days - heart begins to beat.
• 21 days - pumps own blood through separate closed circulatory system with own blood type.
• 28 days - eye, ear and respiratory system begin to form.
• 42 days - brain waves recorded, skeleton complete, reflexes present.
• 7 weeks - photo of thumbsucking.
• 8 weeks - all body systems present.
• 9 weeks - squints, swallows, moves tongue, makes fist.
• 11 weeks - spontaneous breathing movements, has fingernails, all body systems working.
• 12 weeks - weighs one ounce.
• 16 weeks - genital organs clearly differentiated, grasps with hands, swims, kicks, turns, somersaults, (still not felt by the mother.)
• 18 weeks - vocal cords work – can cry.
• 20 weeks - has hair on head, weighs one pound, 12 inches long.
• 23 weeks - 15% chance of viability outside of womb if birth premature.*
• 24 weeks - 56% of babies survive premature birth.*
• 25 weeks - 79% of babies survive premature birth.*

(*Source: M. Allen et. al., "The Limits of Viability." New England Journal
of Medicine. 11/25/93: Vol. 329, No. 22, p. 1597.)

source: http://www.prolife.com/FETALDEV.html

In der Grundschule

Eine Grundschullehrerin geht zu ihrem Rektor und beschwert sich: "Der kleine Paul aus der ersten Klasse weiß alles besser! Er sagt, er ist mindestens so schlau wie seine Schwester und die ist in der dritten Klasse. Jetzt will er auch in die dritte Klasse gehen!" Der Rektor: "Beruhigen Sie sich. Wenn er wirklich so schlau ist, können wir ihn ja einfach mal testen."

Am nächsten Tag steht der kleine Paul zusammen mit seiner Lehrerin vor dem Direktor.

"Paul", sagt der Direktor, "Wir stellen dir jetzt ein paar Fragen. Wenn du die richtig beantwortest, kannst du ab morgen in die dritte Klasse gehen. Wenn du aber falsch antwortest, gehst du zurück in die erste Klasse und benimmst dich!"

Paul nickt eifrig. Rektor: "Wie viel ist 6 mal 6?" Paul: "36."
Rektor: "Wie heißt die Hauptstadt von Deutschland?" Paul: "Berlin."

Der Rektor stellt die nächsten Fragen und Paul kann jeweils alles richtig beantworten. Am Schluss sagt der Rektor zur Lehrerin: "Ich glaube, Paul ist wirklich weit genug für die dritte Klasse."

Lehrerin: "Darf ich ihm auch ein paar Fragen stellen?" Rektor: "Bitte schön."

Lehrerin: "Paul, wovon habe ich zwei, eine Kuh aber vier?" Paul, nach kurzem Überlegen: "Beine."
Lehrerin: "Was hast du in deiner Hose, ich aber nicht?" Der Rektor wundert sich etwas über diese Frage, aber da antwortet Paul schon: "Taschen."
Lehrerin: "Was macht ein Mann im Stehen, eine Frau im Sitzen und ein Hund auf drei Beinen?" Dem Rektor steht der Mund offen, doch Paul nickt und sagt: "Die Hand geben."

Lehrerin: "Was ist hart und rosa, wenn es reingeht, aber weich und klebrig, wenn es rauskommt?" Der Rektor bekommt einen Hustenanfall, Paul antwortet jedoch gelassen: "Kaugummi."
Lehrerin: "Gut, Paul, eine Frage noch. Sag mir ein Wort, das mit F anfängt, mit N aufhört und etwas mit Hitze, Feuchtigkeit und Aufregung zu tun hat!"
Dem Rektor stehen die Tränen in den Augen. Paul freudig: "Feuerwehrmann!"

Rektor: "Schon gut, schon gut. Von mir aus kann Paul auch in die vierte Klasse gehen oder gleich aufs Gymnasium. Ich hätte auf die letzten fünf Fragen falsch geantwortet ..."