Written Expressions 3rd Year Classes

Written Expressions 3rd Year Classes

Typical Essay:

A century ago, people were able to live in better conditions than
their parents thanks to the progress made in science and technology.
But in practice, the outcome of this progress was slow to materialise.
For instance, most people still used to travel long distances on foot
or by stage coach. And as mechanization was not introduced
significantly in daily activities, household chores still had to be
done manually, and were therefore time consuming.

On the other hand, community life was still an asset for social
cohesion, since people had more opportunities to meet and interact. So
they were able to chat with neighbours at shops or in clubs and have a
cup of coffee with friends or relatives and tell stories and jokes.
Likewise, family visits were frequent and kept the folklore alive, with
the grandparents who used to tell traditional tales or sing lullabies
or folk songs to their grandchildren. Unfortunately, with the
development of audiovisual means such as the cinema, radio, television
and then personal appliances like the computer, CD-ROMs and DVDs, the
chances of socialization are dwindling and the lack of interaction
between people may increase stress, loneliness and anxiety.

Could we then complain that we are missing out on some ingredients
in life which used to make our great grandparents happier? This is
probably so, since closer contacts among neighbours, friends and
families had to be beneficial for communal harmony. However, scientific
progress in all fields, particularly in medicine, modes of
transportation and communication, and agribusiness can only show that
our lives are today quite fulfilling and , if anything, more
comfortable than a century ago.

Topic02:

Algeria was the cradle of many ancient civilizations. Discuss.

Typical Essay:
Algeria is a huge country in Northern Africa.
It covers 920,000 square miles (2,380,000 sq. km), making it more than
three times the size of Texas, and the 11th largest nation on Earth. It
shares borders with Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Tunisia,
and Western Sahara, and has coastline on the Mediterranean.
People have been living in the region that is now Algeria, and the
surrounding Maghreb, for more than 200,000 years. The first
civilizations sprang up between 4000 and 8000 years ago, eventually
forming a cohesive population, usually referred to collective as the
Berber culture.
From about 900 BCE Algeria has been invaded repeatedly by various
peoples, mostly from across the Mediterranean. First the Phoenicians
came, trading along the coast and eventually establishing Carthage in
nearby Tunisia and various outposts in Algeria. Then came the Romans,
who conquered the Berbers more-or-less completely by 24 AD. By the 4th
century Algeria had been converted to Christianity.
Beginning in the 8th century Algeria, and the greater Maghreb, became a
strategic target for the expanding Islamic world. By the end of the
first decade of the 8th century the Umayyads had conquered all of North
Africa, including Algeria. Over the next few centuries Algeria
converted to Islam and was Arabized dramatically.
In the 16th century Algeria came under the control of the Ottoman
Empire, and became a center for Mediterranean piracy and privateering.
It was in Algeria that the infamous pirate Red Beard (neé Barbarossa)
eventually was based, as a provincial governor. During this period both
Arabs and native Berbers saw their roles diminished, as Turkish became
the national language and Turks became entrenched in most positions of
power. Piracy continued to spread and become institutionalized in
Algeria, as well as its neighbors, in a confederacy known as the
Barbary States. In addition to capturing the wealth of European
traders, these pirates also began capturing Christians as slaves, a
turn of events that eventually led the young United States to enter
into two of its earliest wars against the Barbary Coast.
In the early 19th century Algeria was conquered by the French, who
began to settle and develop the region. Although infrastructure
developed under French control, to the majority of the Muslim
inhabitants of Algeria, France was seen as a harsh colonial power.
Resistance and open revolt continued throughout all of the French
occupation, but it began to grow substantially and develop during the
1930s. Although relatively peaceful attempts were made for a
Constitution and more equality in the mid-1940s, these were met with no
support by the French government.
By 1954 the situation had gotten bad enough that the citizenry revolted
on a massive scale. The National Liberation Front was the main body of
revolt, launching a full-scale civil war that would last for eight
years. In that time nearly two million Algerians would die, and another
two to three million were relocated. Independence was finally achieved
in 1962, after one of the longest, bloodiest wars for independence in
modern history.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-should-...ut-algeria.htm

Topic03:

Write a composition on the scientific achievements of the ancient Greek civilization.

Typical Essay:

The Greeks were very interested in science as a way of organizing
the world and making order out of chaos, and having power over some
very powerful things like oceans and weather. From about 600 BC, a lot
of Greek men spent time observing the planets and the sun and trying to
figure out how astronomy worked. They must have gotten their first
lessons from the Babylonians, who were very good at astronomy and also
very interested in it.
By the 400's BC, Pythagoras was interested in finding the patterns and
rules in mathematics and music, and invented the idea of a mathematical
proof. Although Greek women usually were not allowed to study science,
Pythagoras did have some women among his students. Socrates, a little
bit later, developed logical methods for deciding whether something was
true or not.
In the 300's BC, Aristotle and other philosophers at the Lyceum and the
Academy in Athens worked on observing plants and animals, and
organizing the different kinds of plants and animals into types. Again,
this is a way of creating order out of chaos.
After Aristotle, using his ideas and also ideas from Egypt and the
Persians and Indians, Hippocrates and other Greek doctors wrote
important medical texts that were used for hundreds of years.

Topic04:

Write a composition on the ancient Egyptian civilization.

Typical Essay:
Egypt is one of the most fertile areas of
Africa, and one of the most fertile of the countries around the
Mediterranean Sea. Because it is so fertile, people came to live in
Egypt earlier than in most places, probably around 40,000 years ago. At
first there were not very many people, but gradually Egypt became more
crowded, so there was more need for a unified government. Around 3000
BC (5000 years ago), Egypt was first unified under one ruler, who was
called the Pharaoh.
The pharaoh’s government guaranteed both external and internal security
to the people of Egypt. As a consequence, the Egyptians grew very proud
of their country and became so fond of the pharaoh hat they worshipped
him as a god-king. This national pride and identification with the
pharaoh kept the unity of ancient Egypt and made its civilization
prosper for many centuries
From that time until around 525 BC, when Egypt was conquered by the
Persians, Egypt's history is divided into six different time periods.
These are called the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the
Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom, and
the Third Intermediate Period.
But the economy of ancient Egypt was ruined by all the resources that
the pharaohs put into the building of pyramids and the gradual decline
and fall of ancient Egyptian civilization.

Topic05:

Write a composition on the scientific achievements of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

Typical Essay:
Egyptian scientists were generally most
interested in observing nature and practical engineering, and they were
very good at both of these things. The pyramids and temples, for
example, show good knowledge of geometry and engineering. Egyptian
engineers used the Pythagorean Theorem, thousands of years before
Pythagoras was born.
Because the Nile flood was so important to Egyptian farming, scientists
also worked out good ways to measure how high the flood was going each
year, and kept accurate records and good calendars. You can see here
how the Egyptian wrote down numbers. The device they used to measure
the height of the Nile flood is called a Nilometer.
They also worked out good ways to move water from the Nile to outlying
farms in the desert, using hand-powered irrigation pumps (shadufs) and
canals.
It may also have been Egyptian scientists who first figured out how to make yeast-rising bread.

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