UNIT 2 - COMPETITIONS

Part 1:

- Do you like to compete with others?

Yes, I’m extremely competitive by nature, as you may guess from mentioning that I am a middle child with two brothers, I have been in competition all my life whether in sports or lexical knowledge. I’m always up for a good challenge. Just yesterday, I played a game of three-on-three basketball in the park near my home.

- How often do you participate in a contest?

As I had mentioned, I am constantly finding myself in some type of challenge. I would say that I partake in healthy competition at least once a day, whether it is shooting hoops like yesterday, or just kicking back on my couch and playing a multiplayer strategy game on my phone like Hearthstone I’m competing once or twice a day for sure.

Part 2:

I think I will choose to find an instructor to help me in the upcoming competition. Having an instructor helps me focus fully on preparing for the competition. Along with that, a tutor can provide the necessary materials during the review process. Although the internet is also a rich source of information, the information on it is so large that we cannot know which material is right for us. For me, the English Center also provides a lot of useful knowledge and skills for students. However, the prices of English language centers are relatively high. So for me looking for a tutor to prepare for the upcoming competition will be the optimal choice.

Part 3:

So, I agree that students are encouraged to take part in competitions.There are three main reasons to explain for this.

First, competitions encourage self-improvement. When students take part in a competition, they will discover both their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what they are strong or weak will make them try to better themselves.

Secondly, competitions encourage learning from others. Students compete with others and they can see what other people are good at. It will be a good chance for them to learn good things from their friends.

Finally, competitions can also improve social life. We can make friends, we can test how good our knowledge and skills are, we can take part in activities other than study. Those will make our life more interesting.

So, to sum up, it is true that students are encouraged to take part in competitions.

1. Why do you think some school teachers use competitions as class activities?

Some school teachers use competitions as class activities in order to bring out the best in their students, as well as to realize their full academic potential. Besides, they believe that the sense of healthy competition among the students, if used effectively, will help them remain engaged and interested in their lessons, not only in the schools but also at home since children just love winning things.

2. Do you think it is a good thing to give prizes to children who do well at school? Why?

No, I don’t necessarily think that it is particularly productive for teachers and the school authorities to offer prizes to children who do well at school primarily because the practice goes against the spirit of healthy competition. In fact, those who fail to receive prizes, generally feel inferior to the prize-receiving children, which certainly is not good for the tender minds of those young children. Besides, children should be encouraged to do well, with or without prizes because they should be able to understand that there just may not be prizes always for the things they will do in their lives when they grow up.

3. Do you think that it is possible to become too competitive in sport? In what way?

Of course, I think that it is possible to become too competitive in sports since some players would want to win at any cost even if it means using some unethical means to achieve their goals. That’s exactly why we constantly hear news of performance enhancing drugs, used by some athletes, almost on a regular basis. In fact, it is because of this type of competitive overdrive that we see players abusing each other physically and verbally on the fields, which is absolutely unacceptable behaviour by any standards.