[习作点评] 9.27要考了，求拍砖~~谢谢 [复制链接]

Louisandra
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发表于 2011-9-20 17:30:36 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

求各大虾拍砖practice test里的两篇作文，我也乐意回拍哦~

ISSUE
1. “A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.” Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

I basically agree with the statement, because a well-designed national curriculum covers basic knowledge and skills and has a high quality. However, in special regions and for specially talented students, we should also adjust the curriculum to meet their specific needs.

A national curriculum has many advantages compared to a curriculum designed by, for example, some teachers in a school or parents who homeschool their children. First, it is comprehensive and covers basic skills a student needs to know to survive in the society, such as language, arithmetic, and writing. It also covers music and art, and values embedded in the society's culture. For example, before college in China, we not only learn Chinese, Math, English, but also sports, art, and social norms and moral standards, such as stories of being honest, polite, generous to the poor, etc. A national curriculum does help students become well-rounded individuals.

Some people may argue that requiring all students to learn so many subjects is not necessary, and some children are especially talented in one field and should devote most of their time to that field of study. However, I believe specialization should be a focus in college, not the basic education before college. First, today a lot of studies can benefit from knowledge in other fields and more and more researchers emphasize interdisciplinary studies. Second, well-roundedness is very important. A lot of young computer freaks have written viruses that destroyed thousands of machines. Clearly they are very well educated in computer science, but they lack knowledge of law and proper social behavior. Therefore, a comprehensive national curriculum can help students better prepare for their life.

A second advantage of national curriculum is that experts in each field spend a lot of time working on the curriculum, and thus a national curriculum has a very high quality. A school or a regional education ministry does not have the same time and resources as the federal government to compile such a curriculum.

However, we need to be careful about some special situations. Some regions have their own languages and cultures, and we should pass on their culture while educating the next generation. For example, schools in Tibet should teach students the Tibetan language and culture. We should be flexible and have special curriculum to protect their cultural heritage.

Finally, a national curriculum should only set some basic standards and encourage students with special talents to pursue one field in more depth if they like to. Considering our earlier example about the young hackers, our educators should educate them in the basic concepts of law and inform them of the serious consequences of their behavior. Then they can use their talents in an appropriate way and even make big contributions to the society at an early age.

In sum, I believe a high quality national curriculum that covers basic knowledge and skills helps students become well-educated and well-rounded citizens and should be implemented across the country. However, we should also be flexible to adapt to special situations

ARGUMENT

2. The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station. “Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station’s coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.” Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the memorandum, the manager claims the following causal relation: if time devoted to weather and local news is restored to former level, first, number of viewers will increase, and second, advertising revenue will stop declining. However, to establish the causal relation, the following pieces of evidence are needed.

First, we don't know if the people who complain about the TV program also stop watching it. In the memorandum, the manager didn't mention that the TV station is losing viewers. Even if they are indeed losing viewers, the group of viewers they are losing may be different from the group of viewers who complain, and they may stop watching our program for other reasons, maybe they want to see more TV drama. Therefore, we need to show that people stopped watching our program because we devoted less time to weather and local news. If we are not losing viewers, then it is even harder to show that more people will watch our program because of increased coverage on weather and local news. If we can not find evidence supporting causality between increased coverage and increased viewers, restoring coverage on weather and local news would not help.

Second, we don't know the trends of the complaints we receive. Did the total number of complaints increase or decrease? Did complaints on weather and local news go up or down? Moreover, do the complaints come from a large group of people or just a small group who have a special love for weather and local news? It may be true that total number of complaints go down after we devote less time to weather and local news, and a larger group of audience is more satisfied with our program now. We cannot change our program hastily by just referring to the complaints.

Third, we need to show that businesses cancel advertising contracts because the TV station don't cover local news as much as before and therefore lose viewers. They may cancel contracts because the economy is not doing well and they need to cut advertising costs. If they are canceling contracts for other reasons, then increasing coverage on local news and weather would help nothing. The manager needs to communicate with the businesses to find out the true cause behind their cancelation.

From the reasons above, the manager should do more surveys on audience and businesses to find enough evidence supporting the causality in his statement, and then make a decison.

小女子不胜感激！

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