GRE Issue Task 2

Statement
In any field of endeavor, an individual’s best critics are the individual’s own colleagues or other peers in that field.

In your view, how accurate is the foregoing statement? Develop and support your viewpoint with relevant reasons and examples and by considering ways in which the statement may or may not be true.

Essay
It is reasonable that someone have to develop and improve themselves in order to survive in his life, including in his occupation. To ascertain that he is progressing, an individual must have critics from others. Are not self-critics enough? Apparently, anyone has an inclination to see what they want to see only, missing many things essential to his evaluation. To lose this subjective manner is exactly why everyone need to be evaluated by other individuals. Now, the remaining question is whether critics from those engaged in the same field or critics from the rest of the humanity is the best.
I can see why someone goes straightly to his peers from the very same pool of professional when he needs some critics or encounters any problem, especially when he is dealing with a very specific field being understood only by particular parties—physics, computer programming, pharmacy, etc. Undoubtedly, a pharmacist can not ask a businessman if there is something wrong with the new formula of the sleeping pill he just made since this “simple” question requires an understanding which takes years of reading and experimenting.

In different cases, critics from common people are more enlightening than those from someone’s colleagues of the same field. For instance, a marketer can learn why his last campaign failed by consulting a number of individuals among his targeted market. It is better than spending his whole time with his colleagues, wondering about what people think about his methods that led to no avail. A politician, similarly, may generate evaluations from the citizens—his people—about his achievements. They will be far more objective from his peers who want to tackle him down or merely laud him for a better seat. Despite the fact that they have limited professional knowledge of marketing and politics, these “outsiders” are to who the marketer presents his products and for who the politician works.

From the given arguments above, it is clear that people of some fields depend on their peers to get critics. Nevertheless, listening to common individuals can be more useful to professionals of other fields. In the end, by contemplating these critics, an individual can improve himself and become a lot better in his endeavor.

Matt Damon in The Bourne Supremacy and The Rainmaker

My sister is going crazy about Matt Damon. I exploit her admiring this actor to force her to study English, promising that I'd buy one movie for every 5 chapters of TOEFL preparation book she finishes. She has finished 37 chapters so far. The last two I watched with her were The Bourne Supremacy and The Rainmaker.

I like the fighting and tracking scenes in The Bourne series, especially in this one.
But of course, I still love Jackie Chan's.

As a law school fresh-graduate, Matt Damon looked so young here.
The movie is old-stylish, and has an adequate climax with an expected ending.

GRE and a Poem

My last post was my first exercise of GRE issue task. I'll keep posting my exercises. There will be lots of them, I hope. Well, you see, I'll post them only to stimulate myself, and to share it with others also preparing themselves.

By the way, I wrote a poem this morning.


All The Time

Sometimes I wonder what
when your eyes are wandering into the sky
or when you're talking to others about things I don't have in mind

but I always know that
every time I'm around, you constantly look at me from the corner of your eye
and when I'm not, you actually never leave me behind

o even the subtlest touch
and the slightest smile
brighten my day and night

all the time

GRE Issue Task 1

Issue Statement
“Schools should be responsible not only for teaching academic skills but also for teaching ethical and social values.”

Essay
Addressing the issue of involving ethical and social values in schools is apparently more complicated than it is stated by the speaker. Despite my concordance to this idea, I am aware that its application is rather intricate and inherent to various aspects, not only that of the students but also that of others associated to the educational system.

First of all, the school must decide which ethical and social values necessary to be taught. In a homogenous environment, such as an all-Christian school or an all-Chinese school, this problem might not entail too many concern and mystification. On the other hand, it would be more difficult for any level of educational institute with diverse backgrounds among its teachers and students. However, there are universal values decent enough for students of any upbringing to learn. Simple values such as respecting others and solving problems without conflict can be taught in neutral contexts.

An argument to support the critical need of teaching ethical and social values at schools is that students spend almost one-third of their time a day there. Therefore, schools play an important role as places where children and teenagers develop their attitude and behavior. If the pedagogues ignore this and only focus on their students’ academic achievements, these youngsters would have to learn such values from the rest available sources, namely family, friends, and media. The problem is however good-natured their parents are, they simply cannot always follow the children at schools and tell what is good and bad. Meanwhile, friends do not feel like they have responsibility to guide others to good deeds, and media is exploiting anything sold well regardless of its impacts.

Unfortunately, there is a drawback of imposing the teaching of such values at schools. Teachers will bear a larger responsibility, exhausting their time and energy. This fact might end up in teachers’ demanding a payment rise, and then trigger a rise of the school fee as well. Curriculum would have to be reconstructed, and it would take a while before managing to establish a proper one to pursue both academic record and values teaching. Nevertheless, these are trivial compared to what might and had happened to children studying at schools which neglect this issue. There are those bullied by his or her friends, being called as a “gay” or a “whore” continuously until they cannot stand it and then they commit suicide. It is very likely to happen when these children do not understand that they should not intimidate others and the consequences that might follow.

In the end of the day, schools must also teach ethical and social values at any cost. Any problem and complexity occur is expected, but letting schools to abandon it is a worse alternative.

April 2010

I had to say goodbye to (my dreams of) Oxford and Cambridge University. However, I'll keep fighting :)