Argument 137&issue119 倒计时4天

hurongchildUID: 2595535

child努力地想写好一点了，还认真的改了，只有这个效果··sigh···你们说有几分呢···？
题目：ARGUMENT137 - The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."
字数：479
用时：0:30:00
日期：2010-2-25

The argument concludes that the recreational use of the river is likely to increase so Mason City need to increase its budget for publicly owned lands along the river. However, this seemingly sound argument is logically unconvincing in the following aspects.

Are the residents avoiding the river because they think it is not clean? It would possibly be true, but the arguer's evidence of it is not strong enough. The fact that the region's residents rank water sports as a favorite form of recreation and they seldom use Mason River for recreational activity do not suffice they are avoiding the river. Consider the possibility that there is another place for the residents to do the water sports and this place can satisfy the residents need well. If this is the case, they do not have to use Mason River to do these sports. Moreover, the residents currently do not use Mason River for any recreational activity, but they are still likely to use it for other activity, such as transportation. In addition, the argument tells us there have been complaints about the quality of water in the river. But where do these complaints come from? If these complaints come from the factories because the quality of water does not fulfill their requirement, then it is possible that the river still meets the ordinary residents’ requirement and has caused no complaints at all. In short, to justify his point, more evidences are to be provided to prove that the residents are avoiding the river.

Even assuming the residents are indeed avoiding the river because it is not clean, the arguer's stating that this situation is about to change is ungrounded. The agency responsible for this river announced plans to clean up Mason River, but we do not have evidence that this agency will be responsible for its words to actualize its plan, or that it is effective to clean up the river. What if the agency's attempt failed? To clean up the river is not an easy job and requires not only a plan, but also the external factors, such as the environment, the money supply and the good workers. In short, whether the river would be indeed cleaned up is questionable.

Assuming that the quality of river is changed and cleaner than before, to make the conclusion that the recreational use of the river will increase and the council need to increase budget for the lands is too earlier. The former quality of the river has prevented people doing recreational sports. But now will they certainly accept the river's better quality and use it? It is possible that they do not believe the river anymore even if it is of better quality. Or perhaps they have found a better alternative to do recreational sports. Moreover, even if the use will increase, it does not mean that the council will need to increase its budget for the publicly own lands along the river. We do not know whether the increase of recreational use of the river will certainly increase use of publicly own lands along with it. Therefore, to support his point, the arguer needs to provide more evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is not warranted. It will be more convincing if more evidences and information are provided. Such information might include the fact that the residents indeed want to use the river for recreational sports but the river quality are not good enough, and that the agency is effective to improve the quality and the residents are going to increase their use of the river.

题目：ISSUE130 - "How children are socialized today determines the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society."
字数：617
用时：0:45:00
日期：2010-2-25

They speaker claims that how children are socialized today determines the destiny of society, and we haven't learned how to raise children to bring a better society. I agree with the speaker that we have not yet learned how to raise children who can bring about a better society, however, as to the first claim, I don't think how children are socialized today determines the destiny of society.

Let’s consider the speaker’s first claim that destiny of society depends on the socialization of children. Socialization means to understand the society's values, requirements and be involved into society. The children who are better socialized easily understand the rules of society, have a better sense of cooperation and how to communicate with others. Therefore, after these children grow up, they are more likely to meet the standard of the jobs they are going to do and can get along well with the co-workers. In this way, it seems to be like they are more likely to get a chance of promotion and succeed.

However, can we thus make the conclusion that the children not so well socialized cannot make a contribution to society? I don't think we can. The children that are not socialized well perhaps don't understand the requirements of society, but they may have unique characters and a splendid inner world; they do not make efforts to be involved into the society, to communicate with others, or to be successful, but independent thinking gives them some unique qualities--some special talents, gifts or inspiration. Consider the artists, many of whom are not so well socialized and do not live under the purpose of making money and becoming successful. They might not be good communicators with other people, but they can communicate with themselves--their inner feelings and the beautiful world.

Even many prominent artists, ranging from Mozart, Bach to Beethoven, Van Gogh, are of this kind, not socialized well, but leaving countless valuable works to the world. They are not socialized and communicate with others much, but their contribution to the world is of great value and even influence the destiny of society. How, we may want to ask, can the not so well socialized artists accomplish so great achievements? When we analyze this question deeper, we might find that perhaps it is exactly their not socialized character that gives them different views of the world. They go on a different way, because what they seek for are not the common purposes chosen by ordinary, socialized people. In short, whether a child is socialized well do not have much to do with whether s/he can make contributions to society, and therefore determines the destiny of society. (怎么觉着这两段写着写着，自相矛盾了，但又不知道该怎么调整一下)

As to the speaker's second claim, I agree that parent have not learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society. The parents today are more or less oriented by the trend of judging children by their academic performances and put so much attention on the children's scores at school. However, the academic performance of children is certainly not the only important factors of children's development. Their physical, emotional, spiritual conditions are also very eminent factors but they are neglected to a large extent by parents. Raising children in this way finally leads to serious consequences, such as children's pressure and mental problems. This point can be well illustrated by the high suicide rate of Japan and the increasing number of on-campus gun shooting accidents in America. The over-emphasis on scores and the academic performance and the ignorance of their psychological condition is the main reason of this trend, and parents should start to change the way they raise children, instead of focusing on how well they are socialized.

In conclusion, the destiny of society is not determined by how children are socialized today. Meanwhile, parents have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society. They should pay more attention to their psychological, mental conditions, instead of caring only about their academic performances.