【夏夜之潘的练习贴】要是能早点发现这里就好了~

夏夜之潘UID: 3640100

希望互改能让大家一起提高~

下次考试时间：2015.8.29
写作困难：手速不够，积累的例子少

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夏夜之潘UID: 3640100

122. The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role models.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

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My response：


I totally agree that if one want to learn the most presentative and prevailing, instead of all-sided, characteristics of a society, screwing into the heroes the chose from men and women is the best way in that those heroes are undoubted epitome of the value in certain society.

Martin Luther King, Jr. surely deserves the honor hero. More importantly, he is respected not only the black, but also other races, which throw a light on the fact that people, in those societies, have the awareness to relate to the misery of other people in spite of the discrepancies among races. It also indicates that a lot of people have suffered enough to understand the scars the left by discrimination. Thus what the hero had done, what the hero had said and the hero him-/herself reflect what people had suffered and what they cherish in certain society.

Another vivid example could be presented by the development of the feminist movement. Females have long in history struggled for their equal rights as men. The fact that heroes were mostly men then changed after Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinam set up the feminist revolution and are honored as the first heroes in feminism. Books by them became Bible for girls. Provident people might have foreseen a ginormous change on society features from then on. And as expected, we are gradually stepping into societies where women pursue their career as men do and earn the bread, meanwhile men are taking part of the responsibilities for babies and families. It really give us hint that a diverse change in heroes honored by people may herald a change in society properties.

Additionally, heroes are sometimes a mirror reflecting what are fading away in society. The selection of national moral models, who are praised publicly as heroes, in China is such a case pertinent to this point. China has been a state of ceremonies from thousands of years ago and thus such morals and virtues should have been rooted in people. The so-called moral model seems redundant. However, it indeed exists in the contemporary Chinese society, which indicates a tendency that people are becoming deaf and blind to those morals and virtues. So they need these signs and flags to remind themselves of those once cherished. Thus the other side that heroes could inform people of the society properties lies in what are fading away in certain society.

Heroes are really good mirrors. However, they are limited at the same time when it comes to a certain society where the wills of other classes in society are completely quelled by the ruling class. Therefore, the heroes may in high probability the heroes of the ruling class, not the other classes’, which makes it imposable for a contemporary observant to learn the real characteristics of that society. But we need not to worry, since time and history will give us answers.

483 words

夏夜之潘UID: 3640100

1.Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.

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.


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My response：


The author makes a conclusion that the so-called Palean baskets are not only made by the Palean because they were also found in ancient village Lithos that was isolated from Palea by a river. However, the conclusion is constructed lacking cogent logic and evidence.

The place that something is discovered doesn’t necessarily indicate the same place is the origin. As we all know, bartering was common in ancient civilizations. The woven baskets might be bartered from other places. So it is too cursory to deny the circulation of that kind of baskets from Palean to Lithos before we could have assessed the form and standard of economics at that time in the two villages. Otherwise there are high probabilities that the baskets we are interested in were exported from other place and the legacies of the real origin was somewhat submerged in the river of the history so we haven’t found them yet. Besides, it is more convincing to say the woven baskets are not uniquely Palean if tools and workshops were found somewhere else other than Palean, which will be decisive evidence of where the baskets were really made. Thus, there are still possibilities that the baskets are uniquely made in Palean.

Maybe the Brim River is broad and deep enough today to have encouraged people to associate it with a threshold between Palean and Lithos, but it might be nothing for Palean people. The landform can change from extreme to extreme during thousands of thousand years, chances are that the Brim River might be just a brook that people could easily cross, or it might not exist at all. In that case baskets made in Palean could be transported to villages around including Lithos, of course without boats. The geographic evidence should be given, or we can still believe the baskets were uniquely made in Palean.

Assuming that the Brim River did be broad and deep enough to isolate people unless other vehicles were utilized, the transport of goods, including the baskets, could have occur despite the fact that no boat relics have been ever found. There might have existed other ways of transport. A bridge might have linked the two villages for exchanges of goods and it was just destroyed and disappeared for some reason. Other vehicles might have been invented to convey goods, but were discarded by people because of inconveniency of replaced by better vehicles. Therefore, if the author can not exclude all these possibilities, those baskets can still be uniquely made in Palean.

419 words

夏夜之潘UID: 3640100

4. The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty—Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.


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My response：


The writer regard Adams Realty as superior compared to Fitch Realty upon several assumptions, without which Fitch may turn out to be a better choice for home sellers requiring better speed and lower price.

First, the writer consider Adams to be better for Adams’s higher real estate agents, which is under the premise that number of estate agents is proportionate to the service quality of the estate firm, thus homes are sold faster. However, there are more than one factors contributing to the overall evaluation of their service. If Fitch is equipped with experienced salesmen and makes better advertisement, while Adams is undertaken selling requirement by novices and dose little propaganda, there may be fewer buyers coming to Adams although they has more agents, which results slower speed and inferior service.

Second, the author takes revenue as part of the comparison criteria. This is basically reasonable, but the assumption that higher revenue means better services is not warranted. Chances are that, for Adams, it is the higher intermediary service fee that lead to the higher revenue instead of more clients. Of course we don’t want a higher price, not to speak that a revenue of 168 does not dominate revenue of 144 that much. On the other hand, if Fitch charges much less than Adams and still reaches revenue approximate to Adams’, it is a satiric evidence that Fitch is superior with more clients.

Third, the writer takes his/her own case for example, in which his/her home were sold faster by Adams. However, the houses he/she delegated to the firms were probably different. The delegation to Adams were 10 years older than to Fitch. Thus, the assumption that the standard didn’t change during the ten years and different houses are sold in the same speed are surely unwarranted. If Fitch have developed faster than Adams and the condition of the house that the writer delegated to Fitch were worse to sell, the result of comparison may favor Fitch more.

329 words

这篇。。。写不长。。。