Do you think reading fiction offers more advantages than watching movies? (the arts)
☆Let’s
Think
If you have some time to
read fiction or watch a movie, which would you choose to do? Why?
☆Hints for
Points
Reading fiction
1.
Novels show what is going on
inside humans: thoughts and feelings of a human mind.
2.
Reading develops your
imagination.
3.
You will experience and
assimilate the author’s mind, often reprograming your mind. In other words, you
learn one of the best languages, or best minds, through reading a good novel.
Watching movies
1.
Movies inspire you with picture
and sound, and this makes the experience more real and special than books do.
2.
Movies will show you what you
cannot see in the world you live in.
3.
Going to a theater to see a
movie is a special experience.
☆Sample Answer
for Ideas and Expressions
Sample A
【Supporting Details】For example, in the suicide scene of “The Heart of the Matter”, the
page is filled with the mental agony of a good-natured individual who is depressed
from his life as an official in the colonial India and an affair he got
involved in there and the description of his gradually dimming conscience and
the last moment of its disappearance into the void of death. It is impossible
for a movie to have its audience experience this inner drama as precisely as
the book does. The book of “The Third Man”, for another instance, describes the
decisive moment when the leading character realizes the real face of his old mate,
and makes the reader understand the nature of an utter evil, by making the
leading character say to himself that the man had never grown since he was a
bad boy in their grade school. In the namesake on the screen, the realization
of the man’s evilness is shared with the audience through common plots like the
absence of the sense of guilt, tragedies of the victims, and the attempt to even
shoot the best friend who was trying to help. Although a great movie, it is not
so enlightening as the original story.
【Conclusion】Showing the
internal world of a character is the exclusive territory of novels. If learning
about humans and society is the purpose of both fiction books and movies, I
think reading fiction beats watching movies exactly for this reason. (292 words)
Sample B
【Thesis】While it is true that reading fiction
strengthens imagination as Sam says, the total experience of a movie often
overwhelms that of a novel. Therefore, I think watching movies is more
advantageous than reading novels.
【Supporting Details】The power of visuals and sounds of movies easily beats what an
individual’s imagination can produce. It has almost the same effect of going
abroad or meeting new people in that it takes you to the world that you have
never known or imagined. It leaves a new experience in your mind more
effectively than reading a story. For example, it is almost impossible for a
reader of a foreign novel to construct accurate images of the characters and
the setting like landscape or architecture depicted in the novel if the reader
has never seen the country and the people. A movie based on the same story
shows the closest representations of the characters and the real pictures or authentically
recreated environment of the story, and this lets the audience have simulated
experiences. The audience go through the narrative witnessing how the
characters look in what kind of backgrounds by watching a movie. These
experiences from movies are free from poor imaginations produced by an
individual’s world, which is relatively smaller than that of a movie.
Therefore, the world movies show us are more accurate, more universal, and
richer in quality.
【Conclusion】Movies expose you to the world outside of yourselves more directly
and help you grow, so watching movies is more beneficial than reading books in
total. (252 words)
DRAFT
