Exams are a fair way of testing students. Do you agree?
Every year thousands of students take important exams which can decide their future. For example, students have to pass exams with satisfactory grades in order to get a place in a university. However, are exams a fair way of judging a student’s ability?
On the one hand, exams seem fair. The questions are the same for all students. Also, the exams are marked according to a strict scheme and usually by more than one examiner. Furthermore, students do the exams at the same time and under the same conditions.
On the other hand, there are some drawbacks with exams. Despite some students deserving to pass, the might be so nervous on the big day that they make a mess of the exam. Moreover, there may be other reasons, such as illness, which affect a student’s performance in an exam. An alternative to exams would be a system of continuous assessment of course work by teachers during the year although this would mean more regular testing and more work for teachers. There would be a greater opportunity for students to copy work, too.
To sum up, exams are not the ideal way of testing students and the idea of assessing students’ work over a longer period is becoming more popular. In my opinion, the best system would be a mixture of the two – 50% exams and 50% course work.
Is Tourism Bad for the Environment?
Most people feel that their jobs are becoming more and more stressful. They work extremely hard, and don’t have enough time to relax. It’s no surprise that people want their holidays to be perfect. Many people look for continuous sunshine on the most luxurious beaches.
As a result, more people than ever travel to far-away countries to get that all-day sun. Moreover, travelling has also become safer and more comfortable. All of this has brought business and opportunities to many tourist destinations. The extra money this is bringing in can be used to develop health and education in these countries.
However, tourism has not been good news for the environment. First of all, transporting millions of tourists to their holiday resorts every year pollutes the air and the seas. Secondly, more and more hotels are built, and some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes are destroyed forever. And finally, fresh water supplies are running low because of the extra demands for water.
To conclude, I think that tourism has a lot of negative consequences on nature. If we want our planet to be healthy place, we need to travel less.
Should Politicians Become Media Stars?
In the past, nobody would have known what the British prime minister had for breakfast, or what the name of the American president’s dog was. Many politicians these days, however, are trying to become media stars, and we learn details of their private lives from chat shows and glossy magazines. Is this a development we should be happy with?
Of course, there are people who think it is perfectly acceptable that politicians are media stars. They might argue that society has changed, and entertainment is part of our daily lives. If politicians want to be accepted by a large number of people, they need to adapt to our life styles and appear on chat shows, and not just on news programmes. They could also argue that the better we get to know our politicians as humans, and not just as representatives of a political party, the easier it is to decide who to vote for. In addition, politicis is about gaining power, and, in a democracy, a politician’s ambition must be to gain as much power as possible so that they can have a greater influence on how society is run. If a good politician gets more public support by turning up on chat shows, so be it!
On the other hand, there are lots of arguments against politician becoming media stars. Although entertainment is certainly part of our daily lives, politics should not be about fun. Politicians need to be serious and professional, and they should focus on their important work, and not be distracted by seeking fame and celebrity status. In the same way, one might argue that people switch on the TV because they want to get away from politics and the problems of their daily lives, and they don’t want to see politicians spoiling their favourite TV shows. And last, but not least it can be harmful for the development of a political system if politics becomes mixed up with entertainment. Politics should be about truth and reality, not entertainment, and so there should be strict rules to keep them apart.
All things considered, I personally am not really against politicians becoming media stars because I am not affected by their celebrity personas. In order to decide who to vote for, I try to be well informed by reading newspapers and through discussions with friends who are also seriously interested in politics. I will definitely never be influenced in my decisions by superficial TV programmes.
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