ISSUE6 拍必回

fatluoUID: 191214

6、"The most effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze the trends of its youth."

The speaker claims that analyzing the trends of youngster is an effective way to understand contemporary culture. While I concede that the ways of thinking and behavior of youth can reflect any subtle changing of culture, while the improvement of technology leading to rapid social changes. However, not only the trends of its youth but also many other ways can reflect contemporary culture. What is more, undue emphasis on one aspect of the matter of understanding culture will cause bias and prejudices of different groups.

Admittedly, observing and analyzing the trends of its youth play a significant role in understanding contemporary culture, for the reason that young people has a ability of absorbing the new information coming out every day. There are numerous new information coming out every day and being disseminated through global mass media, which have a considerable influence on contemporary culture. The youth has such an open mind that they will accept these changes and adapt to them. Consider, for instance, shopping on the Internet. Young people are so interested in the new way of shopping that products are prepackaged and shopping is impersonal. Examining these behavior and finding the causes will reflect one feature of the culture is that human beings now have a rapid pace in working and living.   

However, the speaker overlooks so many other important and effective ways of understanding contemporary culture. As a matter of fact, besides youth trends, any culture consists of many other different aspects. The example of mainstream culture will serve to illustrate this point of view. After the selection of a long time, mainstream culture is more stable than youth culture, and also play a considerable role in contemporary culture. One effective way to fully understand and analyze the mainstream culture is to research the adults, who create mainstream culture and in return influence it by affect economy. Another feature of a culture is domestic culture, which is reflected usually by festivals. For example, what people eat and perform in a festival is the tradition handed down from one generation to another for the purpose of transmitting the culture connotations.  

What is more, it is the various and competing aspects of culture help ensure the survival and prosperity of any society. And the cognition of the common humanity of all human beings and the understanding of the causes of cultural differences seems so vital. People have a tendency of thinking their own culture as superior one and others' as inferior one under the nurturance of their own groups. However, this tendency causes many social problems and is harmful for the development of human beings. Considering both sides of a contemporary culture, understanding the cultural differences with respect, and then constructing reasonable view of one's own, is the first step to solve social problems and ultimately bring out a democratic society.

To sum up, understanding the explanations of the youth's behavior help us detect subtle changes in contemporary culture. Yet, we still need to keep critical thinking to pause, to look, to examine and to consider many points of view in understanding a culture. Accordingly, the bias and prejudices can be uncovered in the basis of being tolerant to the differences of groups in a society.

staralwaysUID: 193479

"The most effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze the trends of its youth."

The speaker claims that analyzing the trends of youngster is an effective way to understand contemporary culture. While I concede that the way of thinking and behavior of youth can reflect any subtle changing of culture, while [感觉用since比较适合。] the improvement of technology leading [leads] to rapid social changes. However, not only the trends of its [the] youth but also many other ways [aspects] can reflect contemporary culture. What is more, undue emphasis on one aspect of the matter of understanding culture will cause bias and prejudices of [between] different groups.

Admittedly, observing and analyzing the trends of its youth play a significant role in understanding contemporary culture, for the reason that young people has an ability of absorbing the new information coming out every day. [从段末来看，这里应该提及能反映出现象。] There are numerous new information coming out every day and being disseminated through global mass media, which have a considerable influence on contemporary culture. The youth has such an open mind that they will accept these changes and adapt to them. Consider, for instance, shopping on the Internet. Young people are so interested in the new way of shopping that products are prepackaged and shopping is impersonal. [这小半句是什么意思？] Examining these behavior and finding the causes will reflect one feature of the culture is that human beings now have a rapid pace in working and living. [感觉这段所举的例子并没有反映出这一点来。如果要说“快速的生活、工作节奏”，那么应该说因为人们需要更快捷的购物方式以适应更快节奏的生活，而网上购物正好满足了这样的需要，并且在年轻人中很受欢迎；那么研究年轻人的这种行为，逆流而上，可以找到所反映出的东西来。]

However, the speaker overlooks so many other important and effective ways of understanding contemporary culture. As a matter of fact, besides youth trends, any culture consists of many other different aspects. The example of mainstream culture will serve to illustrate this point of view. After the selection of a long time, mainstream culture is more stable than youth culture, and also play a considerable role in contemporary culture. One effective way to fully understand and analyze the mainstream culture is to research the adults, who create mainstream culture and in return influence it by affect economy. [这小半句感觉有点唐突。] Another feature of a culture is domestic culture, which is reflected usually by festivals. For example, what people eat and perform in a festival is the tradition handed down from one generation to another for the purpose of transmitting the culture connotations. [这段关于其他因素讲的可以。]
What is more, it is the various and competing aspects of culture help ensure the survival and prosperity of any society. And the cognition of the common humanity of all human beings and the understanding of the causes of cultural differences seems so vital. People have a tendency of thinking their own culture as superior one and others' as inferior ones under the nurturance of their own groups. However, this tendency causes many social problems and is harmful for the development of human beings. Considering both sides of a contemporary culture, understanding the cultural differences with respect, and then constructing reasonable view of one's own, is the first step to solve social problems and ultimately bring out a democratic society. [感觉这段的大意是讲重视和尊重文化差异，也是了解当代、现行文化的一种方式；但是觉得和社会问题和民主社会的关系不大。]

To sum up, understanding the explanations of the youth's behavior help us detect subtle changes in contemporary culture. Yet, we still need to keep critical thinking to pause, to look, to examine and to consider many points of view in understanding a culture. Accordingly, the bias and prejudices can be uncovered in the basis of being tolerant to the differences of groups in a society. [结尾感觉稍微“虚”了点。]

zhf035UID: 192884

"The most effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze the trends of its youth."


这个题目想过很久，但是没有动笔。
一直觉得把“contemporary culture”理解成“当代文化”很不确切。
查了webster，contemporary 的意思是：

contemparary:
1.happening,existing,or coming into being during the same time of the period.
2.simultaneous;marked by the characteristics of the present period.

觉得如果认为是第一个意思的话，即我们理解的“当代文化”这种表述，那么这个作文题显得非常白痴。　显然年轻人不可能代表整个社会的文化，我们过年吃饺子的文化怎么可能由年轻人来代表呢？这也是本文作者的理解。

如果是第二个意思的话，即“具有当代特征的标志性的文化”，这个题目才比较舒畅。但是很写出反面的论点来——文艺复兴，新文化运动都是年轻人搞的，正面写的话又很难展开，好像一个分论点就倒头了的感觉。

欢迎大家继续讨论。
:victory: