Pre-TOEFL writing worksheet, government control in the Internet. animal rights

以下のふたつのトピックから一つを選んで20分間でエッセイを書き、お互いに見せ合ってコメントを書いてください。

1.      Should there be more government control of the Internet?

Hints for Points：right to know, freedom of expression, bonding, fake news, cyber bullying

2.      Does society give the rights of animals enough consideration?

Hints for Points： animals for meat, pet industry, animals for research, endangered species

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TOEFL IBT Independent Writing, What product would you like to invent? - revised -

Warm-up   Ask each other the following questions.

1.      What do you like? Is there anything that needs to be improved about it?

2.      What have you learned at school recently? Is there any problem about it?

3.      What makes you concerned or angry these days?

Writing Topic

Suppose you were an inventor and you had the knowledge and ability to develop a new product. What product would you like to invent?

☆Let’s think

Discuss the following questions.

1.    Is it all right to write about a product that is totally impossible like a time machine or Doraemon’s Wherever Door to answer this question?

2.    If you seem to have no idea about the product in the writing topic, how would you try to come up with one?

Notes

1.    This topic starts with “Suppose you were …” This means that you can use your imagination and write about something imaginary or even fantastic although you might have to keep in mind that you are writing an academic essay. Unlike creative writing, which is about anything or even nothing, academic essay writing deals with an issue or a question.

2.    If you have difficulty in coming up with an idea, trying to think of an idea related to the matter you know well is one idea. As you are always thinking about the matter, you have many things to write about it. If you are a political person, you might think of a product that can solve one of the biggest political problems. If you are always concerned about your relationships, you could write about a machine that can improve them.

☆Ideas and Expressions

1       a totally clean and safe reusable energy source

2       an application program which can tell you how the person you are contacting online is feeling

3       a device that installs all the historical morals in everyone’s brain

4       a medicine which makes alcoholic drink harmless

5       an app that makes you experience the life of famous people or those bullied

☆Essay for ideas and expressions

2016 was the hottest year on record, and it is said that global warming has gone beyond the point of no return even if fossil-fuel burning is stopped right now. If possible, I would make a product which can decompose carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon, producing carbohydrate as a by-product of the process at a relatively low cost so that people can tackle the problems related to the climate change in two ways: CO2 reduction and food security stabilization.

Global warming, combined with population increase and increasing demand for meat as a result of globalization, is worsening the problem of food shortage. For example, the rising temperature has been rapidly changing the flora and fauna in many regions and affecting agriculture. Many farmers have started having difficulty growing the same crops in the same ways as in the past, but studies on new types of crops more suitable to new weather patterns are behind the speed of climate change. Also, the number of inundated fields due to rising sea level or flood is increasing, and still many other places have problems of water shortage due to desertification, extremely rapid thawing of glacier, or drought, all of which are at least partly the results of rising temperature. It is clear that many more parts of the world will have difficulty providing people with enough food. 

Lowering CO2 level in the air is the top priority for human survival now. If there were a machine which can break down CO2, the main greenhouse gas, into two harmless substances, oxygen and carbon, it could safely and directly reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We could install the device in factories and the exhaust pipes of vehicles. Moreover, if it could produce carbohydrate along CO2 treatment, the dream machine would contribute to stabilizing food security, since carbohydrate is the source of energy. Carbohydrate made from the air can be provided regularly, so it would be a great help in making up for the food shortage.

It is true that putting reusable energy sources that already exist in place would be more important than creating a new machine. However, a decisively effective new energy source has not been found and implementing existing sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind energy devices has been hopelessly behind the rate of the rising average global temperature. Therefore, ways to wipe out the carbon in the air should be considered.

The impact of global warming can wipe the human race out. It would be nice if there were a machine that can directly suck out CO2 from the air and make food from it. We ordinary people, who will suffer most, do not have the power to make decisions. It is the time when each individual’s conscience is tested and ingenuity called for.

☆Presentation

Here is a little activity to help you think of what you are going to write about your invention.

Make a presentation or picture yourself making a presentation on your plan. The procedure is as follows:

1)    Here is the present situation. 

2)    I would like to change this situation in this way by inventing a product like this.

3)    Expected counterargument, problems or question about necessity, and ways to deal with it is as follows.

Answer the following questions.

1.    What is the present situation? What is hoped for? (Research the situation, if necessary.)

e.g. The threat of climate change and food shortage is worsening because of …..

2.    How would you like to change the situation with your product?

e.g. If I could, I would make a machine that makes carbohydrate from CO2 in the air.

3.    What would be the counterargument and how would you deal with it?

e.g. It is true that more efforts should be made to promote sustainable energy sources first, but they would not be in place soon.

☆Speech & Writing

Make a 50-second speech on this topic and then write a full essay on the same topic.

TOEFL IBT Independent Writing, Technology always contributes to improving human society. - revised -

WARM-UP

◍Research and discuss merits and demerits of social media.

Merits:

Demerits:

◍Would you like to go back to the times without social media? Why/Why not?

Composition

Sample Sentence Structures

A.    Nowadays, many people seem to believe that ～ always, ---, but I think that ～also ------.

今日、多くの人が～は常に --- だと信じているようだ。しかし～はまた ----- だと思う。

1.    今日多くの人が科学技術による開発は常に私たちの生活を改善すると信じているようだ。しかしそれはまた生活から多くの大切なものを奪うと思う。

                                                                                            

                                                                                            

                                                                                             

2.    Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure.

                                                                                            

                                                                                            

                                                                                            

B In my country Japan, ～have helped us ---, but we now face -----

私の国日本では、～は私たちが --- するのを助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは ----- に直面している。

1.    私の国日本では、原子力が豊かな生活の享受を助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは福島原発事故(Fukushima nuclear disaster, Fukushima meltdown)による放射能汚染問題に直面している。

                                                                                             

                                                                                            

                                                                                            

2.    Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure

                                                                                            

                                                                                            

                                                                                             

Answer Keys

WARM-UP

◍Research and discuss merits and demerits of social media.

Merits: decentralization of information, faster and more frequent communication, mass dissemination of good ideas and movements, online business/shopping

Demerits:  fake news, monopoly, income gap, manipulation of perception, new types of crimes

◍Would you like to go back to the times without social media? Why/Why not?

STEP 1 Composition

Sample Sentence Structures

B.    Nowadays, many people seem to believe that ～ always, ---, but I think that ～also ------.

今日、多くの人が～は常に --- だと信じているようだ。しかし～はまた ----- だと思う。

3.    今日多くの人が科学技術による開発は常に私たちの生活を改善すると信じているようだ。しかしそれはまた生活から多くの大切なものを奪うと思う。

Nowadays, many people seem to believe that the development by technology always improves our lives, but I think that it also deprives a lot of important things of our lives.

4.    Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure.

Nowadays, many people seem to believe that social media always contribute to democratization of our world, but I think that they also widen gaps between the rich and the poor.

B In my country Japan, ～have helped us ---, but we now face -----

私の国日本では、～は私たちが --- するのを助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは ----- に直面している。

3.    私の国日本では、原子力が豊かな生活の享受を助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは福島原発事故(Fukushima nuclear disaster, Fukushima meltdown)による放射能汚染問題に直面している。

In my country Japan, nuclear power has helped us enjoy prosperous life, but we now face the problem of radioactive contamination due to Fukushima nuclear accident.

4.    Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure

In my country Japan, social media have helped us create new pop culture such as emoji, but we now face vocabulary shortage and disability to comprehend even a short passage.

Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Technology always contributes to improving human society. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

☆Let’s Think

1.      How do the following two sentences differ? Which do you think describes sports less accurately?

a.    Sports contribute to friendship.

b.    Sports always contribute to friendship.

2.      What is the difference between “the world” and “human society”? Do they overlap?

3.      Do you agree with the statement in the Writing Topic above? Why or why not?

Notes

The word “always” is a key to answer this question. There are not many things that always happen. You may say to your friend, “You are always complaining about your sister,” but you do not literally mean it. You know she does many other things. Most things have exceptions. If some exceptions can be cited about the statement in a writing topic, the conclusion will be negative. 

☆Hints for Points

1.      Technology has helped cook better meals, wear more comfortable clothing, and build a shelter to avoid elements. It also helps transportation and communication. It helps us import and export goods and services. It allows those who are away from each other communicate with ease. It saves us time by doing routines. Dangerous jobs are done by technology. Jobs that are impossible by human hand can be done by technology. Many kinds of technologies make our lives richer and longer than before.

2.      It is difficult to say that human society has been improved as technology improved. For example, Yuval Noah Harari says that we were happiest when we were hunting and gathering, before we came up with irrigation, rice-paddy technology, which stole most of our free time and healthy diet.

3.      Pollution has caused many suffering and deaths. Although not affecting our life before, global warming has started biting because human society is part of the world.

4.      Some claim that even if technology causes a problem, it makes up for it, and thus all in all, technology makes our world better. However, victims of technological development will be unhappy forever. For example, atomic bombs made the victims’ lives shorter and/or hard and nothing can make up for this loss.

                                                                                                        

☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions

When it comes to the merits and demerits of technology, I think the following quote says it all:

“Technology is basically neutral. It’s kind of like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody’s skull.” － Noam Chomsky – I cannot totally agree with the statement that technology always contributes to improving human society because technology is created and used by humans and humans are both good and bad.

Technology in itself is neither good nor bad. A hammer is basically neither good nor bad. Man uses it to do either good or bad things. You could replace the word hammer in the quote above with, say, a jet engine, atomic energy, information technology (IT), and so on. Then you could make similar sentences for the same idea:

A jet engine doesn’t care whether you use it to fly an airplane to carry people and goods over the oceans or whether someone uses it to have a plane smash into a huge commercial building.

 Atomic energy doesn’t care whether a government uses it for power plants to light up its cities, or whether a state uses it to destroy a whole city and eliminate almost all of its population.

 Information technology doesn’t care whether people use it to share information to improve each other’s situation, or whether some social media users end up with driving an actor to commit suicide.

Our nature makes technology both a boon and a curse. Technology can be used in both positive and negative ways depending on us humans, and humans have both positive and negative sides. We can be ill-intentioned, weak, or careless. Therefore, technologies are often used negatively to the benefit of the human race.

Also, our ignorance has made technology go out of control. What science knows is only a fraction of nature and technology is part of our society, which we do not remember the last time we controlled well. Thus, technology often causes results that no one could foresee. Antibiotics were discovered and developed to save lives, but in decades their overuse has created super bugs, antibiotic-resistant viruses. The development of transportation, by which humans and things spread around the world and which contributed to the development of some societies, impoverished many societies, accelerated warming, and spread microorganisms and fungi, causing numerous deaths and threatening the future of the earth. Technology is almost always related to both positive and negative changes of society.

It is true that we have used technology to make our lives convenient. It is also true that we have used technology to overcome difficulties caused by technologies. However, the fact that technology has been the cause of countless number of degradation of life and death will not disappear no matter how wonderful an improvement we use technology for. Therefore, it cannot be said that technology always contributes to improving human society.

☆Making the Framework of the Full Essay

Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】 Disagree: a double edged sward; he who uses it can be both productive and unproductive

【Point 1】can be a weapon  e.g. atomic energy

【Point 2】can bring about disasters  e.g. oil well drilling technology

【Point 3】can degrade some part of the population  e.g. social media

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】often negative effects on the development of human society

Your Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Point 3】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】