【NINE小组】【作业集】——by Amber（持续更新，欢迎拍砖）

amber_cUID: 3131341

ISSUE92

I strongly endorse that the assessment on students should depend on their ability to interpret ideas, trends, and concepts of facts. As we all know, the very purpose of education is to free students’ thinking and spirits. Emphasis on the ability to grasp of ideas and trends that facts indicate, not of bare facts, can activate students’ thoughts and sharpen their skills for the future professionals. By grasping the concepts and trends of facts students have an insight into those facts. They find out the objective laws, apply a theory to practice, and prepare for their professionals after graduates. If we learn only facts we learn rather little because rote learning drives students to unreflecting learning. As the old saying goes, ’to read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.’ Consider the discipline of management. A business student barely memorizing what is ‘SMART Principle’, but has no ideas how to meet the specific requirements as a manager, of course, will be a layman and fail to manage an enterprise. On the contrary, if the student pays attention, in the daily study, to comprehend the ideas and trends of managing principles and always think about how to apply them, he or she will undoubtedly be competent on the manager position. The men who innovate, create, or discover are usually those who concentrate on the ideas, trends, and notions of facts. Laying stress on explaining trends and ideas of facts can leads to critical and creative thinking. History informs me that by accepting on blind faith what we are taught we gain little, leaving brains lack of vitality. In the physical science, with in-depth study and critical thinking of existing theories, people tend to challenge some doctrines. They point out the flaws, put forward new hypothesis, set up experiments, and sometimes draw opposite conclusions. It is hard for a student who just remembers the steps of physic experiment, to design a new experiment to verify the same theory, or to put forward a new one. Even in the arts, students should challenge, for creating new works, established styles and forms. An arts student ignorant of concepts or trends of existing painting forms, is little likely to make outstanding paintings—let alone a breakthrough. To sum up, it is desirable to evaluate students on the extent to which they can explain the ideas, trends and concepts of facts, rather than on how much they can remember. To cultivate students ability and train students for profession, education institutions might be advised to provide more extracurricular activities. That can help a lot for students to meet the requirement of the education assessment.

amber_cUID: 3131341

ISSUE69
Government officers given excessive power might cause adverse effect, especially in the case without any oversight. In a democratic society, taxpayers surely hold the right to be informed about the leaders’ motives and government daily operation. And to supervise political leaders and government is an obligation of each citizen. Nevertheless, full disclosure might risk throwing the nation and its people to danger. Nowadays terrorist attacks and other threatening activities are increasingly serious. Therefore, I strongly endorse the opinion that it is sometimes necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to conceal information from the public.

Taking the security of the public into consideration, the requirement of pure forthrightness is irrational and adverse. Undue revelation might set the public in a dangerous case. If the United States government released the information, prior to taking actions, about strategies to apprehend Saddam Hussein, the security of America and its citizenry would be threatened while the objective would have a chance to escape from punishment. Otherwise, moderate concealing to the public is also of significant benefit for avoiding the public panic. I cannot imagine what will happen if the government confirms 2012 as the end of the world and immediately informs its people. There is no denying that an immeasurable number of people will die from accidents, such as stampede, due to mass panic and depression. As a result, a would-have-been natural disaster will become a man-made one.

From the perspective of personal interests, it is not prudent for a political leader to show the information, in the nude, to the public. Because he or she will be considered as immature and be assailed for vulnerability by the political opponents. To gain and consolidate political leadership, it is essential for a leader to withhold information, from the public, about personal foibles, sociable defects, and detailed private life. As media has become an influential factor, which could not be ignored, in an election, the flaws of a candidate will be unnecessarily enlarged, misleading voters and leading to a completely different result.

Having recognized the importance of withholding, licit political leadership yet calls for moderate forthrightness. Information as to what policy would be carried out, what their motives are and so forth, should be known by the public. Deceit and withholding earns nothing but distrust. What is more, by demagoguery reactionaries will take advantages of such an opaque political condition and make the whole country fall into disturbance, even in wars. Just consider the typical examples of feudal dynasties in the long history of China. Monarchs attempted to maintain their power and manipulate their people, by burning books and burying the informed people to withhold negative but true information. As a consequence, they were proved to be highly wrong after their being overthrown. Moreover, constitution endues people the right to know. Effective democratic supervision helps a lot to avoid and reduce corruption and malfeasance.

All in all, government and political leaders should strike a balance in the extent to which they disclose to the public. Meanwhile, citizenry should not require complete disclosure and should employ rights in a reasonable way. Because the ultimate purpose of moderate withholding is to ensure the security and interests of the public and even the nation.

amber_cUID: 3131341

ISSUE80
From personal perspective, government surely should meet people’s fundamental demand for food, clothing and work. However, to solve the problem of survival does not necessarily contradict with funding the arts, because flourish in arts produces a lot of social and economic benefits, which helps to mitigate distress. Besides, government is obliged to invest in the arts to strengthen the nation and to improve the cultural life of citizens.


There is no denying the fact that government should put more focus on poverty and unemployment compared to the arts, to maintain the social stability. After all, a starving person would prefer bread to a painting for human nature. Before her death, it was the roast chicken and the fire that occurred to the illusion of the Little Match Girl, not a piece of symphony. Yet, a society without poverty and unemployment is so-called utopia, which does not exist at all. Then, government have to postpone invest in the arts forever, if patronage for the arts should always make way for addressing pressing issues.



In some way, chances for employment and economic growth emerge from prosperity in arts. The impressive results in a study reveals that, in America, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166.2billion in economic activity annually—a 24 percent increase in just the past five years. That amount is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries. This spending supports 5.7 million full-time jobs in the United States—an increase of 850,000 jobs since 2002 study. As the study indicates, the arts have a crucial impact on economy and play a critical role in stimulating employment. Evidently, government is repaid with economic growth for sound invest.


At the same time, it is the function of government to invest in the arts. As culture is becoming an increasingly important factor in the quality of people’s life, prosperity in the arts undoubtedly will enrich the quality of life. The study mentioned above also shows that, every day, the 100,000 nonprofit arts and culture organizations that populate the nation’s cities and towns are making their communities more desirable places to live and work. They provide inspiration and enjoyment to residents, beautify shared public places, and strengthen the social fabric. Naturally most of us appreciate the intrinsic benefits of the arts—their beauty and vision; how they inspire, soothe, provoke, and connect us. At the time we need not strive for a living, we would like to attend a concert, to visit the arts museum, or to collect a piece of calligraphy work.


In short, government has its obligation to place the survival of its citizens in the first position. And endeavor to prosper the arts should also stressed because the flourishing arts industry brings improving quality of life and economic development.

panmingming2008UID: 2535351

8# winterfine
把之前的习作一稿\同学批改稿\修改稿 都传上来. 这样的【习作集】会很赞.

主帖若改为"【NINE小组】【作业集】---by AMBER  （第xx次习作已更新）" 会更好.
也方便批改的同学前后参考, 自己也能上下浏览发现重复犯的错误 -- 然后通过"重点打击" 重点练习加以改进.

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"Invictus" (2009 film)

自胜者强。

COME ON!