Topic:

>In some countries people are strongly influenced by fashion, such as clothing and hairstyle.  What in your opinion attracts people to fashion? Is this a positive or negative development?

>在有些国家，人们受到流行时尚强烈的影响，比方说衣着和髪型。依你之见，到底什么原因，人们会如此受到时髦的吸引？这种趋势应该是好还是不好的现象？

 Nowadays, some buildings such as offices and schools have open-space design instead of separate rooms.  Why is it so? Do you think that this is a positive or negative development?
 
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.
 

Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh:
 
These days, it is common to see an increasing number of open-plan offices and schools, particularly in most major cities where there is limited area for buildings.  The main reason for this trend is cost, of course, since the value of floor space has been rising.  While having an open-space design is usually cheaper, it is worthy of more research on the pros and cons of this development.
 
To begin with, being cheaper in cost is certainly not the only positive aspect about the growingly popular open-space concept.  Regarding the construction of schools or universities, the open-plan design is meant to play the dual role of social interaction among students and environmental enhancement on a compact campus in the urban setting.  This is made possible by eliminating barriers such as walls, fences and hedges that traditionally used to separate distinct functional areas.  Meanwhile, such advantages may as well happen to the office floor.  It is argued that there are better interaction between staff, less distinction between different rankings of co-workers, more flexible space, and more natural light because of the removal of inteior walls.  All these serve to explain the popularity of the open-space design.
 
As often as not, the open-space design may just turn out to be a negative development leading to stress, if nothing else.  On the campus, it is reported that students are exposed to high levels of stress in their learning activities.  Surveys repetively show the majority of them are experiencing significant stress as a result of interpersonal conflicts, self-esteem complexities, time constraints, academic frustrations and emotional problems.  Similar effects are even more apparent in the working environment on the office floor.  For instance, it is hard for staff to concentrate due to lack of privacy and feeling of being watched.  What is more, problems of constant noise are likely to lower staff performance.
 
To sum up, there are both good things and bad things about open schools or open offices.  While the recent trend toward the open-plan design can be explained as at least cost-efficient, it is also important to know that those benefits are typically offset by myriad distractions and stressful situations.  Independent of the cost factor, not all people like the open-space design.  (Essay created by Jeenn Lee Hsieh

Some countries achieve international success by building specialized sports facilities for top athletes to train instead of providing sports facilities that everyone can use. Do you think it is a positive or negative development?

Children can learn effectively from watching television. Therefore, children should be encouraged to watch television both at home and at school. To what extent, do you agree or disagree?

 Leadership member of a group?
When given the opportunity to choose between to become a leader or being as member of group, many would choose the less demanding role as a follower in a team environment. But I tend to argue that provided with necessity skills one should sought out to the leadership position for that being a leader entails greater responsibility and opportunities in personal development. Leader ship position is the seed to breed personal excellence and industrial expertise.
First and foremost, leadership skill sets entails a great deal of interpersonal skills. One need to be more versatile when confronted with different social settings, this is especially beneficial for those aim to become mastery in building efficient support relations. Leadership position not only require leaders to be more efficient in interpersonal communication, but this interactive setting also demand leaders to embrace a charismatic and caring personality that able to glue his team member towards a shared goal. This charismatic and endearing character often establishes a trustworthy basis upon which team members are inspired toward the common goal. Thus being a leader is the best formula to shape one’s personal charm coupled with development in sophisticated interpersonal skills.
Also, leadership position urges us to take up more responsibility than others, being a leader usually suggests project ownership is taken by the leader himself, failure at which will jeopardize his career advancement. With stake at hand, leaders often voluntarily take up responsibility of overseeing projects progress after allocate to various team members. Continuous dedication is the crucial element in any successful leadership. Thus gradually one learns to take necessary responsibility with ways to coordinate and allocate tasks to others.
Third but not least, leadership position greatly facilitates one’s understanding on respective area of expertise. Leadership position not only requires one to engage extensive with various tasks at hand but in-depth knowledge of a peculiar task cannot be expensed as well. For instance, if you are not resourceful enough towards a subject that involved in your project, you will not be able to provide assistance to your subordinate in time of need. Also, you will find it impossible to provide professional guidance or creative solution in project execution phase. Thus, professional know-how is needed for leaders to carry out projects successfully. 
In short, leadership position is the opportunity for any individual with inspiration to become a competent and resourceful person. One can take the opportunity to build up leadership skills with forthcoming career development.

In recent years, many young people decide to further their study abroad. What are the advantages and disadvantages of studying abroad?

Nowadays, some buildings such as offices and schools have open-space design instead of separate rooms.  Why is it so? Do you think that this is a positive or negative development?
 
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

Some countries achieve international success, building specialised sports facilities for top athletes to train instead of providing sports facilities that everyone can use. Positive or negative?

It is now generally accepted that human activity is leading to the mass extinction of animals both on land and at sea. In this essay, I will discuss several causes for this global phenomenon, and attempt to identify what could be done to solve this problem.

In many countries, the proportion of older people is steadily increasing. Does this trend have more positive or negative effects on the society?

Coupled with the rapid development in medical science and life quality, people are able to live longer, and the proportion of old people are rising at a steady pace. However, whether it has more positive or negative impacts is certainly a contentious one.

Granted, with the increase of senior citizens, the younger generation acquire more opportunities to spend time with their senior relatives. They could enjoy a large family gathering, sharing their happiness, sadness and problems  with the their great grandparents, during which time they might occasionally acquire several pieces of valuable advice. The rich experiences of the senior members could possibly inspire the junior ones to develop a different way to  cope with grumpy superiors in workplace, for example,writing a long and heart-touching email to an angry boss rather than confronting with him directly. 

However, beneath the seemingly advantageous surface, tremendous negative impacts are troubling and even possibly haunting both individual families and the whole society.  Chief among the problems is the huge financial burden imposed on the younger parents who have to support four or even more orderly members along with their children. They have to pay the utility bills, buy daily necessities,  pay for the intimidating medical expense, or even hire nurses to help them to take care of their senior members, the expense of which could sometimes exceed their yearly income. Another negative influences of rising ratio of old people is that the development of society are slowing down. In particular, the lack of vigorous work force (beyond doubt, most of the elderly are weak in physical strength and not able to engage in labor demanding jobs) are hindering the development of social economy and industry. For example, in China, though it has the largest population in the world, there is a serious shortage of labor-intensive workers in most of areas including construction sites and factories, hindering the further advancement of country.

By way of conclusion, the problems involved in the continuously climbing proportion of aged people far outweigh its benefits, considering the undue financial pressure on families  and the slower development of society.