Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
Exercise 1)
The way the journalist describes Dr. Paul Kelley makes him seem like a real
hero. The journalist cleverly chooses his words, painting a very rosy image of
Kelley. With wording like “pioneering headteacher” and saying that Kelley is
“Always looking for ways to improve pupil learning”. The journalist also
chooses to cover Kelley’s previous research and describes their success and
starts that passage of with “The energetic Kelley”. It’s not hard to see that the
journalist looks upon him in a positive manner and this is clearly reflected in his
writing.
Exercise 2)
a)
Text 1:
Honourable school governors
If the work of Dr. Paul Kelley has not yet come to your attention please let me
present this to you. Dr Paul Kelley is a pioneering headteacher at Monkseaton
Community High School. His latest concept has improved student
performances in tests by 9 percent and is a fairly simple one to implement at
our school and would give the pupils so much more than just better test scores.
Dr. Paul Kelley’s field of expertise is in finding ways to improve pupil learning,
and his latest research shows that simply giving pupils two more hours in the
morning accomplishes that.
His thesis is, that from the age of 10 our internal clocks starts to shift which
makes it favourable for young people to stay in in bed for another two hours.
This clock shift peaks at age 20 and will not be completely reverse to pre-teen
levels until about the age of 55!
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
Therefore as I see it, since none of the students and only a few of our teachers
have turned fifty yet it would be a logical thing to introduce at our school next
semester and I think we would observe an increase in test performances fairly
quickly, not to mention that the pupil’s mood would also increase dramatically!
Sincerely John Doe, President of the student council.
Text 2:
Fellow students.
It has recently come to my attention, that a researcher and headteacher
named Dr. Paul Kelley has done research into adolescent sleep behaviour and
has come to the conclusion that our internal clocks started to shift when we
turned 10 and that is why some, or most of us from time to time have severe
problems getting up in the morning.
He states that by giving us 2 more hours to sleep in the morning we will
become more rested, we would learn more and produce better test results.
I have sent a letter to the school governors regarding this matter and if my
wording was sufficiently convincing we might get to sleep in some more next
semester!
But be careful not to celebrate yet, the school governors are old and therefore
hesitant to change and might not like this idea since nothing like it was carried
out when they went to school. But anyways, they might say yes to try it out a
bit and if they do that don’t stay up for two more hours, get the two extra
hours of sleep and remember to study for your tests so that we’ll get good
results and might make this arrangement permanent!
John Doe, President of the student council.
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
b)
The main differences in my two texts are the wording and that I wrote things
like we will, our, us and so on in text 2. I could do this since rather than
addressing an authority, I was communicating to a group of which I am a
member of myself and by wording I mean that text 1 was far more polite and
also that it implemented more “bigger words” than text 2, giving the
expression of a more formal tone.
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
Exercise 3b)
Universal Health Care in America
Before we start, remember that the bill passed in Congress some weeks ago
was not Universal Health Care as we know it here at home, but just a step
towards it.
There has not been such a clear division in American politics as there is today in
a long time. The issue of universal health care represents a key difference in
the struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans. Some weeks ago
Obama’s Health Care bill was passed, but the debates did not stop there.
People seem to be frantic about this bill; some thinks it is the golden ticket to a
perfect system, some think it is the first step towards government death
squads deciding over who lives or dies. A task that now sometimes falls into the
hands of the insurance companies. But the bill was passed and the Americans
are neither living in a universal health care paradise or being told by
government employees that their grandma has to die.
The myth of Government Death Squads being in charge of who gets medicine
or not was put forward by people on the far right, by people like Glenn Beck
and Bill O’Reilley. These men each have their own TV-show on the right wing
news channel, FOX news. They are both masters at twisting the facts to cause
fear and deeming any slight intervention by the state as communism!
That myth, alongside many others is one of the major causes of the antiuniversal health care attitude. This brings us to something very unjust and
undemocratic in the American political system, not only does the major
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
companies spend enormous amounts of money on lobbying in Washington, but
they also use mass media to “lobby the masses” by making men like Glenn Beck
spout out fallacies and creating these myths.
Another major source of this attitude in the US is how the country was
founded. It first came to be when the colonists wanted their independence
after they felt being wrongfully taxed by politicians in London.
Out of this came three things most Americans hate to this day.
Central government, politicians and taxes!
The latter represents something that will follow in the wake of the now passed
health care bill. Increased taxes. If it had not been for the fact that Obama
claimed that the bill also would save money for the people who already were
ensured, I think that this bill would have been near impossible to pass! Because
if it is something Americans do not want, it is less economic freedom, two of
the American society’s pillars, freedom and money. In other words if passing
the bill meant that most Americans, ensured or not would have less to spend it
would not have been passed. But since Obama claimed that the money saved
on the insurance and especially the lower insurance premiums would be
greater than the expenditures most people would face in the form of the
increased taxation, the bill managed to get passed.
And also, since health care is seen upon as something private in the US,
something one should care for himself, even some democrats opposed the bill
because democrats are also very reluctant to the government meddling with
the private sphere.
Another thing many Americans have against the bill and universal health care is
the shortcut it represents. Since it is a popular belief amongst Americans that
poor people are poor because they are lazy, not because they’ve had a rough
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
start means people feel universal health care would be to give lazy people an
easier way to healthcare than they had themselves. They feel that giving it to
the poor is giving it to the lazy, the undeserving and stupid. As Aaron Sakulich
puts it; “Why should I have to pay for the lazy, the weak-willed and the
clumsy?” (Adapted)
But not all Americans are against it, many are also for it, the bill was passed
after all. I think this is because many Americans have started to see the
problem with being the only industrialised country in the world without a
universal health care plan and also I think they have seen that health weighs
less than profit in the scales of the insurance companies.
Obama went to election on the promise of change and on the promise of the
newly passed health care bill. The electorate wanted it and got him elected and
he kept his promise. That said, Obama being a democrat can be seen in
correlation with democrats having a tendency to be more in favour of tax
funded projects.
That is the main division in American politics; this is where the two parties
differ the most! It is not like in Norway where a party’s main causes can be to
build more roads, making liquor cheaper and being tougher on immigrants. The
main difference between the parties in America is a much more fundamental
one!
The republicans oppose most tax funded projects as long as they are not of a
military matter, which is a bit weird since the US military is the world’s largest
tax drain. The Republican way has traditionally been to loosen legislation and
easing the tax burden on companies in hope that the market would clean up its
own mess. The Democrats on the other hand can be seen as more in favour of
using taxation and governmental interventions to fix problems.
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Anders Brevik
Engelsktentamen
12.04.2010
And I think this is why this bill, this road towards universal health care has
become such an intense battleground. Because it is a symbol of the core
differences between the two major parties in America, the Democrats
proposing it on the one hand, spending tax dollars on the general well-being.
and the republicans on the other hand, fighting against Governmental
intervention into the private sphere and fighting the spending of money on
something else than tax cuts.
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