Audiobooks a sound choice for students weighed down by fat tomes
Now if you don’t have time to go through course material or flip through fat textbooks, you can just plug in your earphones and get going. Ravi Kant Sharma has come up with the perfect alternative. Formulated primarily for blind students, housewives and working people, Sharma along with two friends, has launched a website
Effortless GK, which allows you to download audiobooks of any course for free. Sharma says that the purpose of these audiobooks is that one doesn’t need to read and study as everything can be heard in the audiobook. “People who don’t get time to study can just download notes in audio format and listen to them while on the bus, in train, while cooking or even working out,” he explained.
The website offers audiobooks of courses in Banking, IAS, PCS, SSC and even current affairs. Sharma said, “Reading newspaper is very important while preparing for competitive exams but in villages there are almost no newspapers, even if there are newspapers there are no national newspapers. This becomes a major problem in rural areas. Effortless GK keeps all these things in consideration and provides audios that have all the important details from all the national newspapers.”
There is a provision to even save audios for future reference on the website in case someone loses their download. “The website provides each and every user with a separate account, so that they can add audios to their account for future reference. A user has to register on this website and after that they will get regular updates from the website on their email IDs. This will save money and time,” elaborated Sharma, who devised this concept after reading up on how listening helps a person remember better.
Response has been pouring in from users ever since its formulation in July. However, according to Sharma, the maximum benefit of this website has been to the visually challenged. “There is very little study material available for the visually challenged and even if it is available, not on such a large spectrum. We have tried our best to give as much as we can to the blind in terms of academia,” said Sharma.
Though the website gives out audiobooks in Hindi at the moment, Sharma said that the English version is in beta phase. “We just wanted to see what the response is like before building the English version. But we got a brilliant response with 2,000 people registering with us in less than two months. We’re working on English audiobooks and they will be out soon,” he added.
Meanwhile, the website also shows job updates to help students get placed easily. Every new job opening in the various sectors the website offers course audiobooks in, the notice is uploaded on the website with the procedure to apply. Moreover, the website also provides the text to students in case they don’t want to subscribe to audiobooks.