The 20 day IELTS ESSAY workout - Day 8
Let get started with studying 5 samples and write 1 practice daily !!!!
---- Day 8 ------
1. Most schools are planning to replace sport and exercise classes with more academic sessions. How will this change affect children’s lives in your view?
The debate between where to allocate valuable teaching resources probably started with the first educational institutions. In present-day society, the conflict continues and rightly so. In my opinion converting sports classes to more traditional subjects has two significant advantages. Firstly, it is a more effective use of a student’s time. Secondly, in the future, academic skills are more useful.
Switching time spent on sport in a school to time spent on more academic activities is a wise and cost-effective solution. Firstly, academic studies are inherently less expensive to perform when compared to physical education. For example, to play almost any sport one has to invest in the appropriate equipment, ranging from shorts, t-shirts to rackets and balls. Furthermore, excess time is spent in the changing rooms or washing afterwards. In more traditional subjects, students merely enter the classroom and are learning within minutes.
Secondly, sport can be argued as an activity practiced naturally by children, especially boys. In every school at break time, many children engage in energetic activities, whereas hardly any are studying Algebra, Biology or Physics. Because these subjects are less popular, more resources should be allocated to teaching them. In addition, academic skills could be argued as more important due to the small number of people in society currently using sport skills in a work environment. Thus, focusing on skills demanded by the labour market would benefit students’ lives dramatically in the future.
To conclude, young learners going through school would finish much better prepared for life avoiding sport tuition. Furthermore, they would have taken full advantage of their school years through more time spent learning.
2. Crime is a big problem in the world; many believe that nothing can be done to prevent it. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give your own opinion.
Crime is unquestionably one of the most prevailing and worrying aspects in any society, and its prevention should be taken seriously. Crime prevention can be executed in various ways, firstly through a sustained honest presence of law enforcement agencies in the community and secondly through international cooperation.
A local presence by incorruptible law enforcement authorities may be costly; however, the long-term investment would pay dividends in the future. A safer region would encourage trade, investment and set an invaluable example for younger generations. For example, crime has dramatically been reduced in the Favelas around Rio de Janiero in Brazil. This was achieved largely through the government committing large funds of money to stationing police headquarters in and around the slums. These financial expenditures greatly benefited the community.
Secondly, due to the large-scale severity and the global impact that crime has in some areas of the world, global cooperation is critical. Operating in a different way would incur significant financial losses and render any expenditure futile. For example, Somalian pirates in Africa have reined terror amongst many ocean transport companies in the area. Only through large-scale international cooperation was policing the area possible. Therefore, crime reduction can be attributed to a joint effort between countries.
To conclude, illegal activities are a costly and dangerous fact in the present global economy; however, through large-scale government investment, prevention is an attainable goal. Also, spreading the expense through international cooperation, the resources invested can be significantly more effective in reducing criminals’ effectiveness abroad.
3. Should education and healthcare be free of charge and funded by the government, or should it be the responsibility of the people to pay for these services? Discuss the above and give your opinion using examples.
A healthy and educated society is the backbone of any successful society; however, deciding who is to provide this is a sensitive topic. I strongly believe the government should be held responsible to provide these services for two reasons. Firstly, the entire society benefits, and secondly the whole population is currently paying for the services. However, if one prefers extra services they should be prepared to pay for it themselves.
Firstly, education is largely considered a basic right. A population unable to calculate, read, write or even learn would be doomed in such a competitive global economy. Globalisation has increased competition and shifted the emphasis to knowledge, information and science. A state education should, therefore, be freely available to everybody. However, if people wish to purchase private education, this should also be allowed or even encouraged. Private education reduces the strain on public services and provides a source of tax revenue for the government, in effect, subsidising state education.
Secondly, health services must undoubtedly be available to all because the entire nation is paying taxes and, therefore, should not be excluded from any service. Take the NHS in the UK, for example; this organisation caters for the entire population, and no private medical insurance is needed. Unfortunately waiting lists can be long and service is occasionally slow; therefore, some purchase private medical insurance for a faster service. This reduces the workload of the public sector.
To conclude, I believe both healthcare and education are basic fundamental rights, necessary for any advanced society, and, therefore, the responsibility should lie with the government. Nevertheless, if individuals require more than the standard level, then they should be prepared to pay for it.
4. Very few schoolchildren learn about the value of money and how to look after it, yet this is a critical life skill that should be taught as part of the school curriculum. Do you agree or disagree?
It may be true that schools do not really teach young people how to handle their finances on a grand scale, but it is untrue that they ignore the topic altogether. The problem may be that students do not see the relevance of what they are taught.
At primary school, children learn to do mental arithmetic and simple calculations including fractions and decimals. At my school, Maths problems at this level were set in a real context such as working out the cost of buying a T-shirt at 10% discount, or calculating interest when you put your pocket money in a savings account.
Unfortunately, some children do not realise how useful these things will be later in life. For instance, if you borrow money to buy a car, you need to know how to work out for yourself how much it will cost you without relying on the finance company to tell you. Similarly people should only buy things on credit if they know how much it is really costing them if they are unable pay the debt off each month.
It is possibly true that schools could try to make children understand the importance of all these areas, but children are young and cannot look into the future or predict the skills that they will need.
Ultimately, people have to make their own decisions about what money is worth, based on their earnings and lifestyle. An education system can equip us to work out what is best, but it cannot save the money for us.
5. Do copyright laws limit creativity or reward it? Would society function better without such rules and regulations?
It is supposed by many that copyright laws may be counterproductive and could hinder creative endeavor. However, personally, I disagree with this idea and opine strongly that the protection of intellectual property is crucial to a well-functioning society, and, in fact, encourages the production of further works by providing a framework within which innovators may be adequately rewarded for their efforts.
Copyright regulations may prevent people from expanding on existing ideas, but a key purpose of such rules is to ensure that new ideas are sufficiently original to warrant financial reward. It is unlikely that members of the public could discern an original piece from a fraud, and so the support of the courts is necessary in order to uphold standards of originality. The US federal government states, for instance, that such laws exist to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good, and to ensure reasonable return to authors and inventors. Through this process, the law establishes incentives for producing new works, which in turn encourages learning, progress, and development.
Without such regulations, individuals would be free to copy another’s work. As mentioned above, the general public cannot reasonably be expected to defend authenticity, and so would-be fraudsters may receive a financial reward comparable to that of the originator. Resultantly, in countries with substandard protections for artists, for example, creative output is consistently and considerably lower than that of nations with strong intellectual property regulations since the genuine owner of the work is afforded little protection or reward. If we accept that more creative output is good for society, then copyright law can be taken as the same.
To conclude, copyright regulations are an essential tool for the promotion of creativity, and society tends to function better with their enforcement.
Part 2: Writing Practice
The most important consideration when choosing any career or job is having a high income. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Include specific details and examples to support your choice.
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