Appendix 7

Argumentative Essay
The Unfair Side of an Interview

Almost everyone knows a saying, You cant judge a book by its cover. It reminds
people not to judge others by their appearance, but how about an interview? Interviews are a
kind of judgment which decides ones success or failure by the first impression. It doesnt
make sense to judge a person simply through a short talk.
Oftentimes, things are not like what we think; an interview is the same. The result of an
interview is affected by different personalities, qualifications and interviewers subjective
judgments. People may be introverted, extroverted or having varied expressions. In this case,
it is unfair to guess if a candidate is suitable for the position s/he is applying for.
Before being a college student, I had an interview in another university. I spent a lot of
time preparing my autobiography and oral introduction in advance. However, I became
tongue-tied during the interview, so I failed, of course. I know that I am not good at speaking,
but it doesnt mean that I am inferior to other applicants.
Interviewers usually want to see a candidates style of speech or responding ability. It
only benefits people who are conversational and spontaneous. However, to say is one thing,
and to do is another. Some people are only good at expressing themselves. A competent
worker should have enough knowledge of the position and be willing to learn new things.
An interview cant completely show a persons capacities; therefore, a fair screening
system is important. It might be a good idea to give a test for professional knowledge or skills
of solving problems. Giving some situations for the candidates to show their initiative will be
better than having a conversation and judging them by the first impression.

Appendix 8

Skills vs. Knowledge in Education
Jonan Donaldson

Education systems all over the world are based on the idea that students get and
remember information from teachers and books. These systems test this knowledge with
standardized tests which compare students to each-other. They only test the kind of
information which is possible to measure in tests. The goal is gaining information, not
developing skills by which to use and make information. Unlike the old style of education
where people remembered things in order to pass tests and get higher scores than other
students, the modern world calls for a new kind of education in which the focus is deep
understanding, creativity, and information management skills.
Most education systems in the world are designed to make students remember things.
One reason is that schools feel the need to compare students. They do this by giving tests.
They want to be able to give grades and decide which students are smart and which are not.
They function as a sorting mechanism for society. From the earliest grades, students are put
on tracks that will decide their futures. Another reason schools like to make students
remember things is that by doing so they will be able to test their knowledge and determine if
they remember or not. They believe that if students remember things it is the same as
understanding those things. Schools also like to impart knowledge because in this way,
although students can have different individual skills, they can all have the same knowledge.
Einstein said Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world (Needle, 2007). All the knowledge in the world is useless
unless you are able to use information in creative ways. Knowledge is what other people have
created. Understanding is all about what you think about something. Everybody sees, hears,
feels, and thinks differently. No two people in the world have the same understanding of the
same thing. It is impossible to give tests on a point of view. Because of this, tests are illogical.
The only reason tests exist is to label students as smart or stupid. There are many kinds
of intelligence, however. One of the most famous researchers in the field of intelligence,
Gardner, found at least seven different kinds of intelligence (Gardner, 1999). Intelligence and
understanding are related. Unfortunately, tests only measure one type of intelligence.
In the modern world skills are more important than knowledge. If a person knows
many facts, it is impressive, but not very useful. It is of much greater importance to be able to
find information quickly, organize that information, analyze and understand the main ideas,
put different pieces of information together (synthesize), and create new information.
Together these skills make what we call information management and innovation, the skills
which are most desired in the business world.
Most people in the world believe that education is about remembering things to take
tests which measure ones performance against other people who have studied the same
information. However, this idea no longer matches the reality of the modern world in which
knowledge is less important than creativity and deep understanding. To be successful in the
age of technology, education must focus on helping students gain information management
and innovation skills.

Sources Cited
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New
York, NY: Basic Books.
Needle, Andrew, et al. (2007). Combining art and science in 'arts and sciences' education.
College Teaching 55.3


Appendix 9
Student Writing

What Technology Brought for Us
Student M
With the development of technology, it brought countless benefits. Now technology has
become a very important part in our daily life already. Some people think technology makes
us more alone. Certainly not, because it makes our life more colorful.
First of all, its convenient for us to communicate with people who are far away.
According to a recently research there are 75.4% people use communicate with others
online. We can get to know more people prefer use advanced technology rather than the old
way like calling, messaging. Not only get touch with old friends, technology can help us to
make new friends easily. In old days, people only can get friends by having a meet in person.
But know, there are various social media to lager our social circle. And we can get some
foreign friends online. Life with so many friends, we wont feel alone.
Moreover, more functions make life full of fun. The development of mobile is a vivid
example. Before several years, mobiles just have the function of calling and messaging. But
now with the creation of smart phone , mobile get to equipped with many funny and useful
functions. We can compare now with the old day. In the old day, when people are waiting
train or plane, they just talking waiting without doing anything, however, now when people
are waiting they can use their mobile to kill time, even waiting the order at the restaurant. We
wont feel alone because more attention are on the fun we are doing with mobiles.
Every thing has two sides, although technology brought us many benefits, we cant deny
its disadvantage. Some people said because of the technology, people have less real friends
than online friends. Its depends on somebody, they dont get a balance between technology
and true life.
Thanks to the development of technology, it makes our life more convenient and fun. We
can get to know the recently event about our friends from social media; We can use the
advanced functions to kill time. All in all, we wont feel alone.


Appendix 10
Student Writing
Does technology make children less creativity?
Student H
With the great progress of technology, human beings' life become more and more
convenient. Unlike people in the past who needed to ride a horse for decades of hours in
order to convey a message, people nowadays can deal with stuffs in easy and efficient way.
More over, children seeming to be the technologies reformer of next generation did benefit
a lot from the majestic advanced technology. I am convinced that technology has made
children more innovative rather than less creative.
Despite the wide use of application softwares and sophisticated devices, children dont
feel lost in advanced technology; contrarily, they make full use of these and become more
creative. My cousin, Vincent Ou, first owned an ipad when he was 3 years old, and played
with it so frequently that he never let the ipad leave his hands. With more skillful control, he
gradually figured out how to decipher the software code. Once I was stuck with an
application which charges fee for starting game. I have tried many methods to decode this
troubling thing; however, I was totally defeated in accessing. I turned to my little cousin for
help and he solved it quickly; with just several flickering of fingers, he managed to decipher
the pass code. At that time, I was extremely surprised that he could work out this puzzle. He
unexpectedly created a method to decipher, which could be widely used in other pay
applications.
In addition, technology improves youngsters imagination. We can see extensive and
profound effect of films on children. While children watch movies, they were easily attracted
by the fabulous scenes though they were depicted exaggeratingly. After that, children may
recall the movie scenes they saw when they later draw pictures. For instance, Vincent once
drew a picture related to the special scene he previously saw and won the most creative
prize because the drawing was so compelling and attractive to many eyes. How could people
in the past create such beautiful landscape painting when there were not any spectacular
movies? It is technology that sparks youngsters imagination and creativity.
Though there is an increasing number of children who always sitting in front of the
technology(ipad computer or video games) and just play games, which may restrict
childrens creativity, children can also learn something relevant to life because more and
more games are designed basing on the reality. In another word, technology is somehow
expanding childrens minds in a special way which means the technologic way. With quick
development of science, technology will be more advanced for children. I believe children
will become more and more creative than ever before.

Appendix 11
Student Writing
Electric Car vs. Gas Consumption Car
Student F
In 2010, U.S government gave $465 million federal loan to Tesla, a electric car company, for
green-tech start-ups. It has become a controversial issue during that period of time. People
were wondering why federal government gave tax payers' money to electric car industry which
seemed that has nothing to do with them. Comparing with gas consumption car, electric car
is better, it has two advantages environmental protection, low expense of energy supply.

Environmental protection is one of the most popular issues in the world. In order to be the best,
a good product should be environmental protection. There is no exception with electric car. The
reason why electric car is environmental protection is that it consumes electric. Electric is
considered as clean energy. It doesn't produce any pollution during the consumption of electric.
However, some people may disagree with this idea and assert that there is a lot of pollution in
the process of generating electricity. It is true that generating electricity produces pollution,
because 80% of electricity in U.S is generating by burning fossil fuel. There are two reasons
why electric is still a clean energy. The efficiency of burning fossil fuel to generate electricity is
60%; however, the efficiency of burning gas in gas consumption car is 20%. It means that
producing the same amount of pollution, electric car has 40% more usage than gas
consumption car. Also with the development of the technology of using other clean energy
resources, like solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy, more and more electric will be
produced by clean energy, and less and less pollution will be produced in generating electricity.

The other advantage electric car has is the low expanse of energy supply. The cost of gas is
always a big part of people's expanse. Gas is non-renewable natural source. It is getting less and
less as we consume it. Therefore, the price of gas is getting higher and higher. Our expanse on
gas is larger. However, if you drive electric car, the cost of energy supply is extremely low.
Electric is a lot cheaper than gas. Electric car is like electrical equipment. We use it then charge
it without worrying about the cost of electricity. When you change your electric car outside in
electric changing station, it is completely free. Tesla, a electric car company, claims that it is
free to charge your electric car in their changing station. Just imagining that, after a long drive,
you charge your electric car without paying anything. How amazing is that.

Some people might disagree with my idea and claim that the function of gas consumption car is
better than electric car. However, this assertion is not true. With the development of the
technology of electric car, electric car is now perfectly functional. Model S, a Tesla electric car,
is a good example of this. According to the Tesla official website, Model S can accelerate from
0 to 60 miles in 5.4 seconds and run in the highest speed of 125 miles per hour. A fully charge
Model S can run in a distance of 250 miles. For the time of charging Model S, it takes 30
minutes to finish a single charge. For the penetration of electric charging station, Tesla has
already had many in the west coast and east coast of the U.S, the electric charging station is
enough for the people who live in west or east coast. And Tesla keep expending more electric
charging station all over America. As the example of Model S, we can see that electric car is
almost like or even better than gas consumption car, and electric car is perfectly functional.

In some periods of time, a new and better thing will replace the old one. That is the trend of the
society. People always peruse a better thing which has more advantages and brings more
benefits to them. In this period of time, because of the advantages of environmental protection
and low expanse of energy supply, it is strongly to believe that electric car will replace gas
consumption car and become a new kind of vehicle in the everyday of people's life.


Appendix 12
Student Writing
Student J