A lot of the questions you will get in the G.B.C. test are predictable. This lesson will give you ideas about how to research your answers, so you can be better prepared.
You should be well prepared for common G.B.C. questions, and have no shortage of ideas. Make sure you have researched answers to the predictable questions.
Many students suffer for lack of ideas. The questions catch them out, and they fail to give good answers. This can be because they know nothing about the topic or because they do not know how to talk about the topic in English. We'll leave the first problem for later lessons. This lesson is going to look at questions that students know a lot about (for instance, themselves and their jobs), but that might be difficult for them to speak about in an organised way.
Ask your student:
What questions have you had more than once on the G.B.C. test?
Use their answer here for the examples and practice.
Tell your instructor what you do and what your company does.
This will probably be poorly done for one of a few reasons:
- They give a verbatim answer from their website or a corporate brochure;
- They don't know how to explain it at all; or
- They don't know how to explain it in English.
Encourage a more conversational style. Make sure that they can actually explain in simple language what it is their company does and what their job involves. This should not be a regurgitation of whatever is on the company website, but nor should it be disorganised, rambling and vague.
Let's start with two very common questions:
- What should a visitor to Japan see and experience?
- What kind of business does your company do?
Where can we start to research answers for these questions?
To find out what to do in your country or hometown, try Googling "Best things to do in Japan" or "Best things to do in Nagano".
To learn about how to talk about your company, look up the Wikipedia page for your company and pick some key phrases.
Do this now with your teacher.
Here, you might need to do a bit of Googling on the fly. However, the following should cover most cases:
- Top things to do in Japan.
- BCG on Wikipedia and the page about management consulting.
Give your student these links, but if they work for a different company, Google that company. Work through them with your student and pull out some key phrases/language that they can use to answer the questions.
You should help them generate a conversational answer to each question that goes something like this:
Well, I work for a company called the Boston Consulting Group. Most people call us "BCG". BCG is a management consulting firm. What that means is that usually big companies hire us to solve their problems or develop plans to improve their business. This can be things like cutting costs, implementing new systems or coming up with strategies to help them grow the business. We are essentially doctors for sick companies or you can think of us as personal trainers for fat companies.
The "doctors for sick companies" is something that the BCG guys sometimes say, but try to get your student to come up with an original metaphor for their own business. An investment banker once said in my class that he was like a detective in a novel: he had to find clues to help him solve mysteries for his clients.
Do something similar with the tourism question.
Now let's research the answer to another G.B.C. style question:
Do keiretsu still have a place in the modern business world?