Topic 1: Increasing travels between countries enable people to learn different cultures or to increase tension between people from different countries

Topic 64: Discuss the arguments for and against raising pets.

In those years, animal welfare has become a subject of controversy and it has been argued that animals should not be regarded as property by human beings or used against their own best interests. When pet raising has become a way of life in many societies around the world, it has, on the other hand, raised the question of whether it is a breach of animal rights. Below are some arguments concerning pet ownership.

Pet animals are known for their loyalty and playful characteristics and believed to have a positive effect on the health of their owners. The pressures of modern lifestyles are tremendous. Compared to previous generations, people are more likely to live independently and away from their families at the present time. Adopting a pet animal as a companion can give quality to the owner's life, and help reduce stress and blood pressure. It is also regarded as a solution to the feeling of isolation and loneliness. These two facts are combined to justify why there are an increasing number of people now depending on pet animals as companions or even a therapy.

Raising pets benefits pets as well. Providing companionship and giving pleasure to their owners, pets receive loving care and attention in return. Some might argue that holding a pet is unnatural, because pet animals would lose their original way of life. However, people should meanwhile recognise that some animals are unfitted to the wild environment. It is morally wrong that people force annuals to struggle with food, clean water and other necessities in the wild environment.

Keeping an animal is therefore beneficial, but, notably, there is no guarantee that every pet lives a happy life. Ignorance of an animal's needs for space, exercise or contact with members of the same species, for instance, has been found as a common problem with raising pets. It should also be noted that many people adopt pets for wrong reasons, such as a statement of affluence or a status symbol. They are very likely to abandon or even kill pets when their initial interest subsides. When holding pet animals has become popular, other problems will result, e. g., pollution caused by excess manure.

Based on the facts outlined above, people can conclude that pet-keeping is a tradition that can be either good or bad, from an ethical point of view. On the one hand, it gives people companionship and great pleasure and animals obtain a loving home and a happy life. On the other, inappropriate treatment can rob animals of the basic right to well being.

1. 
   playful = lively = animated
   
2. 
   therapy = cure = remedy = treatment
   
3. 
   companionship = company
   
4. 
   unnatural = abnormal = aberrant = deviant
   
5. 
   unfitted = unsuitable = incompatible with = incongruous with
   
6. 
   manure = dung
   
7. 
   rob sb. of = deprive of = take from
   

Topic 65: Good facilities can be found in cities but not in the countryside. Therefore, new doctors and teachers should be sent to the countryside. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Poor facilities have been found as a common sight of rural areas. To improve this situation, some suggest that new doctors and teachers should be assigned with tasks in the countryside, but not in urban areas. There are some strong arguments for tins suggested solution.

The first is that hospitals, clinics and schools are severely understaffed in rural areas, compared with their overstaffed counterparts in the city. The imbalance of resource and staff has chronic effects on the well-being of rural people. Lack of education or medication has made them among the most disadvantaged in a country. Allocating new doctors and teachers to those areas can at least provide a temporary solution. Besides, it helps address the issue of distributing the graduates from medical school and normal college, with filling those vacancies for physicians and teachers in rural communities.

To the doctors or teachers that graduate freshly with a degree only, working in rural areas enables them to enrich work experience within the shortest possible period of time. Opportunities are scarce in the city, where numerous candidates are in the race for a single position. The chance of raising standards through practice is so meagre that it will over time hamper rural practitioners' career development and will make them uncompetitive in a skill-based society. Facility shortage to many doctors in the country is an opportunity, instead of a challenge. They are in a position to rely more on clinical skills than on sophisticated equipment. For teachers, they teach with few teaching aids. All contribute to the increment of their skills.

Despite those benefits, the place of work should be chosen by doctors or teachers themselves and compulsory assortment is not justifiable. It is not ethical to stop the desire of individuals for a more satisfying quality of life. Needless to say working in rural areas has many issues to address, working conditions, transport and housing. For this reason, those graduates who volunteer to take rural employment deserve a better pay as a recognition of their contribution and also as an incentive.

From what has been discussed, working for a period of time in the country can benefit new teachers and doctors alike with increasing their work experience and meanwhile, address the service shortage facing those areas. However, the voluntary sign-up should be guaranteed, instead of compulsory assignment.

1. 
   assign = appoint = send = allocate
   
2. 
   vacancy = position = post = job opportunity
   
3. 
   physician = doctor = general practitioner = surgeon
   
4. 
   meagre = scanty = slim
   
5. 
   recognition = acknowledgement = appreciation = respect
   
6. 
   incentive = motivation = encouragement = inducement