Paper 4 Speaking 2014

2014 Topic：Q 1.3

The Quality of Good Parents

 Give freedom to their children. So that they can explore their interest and participate in activities they really like and their potential can be fully sketched

 As supporters. Spend time with children (having family time session regularly) and listen to their difficulties and provide appropriate advice to them. Even though parents sometimes may not experience the difficulties that the children are facing now, they can still can give encouragement and direct their children to find someone good to ask Whether Helicopter Parenting is Good

 No. Giving too much guidance on children may make them lost their incentives to develop themselves. They tend to follow the path that parents already assigned for them. But very often, they may not be the most suitable person to take up that occupation. Finally, it is very likely for them to lost their passion on work and, probably, life. Other Complaints Young People Have About The Relationship with Their Parents

 Too much monitoring Parents may try to log in to children’ Facebook account and try to know what kinds of friends they are having. After, try to comment their friendship. Often, it makes the children feel annoyed and their privacy being invaded

 Not enough caring Working parents: Parents are too busy with their work and reserve no time for their children. Children may feel their parents do not love them. To show their caring, parents would give more money to their children as compensation. Young people may become more materialistic and look down the importance of inside beauty

## Part B

1. Do you make your own decisions in your family?
It depends on what kinds of decisions I am going to make. If they are just minor things, like what clothes to buy, what film I watch to spare my weekend, I make the decision myself. But if it is big and important thing, like what university and what subject to study, what man I am going to marry, I discuss them with my parents and listen to their advice. At the same time, I want them to respect my final decisions.
2. When you have a problem, do you ask your parents or your friends for help?
Yes, I do. When I encounter some difficulties I cannot solve alone, it is wiser to ask someone more capable to help. Sharing of your personal experiences: Hard questions on mathematics.
3. Is it helpful for parents to always check on their children’s studies?
No, sufficient guidance is ok. Children lose their incentives to study. Try to imagine the following, you are having a challenging math question and your dad, who is a Math teacher, is just sitting next to you, you will not even bother the question for a second and turn to your dad for help. In this case, you lose a chance to hone your problem-solving ability, which is a very important soft skill in your worklife
4. Why do you think some parents want to control everything in their child’s life?
To make sure everything goes well and smooth in their children’ life. They want their children to have an easy life. For example, many business tycoons would try to arrange a place for their children in their firms.
5. Do you think helicopter parenting is common nowadays?
Yes. Taking 15 years old children to school, help doing washing of a 13 years old child… Aren’t these scenes sound familiar to you? Then talking about an event that perfectly illustrated helicopter parenting you have witnessed. When you finished, try to move to an more international level. Talk about helicopter parents in other parts of the world. For example: Western VS Eastern. Are helicopter parenting more rival in Asian countries and why.
6. Should parents allow their children to make mistakes?
Why not? ‘Failure is the Mother of Success”. Trying to learn from mistakes is really important. To find out what’s going wrong, why it has gone wrong, how you can improve it and how you can avoid making the same mistakes next time. Second, everyone would make mistakes, even though the very experts in their fields. Example: Female rights activists claimed that every one in three women experienced sexual assault, which later proven wrong.
7. What is the best way for parents to monitor their child’s development?
Invite children to share our their things, just like doing casual chatting with their friends. In that way, children are less likely to hide or lie. But if parents force their children to report everything happened in their day, children start to get annoyed about their children. In order to stop parents further asking, children may intend to lie everything is good and drawing a beautiful picture about their days, which is not real.

8． How can parents and children have better communications?
First, respect each other or no one is going to share their things. Children should not laugh at their parents’ failure at work. Parents should not criticize their children’s interest.
Second, be honest and willing to share. Do not hide or lie things about you.
Third, Learn how to deal with disputes when it really happens. Star calm and turn to another topic. If it is really going to discuss, wait till next time and talk in another way

Topic: Why Are Young People Abandoning Email?
Whether young people write emails in their daily lives
 For business purpose
Email your boss to report about the progress of your work
Email your collegues to invite their help
 For academic purpose
Email your professor to invite him to give some feedback on your essay
 To make important announcements, like company’s annual parties and invite all people to join
But for friends and family, emails are seldom use for communication
The challenges young people may face when writing formal emails
 Unsuitable or outdated greetings and closings
For example, textbooks teach us to start every email with Dear XXX and closes them with Yours sincerely or Yours faithfully. That’s a really old fashion. Nowadays, English users like to use a more friendly approach like HI, XXX to replace Dear XXX
 Lack of formality
For example, Cheers, instead of Kind Regards
 Not familiar with the format of formal emails
Address people in their full names instead of their surname
The advantages of using email over other forms of communication
Compared to instant communications like whatsapp: Less serious, not suitable for addressing serious and important things
Compared to social networking sites like Facebook: You cannot upload a file that is too large, but email can
Compared to phone calling: You got time to organize your idea. If you are not good in your speaking, email will be a perfect choice for you