At one point on the northern front, Hsiang's commander, Sung Yi, hesitated in sending his troops into battle. Furious, Hsiang entered Sung Yi's tent, proclaimed him a traitor, cut off his head, and assumed sole command of the army. Without waiting for orders, he left the northern front and marched directly on Hsien-yang. He felt certain he was the better soldier and general than Liu, but, to his utter astonishment, his rival, leading a smaller, swifter army, managed to reach Hsien-yang first. Hsiang had an adviser, Fan Tseng, who warned him, "This village headman [Liu Pang] used to be greedy only for riches and women, but since entering the capital he has not been led astray by wealth, wine, or. That shows he is aiming high."
In 208 B.C., the king of Ch'u sent two massive armies to conquer the powerful kingdom of Ch'in. One army went north, under the generalship of Sung Yi, with Hsiang Yu second in command; the other, led by Liu Pang, headed straight toward Ch'in. The target was the kingdom's splendid capital, Hsien-yang. And Hsiang Yu, ever violent and impatient, could not stand the idea that Liu Pang would get to Hsien-yang first, and perhaps would assume command of the entire army.
Without capital punishment (the death penalty) our lives are less secure and crimes of violence increase. Capital punishment in essential to control violence in society.To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Model Answer:
Before talking about the essential role of death penalty, you have to think about the meaning, and the purpose, of any kind of punishment. If you consider that the purpose is to prevent the guilty from being nasty again, you can be seduced by an argumentation in favour of the suppression of capital punishment. But you have to think about another aspect of the problem: a punishment is also useful to impress people, to make them fear the law. In fact, let's take the example of a young misfit, which has grown in a violent atmosphere, influenced by older delinquents, etc ... He lives in the streets, he's got no aim but to survive. This is the kind of person who could possibly kill someone for money, or even for fun ... Why would he fear prison? Life would be easier for him there. In addition, in many cases, when you behave normally, you can benefit from penalty reductions. This young misfit needs to be impressed, he needs to know that the law is a frontier. When you cross it, you can lose your life. That is why capital punishment helps keeping a distance between robbery and murder. If you abolish it, you suppress the difference between these two types of crime, which are completely different.
But there is also a limit to define: even if death penalty is unavoidable, it would be a crime to apply it to inadequate cases. If there is no premeditation or past facts which can justify such a punishment, it is far too strict to apply death penalty. That is why the lawmakers have to establish precisely the context in which capital punishment car be pronounced. That is the price to pay to limit violence without using excessive violence.
Crush Your Enemy Totally
Transgression Of The Law
No rivalry between leaders is more celebrated in Chinese history than the struggle between Hsiang Yu and Liu Pang. These two generals began their careers as friends, fighting on the same side. Hsiang Yu came from the nobility; large and powerful, given to bouts of violence and temper, a bit dull-witted, he was yet a mighty warrior who always fought at the head of his troops. Liu Pang came from peasant stock. He had never been much of a soldier, and preferred women and wine to fighting; in fact, he was something of a scoundrel. But he was wily, and he had the ability to recognize the best strategists, keep them as his advisers, and listen to their advice. He had risen in the army through these strengths.
The bombs would hit farther and farther from their targets every time they fell. By the end of the campaign they were landing on cows in the country. By feeding people wrong information, then, you gain a potent advantage. While spying gives you a third eye, disinformation puts out one of your enemy's eyes. A cyclops, he always misses his target.
Recent figures show an increase in violent crime among youngsters under the age of 18. Some psychologists claim that the basic reason for this is that children these days are not getting the social and emotional learning they need from parents and teachers.To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Model Answer:
It does seem to be true that parents find teachers have lost the authority they used to have, especially in the eyes of teenagers. They are no longer seen as models for behavior: hard work, politeness and other positive qualities are seen as old fashioned. Many young people have no respect for these qualities or the people who represent them. In fact, I think when young people today are so rebellious that it's possible that both parents and teachers are afraid to exercise their authority. However, I do not agree that this is the basic reason for the increase in teenage violence.
While I believe it is true that a lack of social and emotional learning contributes to the problem. Other factors are surely involved: economic factors, for example. If a child comes from a poor family and they live in low-quality housing in all undesirable area, this is sure to affect the child, however loving the parents are.
There is also the question of who your friends are. I believe that when you are in your teens your friends have more influence on you than your parents or teachers. At that age, you want to be part of a group, or even a gang, and this might lead to breaking the law in a number of ways.
In conclusion, while I agree that lack of social and emotional learning from parents and teachers is a factor in the growth of teenage violence, I do not believe that it is the only or main cause.
In 1944 the Nazis' rocket-bomb attacks on London suddenly escalated. Over two thousand V1 flying bombs fell on the city, killing more than five thousand people and wounding many more. Somehow, however, the Germans consistently missed their targets. Bombs that were intended for Tower Bridge, or Piccadilly, would fall well short of the city, landing in the less populated suburbs. This was because, in fixing their targets, the Germans relied on secret agents they had planted in England. They did not know that these agents had been discovered, and that in their place, English-controlled agents were feeding them subtly deceptive information.
Model Answer 2: (Disagree)
I strongly support the death penalty for murderers. In today's society, life is very violent. There are many mentally-ill people committing crimes and almost nothing will stop them. We have interviewed captured criminals who say, "I was going to kill him, but I knew that I could get the death penalty if I did. So I just left him there." Obviously, having the death penalty saves lives and that makes a positive difference to society.
If a criminal does murder someone, and then gets the death penalty, that isn't society's fault. Everyone knows about the death penalty as a punishment for murder. So, the person who murders is really killing himself at the same time he is killing his victim. The murderer has made the choice to die.
It is important to remember that the death penalty is used only for people who have committed very serious crimes. For example, a woman shot a police officer when she was trying to escape from jail. She was already a convicted criminal when she committed murder, and she deserves the death penalty.
People need to accept responsibility for their actions. Punishing murderers with the death penalty is one way that society can help people to realize/realise the consequences of their decisions.
Reversal
Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be prepared for them to spy on you. One of the most potent weapons in the battle for information, then, is giving out false information. As Winston Churchill said, "Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." You must surround yourself with such a bodyguard, so that your truth cannot be penetrated. By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.
By punishing murderers with the death penalty, society is also guilt of committing murder. Therefore, life in prison is a better punishment for murderers.To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Model Answer 1: (Agree)
"Do as I say, not as I do." This is what society tells us when it punishes murderers with the death penalty. Society tells us that murder is wrong, and in our legal system, murder is against the law. Yet we still see our society kill murderers, and thus we are committing murder ourselves. For this reason, the death penalty should end, and instead murderers should be punished with life in prison.
Society needs to show a positive model of how our lives should be and how people should act. We should always strive to improve our situation, to be at peace and in harmony with others. However, when we kill murderers, we are not working to improve our society. Instead, we are stooping to the criminals' level.
It makes me think about the revenge that came when playing games with my brothers. When we were kids/children, my brother would take my toys, so I would hit him and take my toys back. Then he would hit me harder and take the toys again. Thinking of the death penalty, I imagine a murderer kills someone. Society takes revenge by killing the murderer. This leaves behind the murderer's family and friends, who have tremendous anger inside of them, which they may release onto society. The cycle of killing goes on and on.
Society should not condemn people who are taking the same action that society is taking. Society tells us not to kill, and yet society kills when it exercises the death penalty. Because of this contradiction, we should end the death penalty and instead punish murderers by sentencing them to life in prison.
Authority: Now, the reason a brilliant sovereign and a wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is their foreknowledge of the enemy situation. This "foreknowledge" cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor by astrologic calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation from spies. (Sun-tzu, The Art of War, fourth century B.C.)
One day, after dinner, while my younger sister and I were lounging about in Mr. Gopher Wood's yard, we spotted a fledgling Charmony Dove all on its own. That baby bird was tiny, it didn't even have all of its feathers, and it couldn't sing. When we found it, it was already on its last breath, having fallen into a shrub — probably abandoned by its parents. We decided to build a nest for it right there and then. However, thinking back, that winter was unusually cold, with fierce winds at night in the yard, not to mention the many poisonous bugs and wild beasts in the vicinity... It was clear that if we left the fledgling in the yard, it stood no chance of surviving until spring. So, I suggested we take it inside, place it on the shelf by the window, and asked the adults to fashion a cage for it. We decided that when it regained its strength enough to spread its wings, we would release it back into the wild. The tragic part — something that we'd never considered — was that this bird's fate had already been determined long before this moment... Its destiny was determined by our momentary whim. Now, I pass the power of choice to you all. Faced with this situation, what choice would you make? Stick to the original plan, and build a nest with soft net where the Charmony Dove fell? Or build a cage for it, and feed it, giving it the utmost care from within the warmth of a home? I eagerly await your answer
Image: The Third Eye of the Spy. In the land of the two-eyed, the third eye gives you the omniscience of a god You see further than others, and you see deeper into them. Nobody is safe from the eye but you.
By tempting people into certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, their honesty, and so on. And this kind of knowledge is often the most valuable of all: Armed with it, you can predict their actions in the future.
It may seem an odd form of spying that reveals not empirical information but a person's character. Often, however, it is the best way of solving problems before they arise.
Another method of indirect spying is to test people, to lay little traps that make them reveal things about themselves. Chosroes II, a notoriously clever seventh-century king of the Persians, had many ways of seeing through his subjects without raising suspicion. If he noticed, for instance, that two of his courtiers had become particularly friendly, he would call one of them aside and say he had information that the other was a traitor, and would soon be killed. The king would tell the courtier he trusted him more than anyone, and that he must keep this information secret. Then he would watch the two men carefully. If he saw that the second courtier had not changed in his behavior toward the king, he would conclude that the first courtier had kept the secret, and he would quickly promote the man, later taking him aside to confess, "I meant to kill your friend because of certain information that had reached me, but, when I investigated the matter, I found it was untrue." If, on the other hand, the second courtier started to avoid the king, acting aloof and tense, Chosroes would know that the secret had been revealed. He would ban the second courtier from his court, letting him know that the whole business had only been a test, but that even though the man had done nothing wrong, he could no longer trust him. The first courtier, however, had revealed a secret, and him Chosroes would ban from his entire kingdom.
A trick to try in spying comes from La Rochefoucauld, who wrote, "Sincerity is found in very few men, and is often the cleverest of ruses one is sincere in order to draw out the confidence and secrets of the other." By pretending to bare your heart to another person, in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets. Give them a false confession and they will give you a real one. Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who suggested vehemently contradicting people you're in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words. In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.
Safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are crucial to human health and well-being. Safe WASH is not only a prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school attendance and dignity and helps to create resilient communities living in healthy environments. Drinking unsafe water impairs health through illnesses such as diarrhoea, and untreated excreta contaminates groundwaters and surface waters used for drinking-water, irrigation, bathing and household purposes. This creates a heavy burden on communities. Chemical contamination of water continues to pose a health burden, whether natural in origin such as arsenic and fluoride, or anthropogenic such as nitrate. Safe and sufficient WASH plays a key role in preventing numerous neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as trachoma, soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis.
However, poor WASH conditions still account for more than one million diarrhoeal deaths every year and constrain effective prevention and management of other diseases including malnutrition, NTDs and cholera.
Evidence suggests that improving service levels towards safely managed drinking-water or sanitation such as regulated piped water or connections to sewers with wastewater treatment can dramatically improve health by reducing diarrhoeal disease deaths.
Nevertheless, you should practice this tactic with caution and care. If people begin to suspect you are worming secrets out of them under the cover of conversation, they will strictly avoid you. Emphasize friendly chatter, not valuable information. Your search for gems of information cannot be too obvious, or your probing questions will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about the information you hope to find.
During social gathering and innocuous encounters, pay attention. This is when people's guards are down. By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things. The brilliance of the maneuver is that they will mistake your interest in them for friendship, so that you not only learn, you make allies.
