Cough Cough!!

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TOEIC... Test of English for International Communication, is a popular test in Japan to test English skills.The test measures one's listening and reading to evaluate the persons overall English capability.
Several days ago in the papers, there was an article on this TOEIC test which caught my eye. It wrote about an addition to the caution notes on top of the test package telling people to :

"refrain from sneezing or coughing during the (hearing) test, as it may interfere others hearing. "

The article says that the this action was taken because the TOEIC organization was recieving more than few complaints from people who didn't do good in the hearing portion of the test "because of someone coughing or sneezing, which interfered their hearing."
My personal opinion is that this is TOTALLY NONSENSE, unless that person caoughing had a bad cold and was coughing all the way through the test ! In real life, you'll have to deal with all the noise you can get around you while you listen to your English speaker talk to you. With all the taxis honking it's horn in the middle of Manhattan, you won't even hear someone coughing. :-)
What's so specail about a few points lost due to a couple of coughs anyway ? If that couple of points is going to cost you (i.e. on the edge of ) something, you might as well forget it., because I guess you haven't earned enough points anyways. Sorry, but I can only see the complaints as an excuse.

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