1、TOPIC: ISSUE160 - “The most essential quality of an effective leader is the ability to remain consistently committed to particular principles and objectives. Any leader who is quickly and easily influenced by shifts in popular opinion will accomplish little.“WORDS: 645 TIME: 00:45:00 DATE: 2010-03-2
2、3 14:46:06Generally I can identify with the speakers perspective that effective leadership embraces consistency to principles and objectives because of the likelihood of leaders to accomplish little if they happen to be push-over. Nonetheless, is sticking to the same principles and objectives absolu
3、tely a good quality? As far as I think, the flexibility of leadership is also of great importance and in specific circumstances; its advisory to make accommodations to particular principles and objectives.It may well be that any leader who is easily influenced by the popular opinions will in most ca
4、ses succeed little in his/her policy. After all, the number of popular opinions is immense and they keep constantly changing. If the shifts of opinions exert too large an influence on decision makers, its easy for them to become swayed and thus go stray from their original plans and probably give up
5、 what they intend to accomplish halfway-an unwise act thatll result in inconsistency in the policy and a waste of resources. On the other hand, if the leaders have a strong assertion in what theyre doing and stay impervious to the alteration of public opinions, it is likely that they will finish the
6、ir projects and make great achievements.Nonetheless, this doesnt mean that leaders should take the changes in popular opinion for granted. （感觉怪别扭的。 。 ）If they do, they will unfortunately fall into stubborn politicians, unaware of the on-going immediate change. Popular opinion is not without use; it
7、is a reflection of the current social mentality and if the majoritys view-point is carefully being considered by the decision makers, itll be healthy for the entire enterprises development. After all, the popular opinion shed light on the benefits of the masses, and it is the masses that constitute
8、the whole body-the mainstream force in an enterprise. If their benefits are overlooked, and their opinions are stifled, it wont last long for this enterprise to develop. A typical example would be the cultural revolution of China in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time capitalism in China was regarded
9、as evil because it encouraged people to pursue personal gains rather than benefits of the whole country. Chairman Mao Zedong, deeply guided by this principle, made the resolution to develop China and make it outstrip the US in 10 years. Thus most teenagers were demanded to give up education and to g
10、o back to the farmlands and factories to make contribution to the country and private business was forbidden since it didnt intend to make profits for the country and thus was of no use to Chinese people. Chinese intellects were against this policy and a large number of people protested it. However,
11、 their opinions were stifled, some of their lives prosecuted. After ten years, Chinese leaders finally realized the need to change the original principle and objective and things got better. But this so-called Cultural Revolution is so disastrous that it causes Chinas economy to regress 20 years.The
12、refore while leaders oughtnt to make radical changes to their particular principles, moderate modification is necessary and when it comes to particular objectives, change, as well, is not necessarily a negative thing. Theres no guarantee that the decisions made by the leaders are correct and theres
13、no assurance that the principles they abide by will always perform full well if they remain still against time. Keeping an open mind to public opinions makes leaders well -informed of changes and thus make necessary adaptations（这 and 前后主语不一致哎。 。 ）. Things are changing all the time and survival of th
14、e fittest seems a natural law. How to balance change and sticking to the particular principles and goals is what leaders ought to meticulously contemplate.In a nutshell, while leaderships shouldnt be susceptible to popular opinion shifts and need to generally abide by their own principles and stick
15、to the objectives, its of essence for them to have an open mind and make necessary adjustments when appropriate. TOPIC: ARGUMENT112 - The following proposal was raised at a meeting of the Franklin City Council. “Franklin Airport, which is on a bay, is notorious for flight delays. The airport managem
16、ent wants to build new runways to increase capacity but can only do so by filling in 900 acres of the bay. The Bay Coalition organization objects that filling in the bay will disrupt tidal patterns and harm wildlife. But the airport says that if it is permitted to build its new runways, it will fund
17、 the restoration of 1,000 acres of wetlands in areas of the bay that have previously been damaged by industrialization. This plan should be adopted, for it is necessary to reduce the flight delays, and the wetlands restoration part of the plan ensures that the bays environment will actually be helpe
18、d rather than hurt.“WORDS: 578 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2010-03-23 14:46:07The speaker advocates the Franklin Airports plan to increase the capacity for the airports runway by filling in 900 acres of the bay for the purpose of reducing flight delays. Furthermore, the Franklin Airport promises to fund th
19、e restoration of 1000 acres of wetlands if its plan is permitted to implement, thus the speaker doesnt think the environment will be hurt and on the contrary, itll be likely to get improved. Nevertheless, I find his/her argument untenable due to the following reasons.To justify that building new run
20、ways will reduce flight delays, the speaker fails to provide a link between them. Theres no scientific evidence or survey to illustrate that Franklin Airports flight delays are due to its limited number of runways. Actually there is a wide range of possibilities that could be held responsible for it
21、s unpunctuality. For example, the weather around the airport area could be exceptionally inclement. Windy conditions, bad storms and sandstorms are all possible to procrastinate air flights. Or it could be that the airport is perhaps poorly managed and the air flights are not well arranged, etc. Wit
22、hout ruling out these possibilities, the speaker can hardly persuade me to accept that the incapacity of runway is a direct cause of flight delays.Even if we assume that building new runways is a good approach to decrease flight delays, if the sacrifice it needs to make in order to reduce delays is
23、significantly more than the benefits it can get from the new runways, then this method should not be recommended. According to the Bay Coalition organization, damaging the 900 acres of the bay could disrupt tidal patterns and harm wildlife. If the environment is severely damaged, it is a great hazar
24、d to the local economic and social development. If Franklin City Council happens to be a tourism city (it is near the bay and its reasonable to make this assumption), destroying the wetland thus damaging the local environment will make the tourism industry take a heavy toll. Thus the number of peopl
25、e flying here could be possibly reduced and its not beneficial to the airport.Then the speaker will argue that the airport already promises to fund the restoration of 1000 acres of wetlands in the area if its plan is granted, so environment will be affected. This is not a persuasive argument. First
26、of all, the 900 acres it plans to exploit certainly is not located in the same area of the 1000 acres it plans to restore. It would be possible the area in the 900 acres is much more essential to the local environment. Without a consistent scientific research to weigh the cons and pros, the speaker
27、cannot support his/her conclusion. In addition, the 1000 acres that it plans to fund is after all man-made and its benefits and importance to the environment may not be as good as those of natural ones. And theres no guarantee that the wetland it promises to restore will do good to the ecosystem sin
28、ce wildlife will be strongly affected by the destruction of the original 900 acres.In a nutshell, without demonstrating that the limited number of runway is a direct cause to flight delays, without providing scientific evidence that the 1000 acres of land it wishes to restore will play the same important role as the existing 900 acres and without further exploring other ways to improve the current condition, the speaker fails to provide us with an persuasive argument and sound conclusion.
