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发表于 2010-2-28 14:37:16 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

题目：ISSUE50 - "In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach."
字数：623
用时：0:45:00
日期：2010-2-28

To spend adequate time working in professions relevant to the courses the faculty teach is helpful to improve the quality of instruction in many inquiries, but not all faculty should spend time working in this way.

It is true that in the scientific area such as practical physics, chemistry and economics area, to work outside the academic worlds in professions relevant to the courses these faculty teach is helpful to the instruction. The working experience of the work involves how the theory of the courses can be applied to practice the best. This experience cannot be achieved by others ways such as reading books and surfing the Internet. The faculty who have worked in the professions relevant can give their experiences to the students in a direct and vivid way, which can provide them the most useful information about the practical value of what they learn. Also, if the professions can use the knowledge of that area to accomplish real difficult and challenging jobs, this experience can encourage the students that what they learn are useful and be more devoted to the courses, which is beneficial to the instruction.

However, not all faculty should be required to spend time to do the professional works outside academic world. The number of courses which have relevant professions outside academic world is limited, and many courses do not have the relevant professions or sufficient jobs actually. Such areas include some social sciences, such as philosophy and history. It is very difficult for a philosophical professor to find a profession outside the university, because the jobs directly related to philosophy are so few. The reason why there is few professions related to these areas is perhaps these inquiries study the very fundamental and essential facets of human beings, such as values, morality, and meaning of life, but do not have a very practical and direct influence to people, and most professions outside the academic world are aimed at some practical purposes to improve the human welfare. In that case, the faculty working in these inquiries should not be required to spend time working outside in professions relevant to the courses because they can hardly find such professions.

And more importantly, if the universities want to improve the quality of instruction by asking some faculty to work outside academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach, they must notice that the work outside is only effective to improve instruction under the assumption that their own jobs inside university are not influenced. On one hand, the most eminent element of university instruction is the part of class teaching and office hour communication, and if it is influenced negatively, the instruction is less effective and with less quality. On the other hand, the time and energy of the faculty is limited. If they can control their time well and balance the work outside and their teaching job, the work outside university may be beneficial by bringing the faculty's vivid experience to the class. But if they spend too much time outside university, and do not have enough time to prepare the class, to teach patiently and answer the students' questions or to communicate with students about academic problems, their working outside will damage their teaching job and is not effective to improve the quality of instruction anymore. In short, the working outside the academic world should be done after the prerequisite of not influencing the teaching job itself.

In conclusion, in many areas, it will be beneficial to the quality of instruction if the faculty spend adequate time outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach, but in some inquiries the faculty should not do that. And in order to make the professions truly effective, the faculty need to seek a balance between the work outside and inside university.

题目：ARGUMENT45 - The following appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.

"Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic region. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of a year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the decline in arctic deer populations is the result of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea."
字数：514
用时：0:30:00
日期：2010-2-28

Based on the reports from local hunters, the global warming trends, and the arctic deer's age-old migration patterns, the editorial concludes that there is a decline of arctic deer and this decline is the result of them unable to follow their age-old migration patterns. But close examination reveals that this argument is unconvincing in the following aspects.

Firstly, the argument's conclusion that the arctic deer's population is declined is unwarranted. The mere fact that local hunters report a decline of deer population is not evidence that the deer population is indeed declined. The hunters may not have found the deer because the areas where the deer have gone are not necessarily caught up by the hunters. Perhaps the deer have travel to some other areas that the hunters have never been to, or perhaps the deer and hunters happen to appear in the same area in the different time. In this case, the hunters think the deer number is declined but the population of deer is not declined actually. In short, the conclusion that population of deer is declined is not guaranteed.

Granted that the population of the arctic deer is declined, the argument unfairly assumes that the decline in arctic deer is the result of the global warming. But is the weather in the arctic region indeed warmer than before? It is possible that the warming trends are global but not necessarily also true in the arctic region and the weather here is still the same with before. Even the temperature here is influenced and is indeed higher than before, is this increase in the temperature enough to cause the ice to melt in the time the deer used to travel over the ice? Or is the ice melting in just a few areas that deer never travel in the cold time, or is it melting in most areas in arctic? If this information is not given, we cannot conclude that the deer cannot travel on the ice. Moreover, even if the ice melting has indeed blocked the deer traveling, are the deer destined to die from it? Perhaps the deer can change their age-old migration pattern to adjust to the environment, which is very common in the animal species. In short, the deer population decline is not necessarily caused by the global warming trends.

The argument also does not take into account of other alternative causes that might have contributed to the decline of arctic deer. It is very possible that the decline of deer is due to some other factors, such as the hunting from people, the pollution from human beings and the reducing of their living areas, the risk put on them from their predator or the reduced resources of their food. Every one among these factors may have bigger influence than the global warming trends, and could be the real reason of the decline of deer population. Without ruling out these alternatives, the argument should not make the conclusion too quickly.

In conclusion, this argument is unwarranted. To prove that the decline of arctic deer is the result of them unable to follow their age-old migration patterns, the argument needs to provide us more information about the arctic deer's true number now, and that the temperature in arctic region is warmer and caused the melting of ice. It would also be helpful to give evidence that the decline of deer population is caused by not being able to travel cross the ice.

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