Topic 71

71. Which would you choose: a high-paying job with long hours that would give you little time with family and friends or a lower-paying job with shorter hours that would give you more time with family and friends? Explain your choice, using specific reasons and details.

LOWER-PAYING JOB WITH MORE TIME ON FAMILY IS BETTER

As for me, I will definitely choose the latter, a lower-paying occupation with shorter working time. Though the former kind of profession can offer a quite optimistic salary, little time with family and friends is a too high cost, in my opinion. What I value most primarily relates to leisure time with my parents, relatives and comrades.

As a threshold matter, spending considerable time in communicating to my parents makes me feel much more relaxed than concentrating on work for quite a long period. As a common sense, it has a couple of benefits to talk to parents or friends. For instance, friends' valuable advice on how to weather a hard time can ease my tense nerve and encourage me to confront with it. Moreover, since our fathers and mothers have experienced quite more than us, they can teach us how to walk out of marshes / swamps / morasses.

Secondly, to share TV, or to read novels with our own offspring is also extremely desired by them, which surely benefits their growing up. Consider, for example, my experiences when I was a teenager. My father had a relatively easy job, and he usually came home early after work. When we had dinner around a table, my family conferred everything happened in daylight, which made us feel highly happy. To the contrary, a child without sufficient care from his or her parents or adult relatives may grow up to be a freaky person, or even an antisocial one.

Thirdly, someone may point out that only by earning enough money can a person manage to support his or her family. Nevertheless, in my observation, it is of no meaning to focus on jobs exclusively. For example, a tight work schedule may pose harm effects on health. Some people even have to stay in hospital to receive curing because they overlook their body's needs. Besides, little time with family means that a person cannot budget his or her time, and may possibly ignore taking part in activities hold by friends. In the long run, it may make him or her alienated.

In summary, I will manage to successfully plan my private life on condition that I am in a lower-paying position with shorter hours. To the contrast, a busier job will disturb me in several aspects: such as health, soul, and so forth. Then, finally, I would definitely choose a lower-paying career with enough free time.

Topic 61

61. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents or other adult relatives should make important decisions for their older (15 to 18 year-old) teenage children. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

PARENTS SHOULDN'T DECIDE FOR CHILDREN

It is sometimes hold that older teenage children's parents or adult relatives should decide for those children on special issues. For instance, which university or college should they attend to? From my standpoint, under such circumstances, parents or adult relatives should provide advice to offspring from their own experiences; however, children ought to depend on themselves to determine certain things. There are a couple of reasons to name.

As a threshold matter, persons who are 15 to 18 year-old have already developed their own criteria of judging. If older teenagers have to conform to decisions made by parents or older brothers or sisters, they may feel quite frustrated, or even demonstrate some kind of rebellious emotions. For instance, if a girl has made up mind to choose music as her major, while her father prefers to more practical subject areas, such as engineering, etc, this girl may be unwilling to engage in engineering and will have a bad performance on that subject, on condition that she is forced by her father.

Secondly, sometimes parents' decisions may be harmful to their children, and children must resist such decisions. Consider, for instance, the predetermined marriage in special places of the world, which means that children are determined, by their parents, to marry someone else without children's consent. This is completely incomprehensible. Thus, when these children get married, they tend to be boring with their partners; besides, family violence is more possible to take place.

Thirdly, the best way to deal with teenagers who are from 15 to 18 year-old is to negotiate with them. Fathers, mothers and adult relatives should share their personal experiences and lessons with their children, and tell them potential benefits and harmful consequences of a decision. Furthermore, parents should pay enough attention to children's opinions and try their best to apprehend children's thinking. Then, children decide to choose a choice after taking parents' advice into account.

In summary, parents shouldn't make important decision for their older teenage children. In some cases, it may pose deleterious impacts. Instead, parents should communicate with them and offer useful advice for them to decide.

Topic 51

51. Some people believe that success in life comes from taking risks or chances. Others believe that success results from careful planning. In your opinion, what does success come from? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

METICULOUS SCHEDULE HELPS MUCH MORE

Some of us hold that accomplishment in career or life is from taking risks or catching appropriate opportunities, while still other people believe that one's successful life primarily depends on meticulous plans. In my observation, however, careful planning plays a much more pivotal role in helping a person approach attainments than venturing dose. There are a couples of reasons to reason.

As a threshold matter, in specific cases, venturing does work positive effects on individual progress. This may be true in business. For instance, Bill Gates, the former Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, made up his mind to share profits from authorizing the first operating system to IBM, instead of absolutely selling to IBM. This action performed by Bill Gates was considered quite risky at the period, which has been proved to be a wise decision several years later.

However, Bill Gates's fulfillment is only one single example in which fortune works. In many other accomplished cases, positive influences of carefully designed schedule overwhelm those of fortune. Consider, for example, Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp. It is highly impossible of taking chances to choose innumerous materials for lamp in random, instead of prudentially comparing every pair of matter in each control group.

Furthermore, fortune will patronize a person only on condition that this man or woman has been being striving for his or her goal for quite a long time under well-planned time table. Without lucubrating late in night, a student may never have opportunity of attending a prominent university or college, no matter how "lucky" he or she is. Perhaps the paradigmatic example is Don Quijote, though he is a protagonist in novel. Don fails to attain any meaningful gain with his volatile behavior. On the other hand, Don may gain a lot with help from careful planning.

In summary, a meticulously regulated schedule is much more paramount than a hard-to-catch venture. Then, in the final analysis, I consider that enormous accomplishments come from careful planning, and taking risks or chances will not help much without fundamental functions of working out a feasible plan.

Topic 41

41. Some people think that human needs for farmland, housing, and industry are more important than saving land for endangered animals. Do you agree or disagree with this point of view? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

ENDANGERED ANIMALS OWNS PRIORITY

During the developing history of human beings, we have encountered myriad acute conflicts. In some cases, such as literal controversy, people could always arrive at agreement. However, in still other cases, including natural resources, etc, folks may fail to solve these problems. With respect to endangered animals, in my view, wild animals should be given way to human needs for cropland, household and corporation. They should not be the lowest names on pecking order.

As a threshold matter, animals belong to the weak group while we, human beings, dominate the whole world. For instance, wild panthers may have to die on condition that their living circumstances are completely trampled by human's deforestation. On the other hand, people can migrate to another district if the original one is devastated. Thus, endangered living animals are much more vulnerable to external demolishment, and those poor animals should be taken into account first.

Secondly, from the perspective of the paramount meaning of species, once a kind of animal extinct, specific genes owned by that specie will be lost forever, which is a enormous disadvantage for us. Consider, for example, the genes of panda in China, which conserve ancient information of animals that lived a million years ago. If they are ignored, or yield to certain human needs, these precious genetic information will lost. As a result, a kind of living fossil is lost.

Thirdly, protecting endangered animals doesn't certainly mean that it will no doubt provide harmful influences to our process of evolution. Or, it is quite possible to balance both two factors. For instance, on some certain occasions, people may cram a lake, where an endangered fish lives, to flat ground and later on build a highway or building on the place. Nonetheless, we can first move that rare fish to another lake in the vicinity, or relocate them in an artificial pool, and then construct something else. This may be a practical solution to the conflict between endangered species and mankind.

In summary, under no circumstance should humans merely consider private needs without taking local endangered species into account. It is highly recommended, in my view, that we find another suitable place for these animals.

Topic 31

31. Some people spend their entire lives in one place. Others move a number of times throughout their lives, looking for a better job, house, community, or even climate. Which do you prefer: staying in one place or moving in search of another place? Use reasons and specific examples to support your opinion.

BENEFITS OF MOVING TO A BETTER COMMUNITY

A portion of us prefer to live in one constant location and are very serious about moving houses; while still other people engage in changing their living circumstances until an ideal locus is found. Although the former persons may list a myriad of reasons of staying in a single community or city, in my opinion, searching for a better standard of living is my favorite. To be honest, there are a couple of benefits to move house to meet a high-quantity life.

As a threshold matter, moving to a different district can help me keep fresh. As for me, a relatively long and monotonous life of local community makes me feel gloomy and dreary. Familiar streets, acquainted restaurants and simple parks will gradually loose their attractiveness. It is too tired for me to see these things everyday. Thus, an even slightly different environment would be sediment for me, because fresh community can always arouse my mood and I can put through the rest of a day.

Second, moving to a more industrialized city means that better opportunities of jobs are waiting for me there. As a common sense, mega polis owns much more precious and choice opportunities of work than rural areas. Therefore a considerable salary may be acquired if such a chance is pursued in time, which is merely possible on condition that changing living in a rustic district to a big city.

The third advantage of changing to live in a better district is that it can provide substantial and affluent experience which will no doubt work a positive function in one's career. Consider, for example, my roommate's comprehensive experience of apprehending his new environment during the past several years, in which he has move three or four times. A boring neighbor, the bad condition of a community, and a sapient teacher all contribute to his growing up, according to him. As a result, my roommate obviously possesses a special trait that is not common among ordinary people.

In summary, moving to a better community or district will benefit one in several aspects. Personal experience, methods of tacking sticklers and plunk under tough surroundings will be greatly ameliorated. Furthermore, one's career will be improved to a quite prosperous one.

Topic 21

21. In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this phenomenon. Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AMELIORATES PEOPLE'S LIFE

Obviously, people today live a longer life than ever before. It is quite common to encounter folks whose ages surpass seventy, or even eighty; while in ancient times, average life span of multitude was merely approximate fifty, or even younger. As we can imagine, people who will be born in coming century can no doubt have longer life than us today. Generally speaking, several factors have contributed to this phenomenon; however, there are a few direct and paramount causes.

As a threshold matter, ameliorated medical conditions result in a healthier and thus longer life span. For instance, in the 19th century, masses suffered from several lethal diseases, including influenza, pneumonia, and so forth. Doctors of that period had nothing to do with these fatal illnesses; and thus myriad people died from unhealed diseases. With the development of medical facilities and methods of curing, flu or pneumonia is no longer a serious illness that can cause a man or woman to death. As a result, a much healthier life can be predicted.

Second, developed agricultural techniques also contribute much to longer life of human beings. For example, multitudes who were born in ancient period had no advanced automated instruments. Food they took as primary intake was limited to a few common foodstuff: grain, wheat, etc; even fish were extremely luxurious and not easy to catch. While in contemporary, developed agriculture provides us with affluent subsistence, such as all kinds of man-made food.

Third, various insurances is another factor that benefits our age. People today who are going to work in society will be offered a plan of insurance, which will help them throughout when they catch health problems later. The insurance will ensure that people can only spend a small portion of money that has to be used to work out sticklers -- for example, unemployment, flood damage, fire damage, and of course diseases.

In summary, developed and advanced scientific techniques and improved social welfare are the pivotal causes that effects on our longer life span. Furthermore, the pace of development of human beings never halts or slows down; people will own a happier and prolonged life in next century.

Topic 11

11. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should give the same amount of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

DECISION DEPENDS ON SPECIAL NEEDS

Whether universities should spend equal money on students' sports and their libraries depends on the primary goal of the universities. With respect to sports universities, faculty should accentuate kinetics more than libraries. On the other hand, leaders of universities ought to place more emphasis on libraries than sports activities. Universities' properties determine the financial support.

First, if students who attend a specific sports university or college are eager to pursue high quality of kinetics education and want to live a career of athlete, university should give a higher priority to developing sports facilities. Under this circumstance, libraries may be placed on a secondary place. Students of that university spend more time on kinetics than reading in a library; thus, first-class sports facilities are among their crucial desires.

Second, enhancement of libraries should be firstly taken into account when a university focuses on academic researches. For instance, my university mainly pays attention to scientific fields, instead of sports, and our university leaders spend more human resources, material resources and financial resources on construction of laboratories and libraries. As a positive result, graduates from our campus possess a relatively higher scientific trait than those graduate from sports ones.

Third, although it is not of wisdom to place commensurate resources on sports and libraries, omitting either of both is neither advocated. Neither should sports overwhelm libraries, nor should libraries. The reason of this is simple: a university or a college will no doubt be harmed on condition that only one field is their advantage. Furthermore, students who study in that university cannot receive wholesome education which will work a propulsion function when they find a job and live a lifetime career.

In summary, the decision on the emphasis between sports and academic libraries primarily is related to properties of a university or a college. Besides, myriad factors must be taken into account and there is no easy answer.

Topic 1

People attend college or university for many different reasons (for example, new experiences, career preparation, increased knowledge). Why do you think people attend college or university? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

BENEFITS OF RECEIVING HIGH-LEVEL EDUCATION

With the high development of economy and society, a myriad of students choose to attend college or university after they have finished their high school courses. There are several potential reasons of this phenomenon, discussed as followed.

As a threshold matter, a portion of high school graduates may feel that experiences in college or university can increase their knowledge. In deed, university or college courses can provide further insight of knowledge which may merely be referenced to a light extent in high school. For instance, teachers in high school say that the earth revolves around the sun, but fail to elaborate the formula according to which this phenomenon obey, which is only be elucidated in physical classes in university.

Second, some other youngsters who graduate from high schools believe that an university or college will no doubt offer better opportunities of finding a job. This is less controversial especially when managers of contemporary corporations become more and more concerned about new employee's basic knowledge. For instance, in current job market, almost every part-time or full-time occupation requires a necessity -- you have to graduate from a university or college.

The third reason why people attend college or university, in my observation, perhaps has to do with their personal interests. For instance, when I studied in high school several years ago, a classmate of mine was extremely enslaved by music. He once told me that he would try his best to pass entrance exam of a college of music, and need to follow his heart of pursuing essence of symphony. Consequently, he managed to seize admission of a renowned music college in my country.

In summary, still other possible excuses of attending college or university may contribute to the millions of undergraduate students today. However, the most paramount and crucial is to make a serious decision and to persist it no matter what sticklers one may encounter.

Word Count: 319

Crack iBT!

The most tough but significant sets of iBT are spoken and listening, in my observation, which may arouse resonance among the majority of test-takers whose native language or vernacular dialect is far distinct from English or American-English. Nevertheless, I have to face the coming test in September, no matter how frustrated I have been being.

By the way, grade of GRE of June, 2008 has been released. Maggie's result does not accord with her expectation to some extent. Well, the outcome cannot be revised, despite how eager we are. Such things always take place, and the only act we could adopt is to accept them and go on striving. Everything will be fine, indeed. When it comes to me, I am even not bold enough to make a call to ETS. First, I donnot konw how to address a disgruntling marks; secondly, the expenditure of making that call is 12 bucks, but I refuse to pay ETS any more.

Last night, a talk show in CCTV4 attracted me greatly. It was a competition -- The First Contest of Foreign Students in China. Next I will show you the main content of it. Every player has to answer two questions displayed in screen to get a score in terms of lights. The range of number of lights differentiates from 0 to 5, which is appraised by five referees. Thus, the lowest mark a play may receive is 0, and the highest is 5. The question coming up first is a choice test. Moderator require a student to select a movie clip from a pool; after which the student watches the clip and answer question. For instance, next several paragraphs will be expressed in Chinese, in order to keep the original essence.

《甲方乙方》中的片段：（傅彪要求吃苦的那一段）
梁子：“回老爷太太，张佃户家的租子还是没收齐啊！”
葛优：“那不成啊，得按合同办哪，地主家也没有余粮啊！”
梁子：“是啊，猪，他们家昨儿自个儿给吃了，大丫头前儿也走了西口了。”
葛优：“那二丫头呢？”
梁子：“让李地主他们家先一步抢走了，现在是就剩张佃户本人了。”
葛优：“那孩儿他娘哪？”
梁子：“你哪儿那么多废话啊，东打听西打听的。快，赶紧带人。”
（张佃户推门进来）“我就是张富贵！”

Q1: 请选择大丫头去哪里了？
A: 收租子去了
B: 去李地主家了
C: 走西口了
D: 在张佃户家

The competitor has 30 seconds to make a decision. This type of question totally imitates the one of GRE or iBT, which makes me yock. Finally the student choosed B, just a second before deadline. As you can imagine, this player got zero lights on it.

The second question is: Please describe the manner of the landowner in the movie clip. That is to say, please say something about Ge You. Speech is also under 30 seconds limitation. The player began to sweat and waver. "地主很幽默...很好...很关心大女儿....我很欣赏..." answered the student. From her response, I get to know how poor my spoken English is. Perhaps I behave evern worse than her. Mmmh...it seems that I should try hard to practice spoken English.

Reading Notes [The Book Thief]

*** THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN A BOY WHO HATES YOU ***

A boy who loves you

Sentence above is excerpted from The Book Thief aforementioned in a previous article in my blog.

As a threshold matter, I have to introduce context of this text. Liesel Meminger, an adopted daughter in a foster familiy -- the Hubermanns, is a young girl who has not yet arrived in her teens. And, Rudy Steiner, a neighbor of Liesel, is a troublemaker and ladies' man who is well known for his impersonation of the African-American athlete Jesse Owens. Now I'll explain why Rudy is famous for that: all is the result of Jesse Owens Incident. In 1939, when Olympic was held in German, Jesse Owens got the first place in 100m race, and Rudy witnessed this. Then, comes the cameo: Rudy paints himself black with charcoal -- imitating Jesse Owens. After that, Rudy finds a place filled with mud and sprints for 100 meters, not exactly confirmed by him.

I do not know whether I have explicitly elucidated the relation between Liesel and Rudy. You can simply take it as a anecdote happend between a young boy and a young girl, and that is the most paramout, crucial and pivotal thing we need to remember exclusively.

One day, after Liesel and Rudy finished their school, Rudy shew Liesel the place where Jesse Owens Incident took place. The only thing that could arise occurred.

"If I beat you, I get to kiss you." said Rudy.

I cannot hold laughing when I read this. He acts like a despicable embryo definitely. Why not kiss her directly and frankly since you are intrested in her? Do you just want to kiss her in the expense of a high-sounding pretext? How can a feeble little girl win a wild black imp?

"But what do you want to kiss me for? I am filthy." replied Liesel.

To my astonishment, the little girl does not refuse immediately; instead, she is more concerned with the purpose of Rudy first. Or, from another lateral perspective, we can decipher her question as a mean of ingenuous reflect of Liesel's timbre -- an unsophisticated girl.

Indeed, it's a long time since Liesel had her last bath. The boy had nothing to say. Rudy picked up a stone and said:

"I will peck. When it falls down to ground, race begins."

Nevertheless, to the contrary of what I have speculated, they got a draw, according to what is written by the author. In my view, that will merely happen in literature.

"Can I still get my kiss?" Rudy seemed frustrated.

"Not a million years" Liesel was so unfaltering.

Hahaha, that's it. The little girl had not been fatuous enough. Love affairs among young people, without any earthy consideration, is so pretty as the author portrays.

MOODS in recent days

IN LABORATORY

Today is July 3rd, and it is the end of the first year of graduate. Nothing valuable enough arouses my appreciation when in retrospect.

All what I have been in inquiry of is analysis of netflow, which aims to classify categories of data stream torrenting in local network area, such as MSN, QQ and Xunlei, to just name a few. Nevertheless, progress is hard, and present circumstance seems boggled in morass, though Doctor Liu has been eager to hear encouraging news all the time.

Unfortunately, I am afraid that further progress would beyond my reach, in respect that almost six months were exhausted only to solve the analysis of MSN, E-Mail and BT. Indeed, I feel that my ability does not equal my limited ambition.

Another idea lingering over my mind is one that may opposite wishes of my mentor: I want to publish a paper while bosses seem to be delighted to see me being busy with projects. The reason why I mention that idea is that a released paper may help when I will apply graduate department late this year or next year.

OF MY LIFE

A novel called The Book Thief, ordered in Joyo-Amazon website, arrived the day before yesterday. That book is ranked 1st best-seller in 2007 by TIME, and some other polls did the same ranking. Did Tuan Tuan once buy the Chinese edition of The Book Thief? I forgot about it.

This is the first time when I read original English book; more exactly, English textbooks perused in classes should be obviated. Until now, I have finished the introduction part and part 1: The Grave Digger's Handbook. Albeit I have comprehensibly extended my glossary, a few words in that book still unfamiliar to me. Sometimes, I cannot pinpointly catch the essence of paragraphs in spite that I recognize every word in each sentence.

LUCUBRATING

IBT is on Sep. 6th. A month was dawdled after I finished GRE test. Now only two months are left to me for preparing IBT. Mike says he is a person who is not resigned to be content with mediocrity, but neither resolved to lucubrate. In my observation, this indolence manifests the instinct of human beings. Not only does Mike, but also common populace like me are struggling against that instinct.

Inertia is ineria, and I can not take it as a excuse, since the person who takes test is me, not anyone else.