2011年雅思考试题目及参考范文Felix2011年雅思考试题目及参考范文2011.1.8Some people think that robots are very important for humans' future development. Others, however, think that robots are a dangerous invention that could have negative effects on society. Discuss both views and give your opinion.For centuries, people have fantasized that someday robots could have intelligence like mankind and work as faithful servants. Today this dream has come true in many fields thanks to the rapid development of artificial intelligence researches. However, the issue of the wide application of robots can be deemed as beneficial as detrimental.On the one hand, there is no denying that robots bring about an array of positive aspects, such as high work efficiency and low work risk. First, the workload that could take months to finish by manual labor could be done flawlessly by robots in minutes, which allows individuals to be involved in other activities. Second, it is widely acknowledged that robots could do dangerous jobs instead of people in high risk businesses like mining and construction; therefore, a host of people’s safety can be ensured to a considerable degree.On the other hand, a great number of people hold an opposite opinion, asserting there are numerous demerits which should not be neglected. To begin with, people lose jobs when machines take their places, especially in the mass production industry such as automobile business. In factories of the famous carcompany Ford, almost every step of car making is done by giant robots that work faster with higher reliability and precision. As a consequence, employees will have great pressure. Admittedly, there are indeed some occupations that robots might perform much better than human beings, but they cannot work in a flexible way as people do, and they are less likely to make corresponding changes once something unexpected happens. Then human beings’ supervision tends to become imperative.Taking all factors into account, robots have many merits that make our life easier and more convenient, but workers may suffer from unemployment stress. (292 words2011.1.15Nowadays, some workplaces tend to employ equal numbers of men and women workers. Do you think it is a positive or negative development? The gender imbalance has long been a general phenomenon in the labour market. Some analysts argue that it is impossible to eliminate the underrepresentation of women in job markets, while others propose that women should be entitled the same opportunity to be engaged in a position. The essay will compare these two opinions before giving my own opinion.From some people’s point of view, the practice that equal numbers of male and female workers should be employed is unreasonable. First, the packed-schedule of certain positions is likely to make women so busy with their jobs that their family life is neglected. Another point is that it is much easier for female workers to be influenced by marriage and motherhood, and their jobs are often interrupted by daily domestic events. To keep the continuity of work, employers are more inclined to put male workers into their top priority. Opponents of this issue hold that the positive aspects of the practice are more influential. First of all, employing equal numbers of male and female workers can help create positive working environment, for it is usually the case that men or women perform less aggressive in the face of the opposite gender. Second, there is a large possibility that men and women workers bring their respective talents into full play since men are more determined and less likely to be affected by external influence and women are generally more careful and patient. Finally, the move could be regarded as a sign of equality, for in many workplaces, employers used to limit the numbers of women workers and welcome a substantial percentage of males to join them. The practice that equal numbers of men and women workers are accepted indicates the realisation of women’s value.To sum up, it does bring drawbacks to some workplaces if equal numbers of men and women workers are employed, but this cannot deny the benefits of the practice. This essay is inclined to maintain that equal numbers of male andfemale workers can be employed in the same workplace given that there is a rational division of labour, with all employees developing their own particular advantages for mutual benefits.(360 words)2011.1.22Nowadays some people have the anti-social behaviors such as committing crimes. What are the reasons? Who should take responsibility for dealing with it?A dramatic rise in crime rate during the past several years has become a major concern among the public. It is urgent to identify the underlying root causes and adopt proactive approaches.A variety of factors are responsible for the surge of anti-social behaviors such as committing crimes. The predominant factor resulting in this problem is the lack of education. People who fail their school or know little about laws have a much higher likelihood of committing crimes. Excessive exposure to violence is another cause that leads to anti-social behaviors , especially the juvenile delinquency. Without the proper parental guide, some young adults will probably become addicted to the Internet and become heavy net users. Some contents are contaminated by online violence and pornography, which is closely linked to youngsters’ aggressive behaviors.Accordingly, the crime prevention requires the joint efforts from both the government and parents. The government should increase its intervention, including launching public anti-crime campaigns, enforcing new laws and popularizing education. A civilized society is characterized by a high literacy rate and a low crime rate. The negative relationship between these two parameters implies that one will be away from a life of crime if given the access to education. To tackle youth crimes, parents should play a more supportive and loving role, attaching more importance to their children’s emotional needs, limiting their access to unfavorable contents on the Internet, and creating more interesting after-school entertainment.As suggested above, this unpleasant phenomenon can be attributed to several factors, including poor education and lack of parental supervision. The government should take more effective measures to curb crimes and parents are supposed to give correct instructions to their children.(279words)2011.1.27Some people think that it is necessary to travel abroad to learn about other countries, but other people think that it is not necessary to travel abroadbecause all the information can be seen on television and the Internet. Discuss both opinions and give your own opinion.There is a new trend that an increasing number of people choose to travel overseas to form a global perspective. This issue is full of controversy, with concerns being expressed over whether it is necessary to go overseas to know more about other countries, since all the information can be gained through either television or the Internet.A serial of benefits can be brought by traveling abroad to learn about a different country. Initially, it is a memorable life experience that we cannot acquire in our domestic country. As a result, only in real life contexts can people comprehend the culture, customs, or its people etc. Sound as the above statement seems, there are still a group of people holding the view that there is no need to travel abroad. The main factor is that the advanced technology, such as televisions, the Internet, can provide people with almost any information about other places. However, it is unpractical to rely on the media excessively to get any news they want to obtain. Spreading rumors on the Internet are always happening around us. Therefore, only when we experience them personally, can we confirm the accuracy of the information.To sum up, it is imperative for people to travel overseas to learn different nations. Televisions and the Internet are, to some extent, a feasible way to obtain information, but the real experience of traveling abroad largely outweighs the dependence on the media to learn about a different country.(245words)2011.2.12Tourism is an excellent way to develop country, but it also can cause some harm. How can a country ensure tourism benefit the development? The market of international tourism is flourishing as never before and is playing a vital part in the development of one country. However, this booming is accompanied by the soaring number of tourists, which may bring about a substantial number of demerits. Therefore, how to guarantee the sustainable development of tourism and develop our tourism vigorously will be analyzed in this essay.The merits of tourism to one country’s development are beyond doubt. For one thing, tourism can attract a host of foreigners to visit and consume during the tour. For another, the excellent impression of the places of interests will enhance one country’s international image and then stimulate international investments in not only tourism but also other essential sections. Meanwhile, the demerits of unguided tourism can never be ignored and will be represented as follows. First, a sizeable percentage of people may pose a threat to the historical buildings. Second, trash produced in an astonishing amount goes with the super large flow of people, particularly during the peak tourist time. Third, a vast number of people flood into one place, whichaggravates the traffic pressure greatly, contributing too much inconvenience to the local dwellers.To handle above problems and ensure tourism can attract people continuously and benefit economy development, the following methods are strongly suggested. Initially, government should pay close attention to the protection and renovation of historical buildings. Subsequently, the awareness of environmental conservation should be strongly strengthened among the public, therefore efficient environmental campaigns are inevitable. Ultimately, reasonable distribution and improvement of transport facilities should be put on table.(262words)2011.2.17Some believe creative artists should be supported financially by government of their county, but some others suggest creative artists find finance support in other sources instead. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.Arts play a significant role in individuals’ lives. It is widely acknowledged that sufficient investment for artists is necessary if people strive to develop arts. However, whether the government should support them financially or they should find support from other sources arouses a contentious argument.On the one hand, it brings about a wide range of blessings for the government to give financial aids to creative artists. First, the artistic level is more likely to get a promotion with stable fund guarantee. As a result, creative artists can be fully dedicated to their jobs. Second, considering the great significance and profits that arts generate for the nation, for instance, providing numerous products and designs that drive innovation and shape a state’s cultural character, the government should encourage the development of arts with financial assistance.On the other hand, people hold an opposite point of view, asserting that creative artists should gain financial aids from other resources. To begin with, compared with other employees earning money by themselves, creative artists are supposed to strive for the financial support from other sources by their own efforts rather than depend on the taxpayer’s expenses. Furthermore, finding financial support on their own allows creative artists to have enough pressure to motivate themselves, producing great works. Most importantly, in many industries, such as advertising, design, trade show，creative artists are always in shortage. As a result, it is not too hard to access the supply of fund if they have qualified works.As suggested above, financial support from the government indeed generates an array of benefits for creative artists. However, the real creative artists are someone who work with their own strengths to obtain sponsorships, instead of relying on the government.(287 words)2011.2.19Some people think that women should play an equal role as men in military force or police force; others say women are not suited for such kind of work. Discuss both sides and give your own opinion.Over the past several years, the change in women’s participation in nearly every walk of life has been beyond people’s wildest expectations. However, a heated debate with regard to whether women should play an equal role as men in military force or police force has arisen, which draws enormous attention from the public.On the one hand, some people assert that since the society consists of nearly equal numbers of both genders, sex discrimination must be eliminated and ladies can make the same amount of contribution to the police force and military force. The first standpoint is that females have inborn merits standing them in good stead. They are less likely to commit faults, for they are good at tackling matters with accuracy and caution. In addition, another impressive and prominent personality trait is that females have great endurance of hardships, especially under grueling conditions, and their tenderness allows them to excel in positions involving interaction and communication with human personnel.Notwithstanding their strengths, females have some limitations they may need to overcome. One obstacle which cannot be ignored is the social attitude. Females have to cope with the pressure exerted by their families, acquaintances or friends, as serving the army is widely seen as a deadly job which is exclusively for males. The other one is females’ physical and mental qualifications. It is commonly known that homicides and robbers are mostly strong, fierce and cruel, and policewomen are more likely to become victims rather than bring them to justice. Also, it seems to be true that military training and the war field could be too intense and sometimes brutal, far beyond the limits of ordinary women’s physical and mental levels.In conclusion, females should be viewed as equal to males in the defense force and their presence should be encouraged. Nature gives different attributes to both men and women, which is supposed to optimize the productivity and efficiency of the society, rather than cause gender discrimination.(327 words)2011.2.26Countries should try to produce all the food that population eats and import food as little as possible. To what extent do you agree or disagree?There has been a steady increase in the demand for importing food throughout the world in recent years. There are indications that this trade activity has brought various benefits, but importing food is very often criticized as unnecessary and extravagant, especially when air freight is involved.It is important to note that importing food is becoming increasingly popular among the general population. This is mainly due to the fact that countries differ in their product structures because of dissimilar natural resources, climates and geographic features. By adopting an enlightened policy and promoting trade activities with other countries, a country can facilitate the exchange of goods, services and capitals with the rest of the world and promote economic development. However, some countries might become addicted to importing and overlook the possibility of developing a self-contained economy. Government funding in the scientific research can make it possible to achieve a breakthrough on the scarcity of resource and increase the yield, thereby resolving the food supply crisis.Moreover, countries in our planet vary in terms of their resource distributions, climatic conditions and topography, which, to a large extent, affects their population as well as the food production. The imbalance between the capability of producing food and the food consumption makes it hard for a country to produce all the food to meet its people’s requirements.As suggested above, it is unpractical for every nation to supply all the food that the population need, and under favorable conditions, import of food ought to be encouraged. (251words)2011.3.5Some people believe governments should spend money in saving languages of few speakers from dying out completely. Others think this is a waste of financial resources. Discuss both views and give your opinion.Of the thousands of languages in use now, some are used by a huge number of people, like English and Chinese, while some others only have very few speakers. With the increasing efforts of the international community to save those languages used by few speakers, a debate as to whether governments should take measures to save them has arisen.Supporters of governments’ efforts to save the languages verging on extinction hold that any effort made to preserve a language is well worthwhile. As is known to all, each language is loaded with an enormous cultural heritage, reflecting the knowledge, thought and faith of its speakers. Preserving a language which is dying out, we conserve the cultural diversity; losing a language, we lose a cultural heritage. Rare animals cannot be wiped out just because they are few, and old buildings of historical value cannot be pulleddown owing to its bad condition. In the same vein, languages with few speakers cannot be abandoned to their fate.Opponents to governments’ measures to save the languages from the brink, however, claim that the efforts are nothing but a waste of money. First, preserving such languages from extinction, which needs a considerable sum of money, and lets alone substantial human resources, does not bring real benefits. The money spent in unrewarding activities, if invested in more significant undertakings such as poverty alleviation, AIDS combating, scientific researching, etc., will be greatly beneficial to man. Moreover, preserving a language is not conducive to the world peace. After all, when marooned in their own world, people become less receptive to and tolerant of things and values different from theirs, a situation which can easily rub salt against wounds and thus gives rise to antagonism and even hatred.In conclusion, my opinion is that it is worthwhile for governments to spend money saving languages with few speakers, or languages facing extinction. A language is a cultural heritage, which is invaluable and certainly merits preservation at any cost.（329words）2011.3.10In some countries, children start school at the age of seven, so they could have more time to build relationship with their parents. In othercountries, some think that children start school as young as possible. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.It is true that a substantial number of students start school at seven or later in some countries and their parents believe it is significant to establish closer relationship with their children. Conversely, some people from other countries are in favour of the idea that the earlier schooling, the better relationship with parents. Personally, I intend to support the later opinion.A sizeable percentage of people, especially in the developing countries, are convinced that children should be educated in their early age at home to form a strong connection with their parents. For one thing, such a close connection can enhance not only parents’ authority but also their influence. As young children might be affected by others, including friends and strangers, to form unpleasant behaviour, parents must guide their children to distinguish the good from the bad authoritatively. For another, the close relationship can help children to maintain the confidence to face the new things appearing in their life constantly as they know their parents can help them to deal with them if needed.However, a substantial percentage of parents in the developed countries are of the belief that it is earlier schooling instead of later one that can help the foundation of children-parents relation. For one thing, young children will definitely meet friends in the school and learn from them. Bad influence as it may exert, teachers will guide students to avoid bad influence and teach themhow to handle this problem properly. Parents can gain information immediately from teachers and communicate with their children after school, thereby forming a better relationship. For another, early schooling enables children to deal with problems on their own, and this can trigger their confidence to face challenge independently. With their growth, they will realize numerous problems cannot be handled independently, they would ask for their parents’ help, which can noticeably promote the family relationship.My view is that starting school as soon as possible can enlighten and awaken children’s awareness concerning the relationship with friends and teachers when facing problems, therefore enhancing and ensuring the parents-children relationship by handling tho se problems under parents’ instruction and suggestion.(354 words)2011.3.12Competitiveness is a positive quality for people in most societies. How does this affect individuals? Is it a positive or negative trend?It is not uncommon today that competitiveness has been penetrating into people’s everyday life and has been deemed as one of people’s essential merits. This essay tends to illustrate how individuals have been influenced bycompetitiveness and sufficient analysis over whether it is a beneficial or detrimental trend will also be demonstrated in an array of aspects.A host of people assert that it is a beneficial trend for human society in terms of the upsides it brings about, such as the economical boom and improvement of public health. In the first place, competitiveness is inclined to boost the economy at an international level. For example, as a result of the competitiveness, all companies may strive to invest a substantial number of money to produce new products for more profits, thus contributing to the convenience of people’s daily life. In the second place, it will also accelerate the betterment of public health care. As individual country will compete for improving its own citizens’ life, medical care would be thought highly of by the authorities and global death toll from diseases may largely decrease. Meanwhile, a significant number of people hold a negative view towards competitiveness. They say a sizeable percentage of people will lose jobs due to the heated competition in all areas. In this way, it is baneful for a large number of people and the government in turn will shoulder more pressure from those jobless people. They also believe fierce competition may result in deterioration of our environment. They fear that a massive proportion of factories may pursue profits at the expense of environment. Take paper-making industry for example. Factories will sacrifice acres of forests to live on in the competitive society.To sum up, I tend to believe a certain degree of competitiveness is necessarily adopted in order to have the society progress, while contentious competitiveness will inevitably spark off impairments to our life both physically and psychologically.（321words）2011.3.19Computer technologies are more accessible and cheaper, as a result, more adults work at home and children study at home. Is this a positive or negative development?As a result of the soaring advancement of technologies, the use of computer has become prevalent in people’s everyday life. For example, a substantial number of people ranging from workers to students prefer to work and study at home instead of physically sitting in the office and at school.Few would deny that learning or working through computer at home seems beneficial to people in a number of aspects. Initially, the most obvious merit can be attributed to the release of traffic jams. Since less people tend to use the public or private vehicles commuting from work or school to their home, there is a lower possibility of the incidence of traffic jams. Subsequently, it is convenient for people to work or study at home. Distance learning program is a good casein point. It is the distance learning programs through computer that largely helps people who are unable to go to school have access to education.On the contrary, a host of people oppose the opinion above. They believe working or studying at home will probably reduce the communication among colleagues and classmates. They fear that this may encourage people to be more indifferent to others, thus resulting in relationship not as close as in the past. Another consideration for those people lies with people’s physical impairments induced from sitting in front of the computer too long. Since all work needs to be done on computer, barely can people spare a minute for rest and a cup of coffee, which will inevitably hazard people health.All in all, this development can be taken as beneficial as detrimental. It is acceptable for people to work or study with computer at home for sake of the convenience it brings about, but it will also spark off health-related problems and the decrease of people’s social interaction.（304 words）2011.4.2Many people think that cheap air travel should be encouraged because it gives ordinary people the freedom to travel further. However, others think that this leads to environmental problem, and so air travel shouldbe more expensive in order to discourage people from having it. Discuss both sides and give your own opinion.In today’s world, advanced transportation technology has made travelling modes more diverse than ever before. Some people prefer air travel to other ways due to taking the airplane being more comfortable and going further. They, consequently, consider that the cheaper air travel is, the more benefits ordinary people gain, while others especially campaigners for environmental protection propose that w e should limit air travel through increasing the air travel’s price. I think this is an impractical suggestion.Cheap air travel, which can benefit the less-wealthy people, is an inevitable fact of life. Because of the stagnant market and the fierce competition in the area of civil aviation companies, numerous promotion programs are offered to passengers which make air travel affordable for ordinary people. Moreover, air trips make it possible for people to travel around the world quickly and freely, which ensures the growth of modern industries such as international tourism. However, those people who insist on limiting air travel through raising tickets’ prices can reduce environment pollution have made a huge mistake. Air trips can ferry far more passengers and are also much longer than others. Therefore, when we think an increasing amount of pollution is produced by air of per passenger and kilometer travelled, the other travel mode such as a car journey is no more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly than a flight. Discouraging people to travel by air, which will cause less pollution, is a certain improper act.In conclusion, cheap air travel has become an inescapable trend. Instead of persuading people to sacrifice their comfort and convenience, we should focus on improving clean and renewable fuels and more efficient airplanes that will not put the environment in danger. (279 words)2011.4.16Many people believe it is important to protect environment, but they make no effort to do it themselves. What is the reason? Do you have any suggestion for individuals to protect environment?The issue of environmental degradation, if not solved effectively, is believed to impose a severe thr eat to people’s survival in the years ahead. The significance of protecting environment has been staggering into the public, but few people take actions to do it. The reasons will be analyzed followed by some responsible solutions.Several reasons would account for the discouragement of individuals to take few actions to protect environment. First, it is true that tiny individual actions often seem insignificant compared to the scale and complexity of environmental problems such as pollution, deforestation and depletion of natural resources, so individuals choose to relieve their duty rather than do as much as they can to cope with these problems. Another obstacle which makes individual actions almost impossible is government intervention or even。
