Sample #12

International entertainers, including sports personalities, often get paid millions of dollars in one year.

In your view, with widespread pverty in the world, are these huge earnings justified?

You should give reasons for your answer using your own ideas and experience.

model answer:

The salaries of many singers, dancers and sports people have increased out of all proportion in recent years, while in places like Sudan people are starving to death.

I do not beleive that anyone should be able to earn such enormous salaries whan so many people in the world are living in poverty.

One af the factors which should affect what a person can earn ought to be the benefit of person's work to society.

 It is unreasonable for a famous singer to be able to earn far more from an evening's entertainment than, for instance, a medical scientist who develops a new drug which produces a treatment for a common disease.

The pop star certainly has a value in society, but the value in no way exceeds, or even matches, the value gained from a successful medication.

Secondly work done should be paid according to the amount of effort and skill that goes into it.

Nobody would deny that a famous person works hard and is skillful, yet such people do not work any harder than thousand of other workers who have no claim to fame.

Yet market force are such that these superstarts can obtain millions of dolor while other unknown people sometimes earn less than they need to survive.

Finally, it should be possible for governments to work together to ensure that the amount of money in circulation should be more more equally and fairly distributed.

This seems only fair given that there are so many suffering.

To conclude, it is clear that world poverty is a serious problem and yet the problem could be eased if governments and compenies gave more thought to paying salaries on a more equitable basis and if they started to contribute more money to those in need.

Sample #13

Most writers of fiction do not earn enough money to live from their writing.

Do you think the government should give them financial assistance to help encourage good literature?

You should give reasons for your answer using your own ideas and experience.

model answer:

There are some conditions under which a novelist could reasonably expect some government suport.

 In general terms, if the writer has already proved that he or she can write well, and if the stories produced are stimulating and interesting, then I consider that some financial help might be given.

Language quality is difficult to define, but if the writing shows, for example, good grammar, a wide vocabulary, and elegance and imagination, then I can see a valid reason for assisting an author to spend some time free from money problems.

 Such a writing needs to be encouraged. the entertainment value of a book would be also a factor in deciding whether to provide assistance to an author.

Further consideration would include social and educational values expressed in the author's work.

However, if the ideas were socially irresponsible, or if the stories contain unnecessary violence or pornography for its own sake, then I would not want to see the author sponsored to write stories which do not benefit society.

Other exceptions are the many writers of good books who do not require financial help.

Books which proved to be extremely popular, such as the Harry Potter stories, clearly need no subsidy at all because the authors have become rich through their writing.

Views on what good quality writing means will vary widely, and so if any author is to be given money for writing, then the decision would have to be made by a committee or panel of judge.

An individual opinion would certainly cause disagreement among the reading public.