Commentary

With the increasing level of competitiveness of China’s economic market, it is logical that many Singaporeans would want to invest there. However, with the language barrier obstructing them, these entrepreneurs have turned to learning mandarin in order to communicate better with the Chinese nationals and make business easier. With the increasing number of Singaporeans willing to brush up their mandarin skills, a number of language centres have started to offer adult mandarin courses to the public, where they would be taught common business terms and how to communicate in fluent mandarin.

Therefore, I agree to a large extent that to further our business opportunities in Asia, businessmen would first have to brush up their mandarin and the only way to do that is to enroll in a language centre.

As we all know, countries all over the world, including China, have implemented English as a subject in their education system. This is to allow their citizens to have a more competitive economic edge in the world, and I am proud to say that Singapore has done well in implementing English into our daily life. However, just as English is important for working in the USA, England or Australia, Mandarin is important for working in Mainland China. First and foremost, I would like to point out that China, according to statistics, is indeed one country that is fast growing in terms of economics. According to H.E. Ambassador Zha Peixin at a 2003 Chinese Economic Association Annual Conference, China is now the 6th largest economy and the 5th largest trading nation in the world. Hence, it would be inevitable that any aspiring businessmen would have to do some investments there. With the availability of mandarin courses almost everywhere in Singapore, I feel that Singaporeans should learn the Chinese language, for the sake of their future careers.

Some might say, why do we need to learn mandarin? The world does not only consist of China, we can expand our business in so many other countries. This is true to a certain degree, the existing countries with mandarin as their native tongue include only China, Taiwan and Singapore, and even in Singapore, English-speakers still constitute the majority. More so, the market of USA and Australia is even on par or not better with that of China, so why place our future there?

People always think that the western countries always reign supreme in terms of trading and business. However, take a look at the recent economic downturn. Studies have shown that the Chinese banks were the least affected by the crash. The old adage ‘slow and steady wins the race’ has been held firm by these Chinese banks, where they are more cautious in investment compared to their western counterparts. There is always this sense of security when doing business in China. Be it working with people who speak your own mother tongue or whether it is the assurance that the Chinese market would not crash as the US market did, doing business in China would always prove to be a better choice for us Singaporeans, whom majority are Chinese.

What I am trying to say is, we should all do ourselves a favour. As we have been frequently reminded, no one owes Singapore a living; it is up to its citizens. Right now the west holds more prospects, but China holds the key to the Asian economic market, probably even the world’s in time to come. Therefore, try picking up a few lines of mandarin. Minister Mentor Lee has been reminding us for a few decades now, China is growing, and we cannot simply sit and wait.

(adapted from ‘my paper’ 25/08/09)

Sources:
http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/ceuk/eng/dsjh/t27161.htm

Scrap the CCTs. I don't think so.

Speak the alphabets - C, C and T together among rafflesians and you'll get a moan or a series of complaints. Yes, common class tests ARE abundant, like it or not, and for many reasons cannot and will never be scrapped. No matter what.

First of all, I would like to point out the fact that CCTs are like a recap for the topics that have been studied in the term. Rafflesians all have a busy time schedule, throw in the extremely informative lessons that they have, they tend to forget what they've learnt very easily. With the CCTs around, students would be forced to study for the high-weightage paper to prevent themselves from failing. This drills the many weeks of lessons into their heads and (hopefully) stores it there. Some may complain that this is difficult to cope with, but for the better good of students, CCTs cannot be scrapped.

Next, CCTs would be good training for rafflesians, who would be taking their 'A' levels at the end of their 6 year raffles programme course. As it is now, there are only two major papers each year for RI students, the mid-year-examinations and the end-of-year examinations. Based on a report sent from RJC in 2007, RI students are not doing well in their 'A' levels due to the fact that they lack experience sitting for maror pen-and-paper examinations. Therefore, if only two examination papers are set each year, the results would drop even more tremendously. Therefore, with CCTs, there would be more training for students so that they can be prepared for the 'A' level papers.

Therefore, as much as each and every students want CCTs to be scapped, I think that we should stick to the current situation as it is now. CCTs bring more benefints, albeit it may be stressful to students with busy schedules. Right now, the results of this system has brought about the outstanding performances in RI(JC)'s 'A' level results. Why change a winning strategy? CCTs should not be scrapped at all costs.

logos ethos pathos

Drugs may give a bad impression to those who come across the word, however, it is not all that bad, and I think soft drugs like marijuana should be legalised.

Soft drugs, as most of us know, are harmful. But they might be useful in some ways. For example in pain killers, medical marijuana is sometimes used to relieve pain. The marijuana that is available on the black market is somewhat the same, just that it hasn't been processed and legalised yet. If drugs can be used for medical use (sometimes patients get addicted while receiving treatment and request doctors to prescribe them with marijuna to "relieve pain"), why not legalise it as well?

Next, soft drugs can be closely related to gambling as well. Both cause addiction, and both started out as something illegal. However, gambling is now legalised and the oppurtunity given to the privilledged who can afford to go casinoes. Therefore, soft drugs can also be legalised in the same way. Giving only the privilledged oppurtunity to smoke soft drugs.

Sometimes the solutions to curbing illegal sale to soft drugs is staring right at our faces, just that most people are too afraid to carry them out...

Mode: Logos

What is and exposition?

There are many forms of writing an essay about a particular topic, like argumentative essays and such. One type of essay would be expository essays.

Firstly, on how expository differs from all other types of essays, is that it is trying to explain and expose (the name derives from this word) a particular topic. Not only does an expository essay tries to win the readers favour, it is also striving to PROVE to the reader why so-and-so is true. With the help of well supported evidences and analogies, the writer must explain clearly to readers the truth, leaving the least hint of suspicion in their minds.

To write an expository essay, there must first be a well in placed structure. That is, the introduction, body and conclusion of the expository essay.

In the introduction, the thesis statement and a brief overview will be presented. The thesis statements explanation coupled with evidences will all be presented in a single part of the essay we all call the body. This will be the key to winning the reader to the writer's side of the argument and to explain thoroughly what the topic is about. The essay will then end with a conclusion to sum up what has been written and end off well enough so that readers would get an impactful feeling of the essay, further solidifying their views of the written topic.