Class Supplement (Can business do anything, as long as it is legal, to make a profit?)

Case-in-point Material for TOEFL Essay Writing

Writing Topic:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Business can do anything, as long as it is legal, to make a profit. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Case in point:

Health insurance companies in America make profits by “legally” denying coverage to the insured. When Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning movie director, took up this problem in his documentary “Sicko,” the industry had a smear campaign and “legally” succeeded in it in preventing America from having a government-funded health insurance system. In America, about 45,000 people die each year due to lack of health insurance coverage.

Material:

The Health Insurance Industry's Vendetta against Michael Moore (truthdig.com)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_health-insurance_industrys_vendetta_against_michael_moore_20101123/

Case in Point 訳：

アメリカの保険会社は被保険者への支払いを「合法的に」拒否することによって利益を得ている。この問題をマイケル・ムーア（アカデミー賞受賞映画監督）がドキュメンタリー「シッコ」で取り上げた時、業界は中傷合戦をはり、アメリカが政府財源の健康保険制度を持つのを妨害するのに「合法的に」成功した。アメリカでは保険がないことが原因で毎年訳４万５千人が亡くなっている。

Supersonic/Electronic Weapon 不特定多数による長期にわたる原因不明の嫌がらせ（１）

174. 2010/11/25 Slept about 6 hours. Woken up in between around 3:30 a.m. and read a book for two hours. Remember rather strong electric shocks when falling asleep and waking up. The first one last night had a big Zoooooon noise. Many of them gave me fits. Strangely, it seems that shocks give me fits more often when my hands are in my beddings. The last two shocks came when I was totally awake. It was when I was lying in bed after trying to get up once. One twisted my right hand which was placed on my bedding above my belly. The other gave me a blow like a rock. When I woke up I could not walk straight for a few seconds. I felt a drilling sensation on my skull and felt nauseas. I still feel them now at 11:25.

Supersonic/Electronic Weapon 不特定多数による長期にわたる原因不明の嫌がらせ（１）

173. 2010/11/24 I was able to sleep about seven hours last night, although sleep was disrupted several times by rather strong electric shocks and at one time I gave up going back to sleep and studies for an hour to make myself tired enough to be able to fall asleep despite attacks.

Supersonic/Electronic Weapon 不特定多数による長期にわたる原因不明の嫌がらせ（１）

172. 2010/11/23 I could sleep only for at most two hours in total last night because of the incessant electric shocks. Most of them came to my head but others came to joints and stomach. I had several hiccup-like twitches at the same time. I sometimes heard ggggg sound accompany the shocks. Those came to my head were stronger than usual and felt like bangs or explosions. I gave up sleeping past 5:00 a.m. Since then till now (22:30) I have not slept at all except for falling asleep for probably twenty minutes or so once *with my CD player placed facing Room 202 playing 80s electric guitarists’ performances (Night of the Guitar Live) at sound level four out of ten in the afternoon. I tried to sleep more all day but every time the shock came. The biggest one covered my head, chest and stomach and made me have a rather big fit, which might have looked as if I had a hiccup. It also gave me a faint optical illusion of geometric patterns for a second. Since I started sleeping with the bedroom light on, the shocks stopped giving me dramatic fits which I think could have clearly shown the fits are not due to disorder in me but due to something outside of me. I think I heard a giggle behind the wall of Room 202 right after the fit. With another electric shock to my head and torso at around 16:00, I gave up and worked.
*Usually, I am not a loud neighbor and so there is no possibility of this long lasting abuse being retaliation to noise on my side. I do not listen to music very often, especially without earphones, although I used to till around 43 years old. It just hit me two days ago (on Sunday) that if I play rather loud music all day my abuser(s) might not be able to take enough rest to abuse me at night with his/her/their electric/supersonic device(s) . But it does not seem to have worked while shocks have been stronger compared to those in the last two weeks. They can rest while I am out for work at least 7 hours. Also, it is possible that different people are doing this each night, for type of attacks are different, in property, strength, target body parts of mine as I have recorded by now.

Supersonic/Electronic Weapon 不特定多数による長期にわたる原因不明の嫌がらせ（１）

171. 2010/11/22 Went to bed a little after 11:00. Hit by electric shocks mainly in the head but I was sleep-deprived enough to fall asleep especially last night. Woken up by something around 3:00 and 7:30 a.m. but again fell asleep again easily each time though I felt electric shocks. Woken up around 10:00 a.m. by incessant electric shocks on my head, hand, arm, and uncle, sometimes twitching them. I took off my eye cover* and started falling asleep again when pains which felt like an electric centipede crawled on my eyes. I got up and felt like I had been hit in the head all night. I could not walk straight for several seconds. *I sleep with an eye cover because I have been sleeping with my bedroom light on after I found out that the electric shock becomes dramatically weaker when the light is on this spring. Before I used to get shocks that shake my whole body all night (when it was most violent, between last spring and this spring).

Supersonic/Electronic Weapon 不特定多数による長期にわたる原因不明の嫌がらせ（１）

170. 2010/11/21 Sensations which felt like being sliced in the center of my brain by a fine beam woke me up at around 3:40 a.m. after I slept several hours. When I went to sleep I also experienced electric shocks in my head and on my hand, which I ignored. I stopped to sleep with my back on the side table because I started having backache and moving like a 70-year old. I read a book till 5:30 and tried to sleep but the same kind of slicing sensations prevented me from falling asleep every time I was about to. I gave up and got up at 7:30, and stayed awake all day. I could not walk straight when I woke up. I do not feel sleepy now.

Class Supplement (TOEFL Essay Writing, High school students having part-time jobs)

Writing Topic
Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea for high school students to have part-time jobs in addition to their studies?


For
実社会を知らないで勉強の動機付けを得るのは難しい。学生は時には働いて実社会を垣間見るべきだ。
Without any knowledge of the real world, it is difficult to get motivated for study. Students should get a glimpse of it by working once in a while.

自分で稼いだお金を使うのを楽しむという経験を通して、自立する気になりお金の大切さを学ぶ。
Through the experience of enjoying spending money they have earned themselves, they are encouraged to be independent in and learn the importance of money.

時間管理もまたアルバイトのおかげで身につく技術かもしれない。
Time management can be another skill that working part-time might help us acquire.


Against
実社会を見るために学生は必ずしも働く必要はない。家族や地域社会が彼らの現実だ。自分の属する社会の活動を見たり参加したりすることによって自分が何者なのか将来のために何をすべきか学べる。
Students do not necessarily have to work to see the real world, their family and community are their reality. By watching and participating in the activity of the society they belong to, they can learn what they are and what they need to do for the future.

私たちは学歴社会に住んでいる。そして学校は学生が実社会に出る前に資格を身につける手伝いをしようとしている。
We live in an academic-career based society, and school is trying to help students get equipped with qualifications before they go into the real world

余分なお金を得るためにマクドナルドで働くのに費やす時間は将来の職業のために勉強して使う時間と比べると余り生産的ではない。
Time spent working at MacDonald’s for extra money is less productive that spent studying for future career.

たとえパートでも、仕事は仕事だ。学生だからといって例えば中間テストのために仕事を中途半端にする言い訳にはあまりならないかもしれない。
Even though it is part-time, a job is a job. Being a student might not often be an excuse to do it half way for the sake of, say, midterm exam.