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■Lydia Lui
A friend of mine was going to attend the IELTS(International English Language Testing System)to increase his job opportunity. He attempted(v.嘗試)some of the questions from mock exercise(模擬練習)books for me to comment on. By looking at pieces of writing a person produces, you can actually see a person's personality. Here is one of them.
The question asked him to present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialized knowledge of the following topic, so even the concepts coming up could be difficult, the examples supporting his arguments must be common and easy to follow for most people. The question is :
"There are many different types of music in the world today: Why do we need music? Is the traditional music of a country more important than the International music that is heard everywhere nowadays?" To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
When we look at the question, we pick out key words to prepare our writing. In this case, the question can be answered in two parts: the reasons for the need of music; and whether traditional music or International music is more important. My friend used two paragraphs to answer the first part. He set out a definition of music to help his argument in the second paragraph:
"Music, a very traditional form of expression, appears since human civilization(人類文明). The most fundamental role of music for us is to help us express our feeling.
Why do we need music? Because there is something that language cannot tell. I think almost everyone would have this experience: you want to describe something(especially some feelings)to others, but no matter how hard you try, you still find that there are no words that can exactly describe your feelings deep down in your heart. In this situation, music is a wonderful medium(n.中介)for your expression."
Music is a form of expression which sometimes does more than verbal language. And this is why people would need music in their lives. He then moved on to answering the second part of the question about kind of music is more important. He first re-stated the background for the rise of this question:
"There are many different types of music in the world today. Someone may say that the traditional music of a country is more important than the International music that is heard everywhere nowadays. However, I think that all kinds of music are equally important."
Then with a clear stance(n.立場), he developed his argument from the previous paragraphs to give coherence to the passage:
"Referring to the above illustration, if we agree that one of the basic functions of music is to express oneself, all kinds of music represent authors' thought regardless of music genres(music categories). In other words, if we cannot say that anyone's feeling or expression is more important than the others, then so as the music genres."
The comparison of feelings helps readers to understand his view on the comparison of the music genres. To strengthen the argument, the next paragraph deals with a counter-argument:
"Maybe someone will argue that the traditional music of a country is more important because it has an added-value in the historical dimension because the traditional music retains the cultural value of their nation or community of a particular time frame when the music was written. Actually, I have no doubt about this argument but one thing I want to point out is that: How do we know all the International music heard everywhere nowadays would not become a historical asset of today's humanity in twenty years' time?"
Here, he added a new dimension – time to broaden our view on the seemingly(adv.似乎地)separate concepts of the two music genres. These two genres are not as mutually exclusive as we may be used to think. It is also a matter of perspective, as he put in the short and powerful conclusion:
"It's about the time spot we stand, not because of the difference of nature."
■lydialuieng@gmail.com
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