Practical Exercises On The Topic Beginning And Ending Discursive Essays

4 Match the following beginnings 1-3 and endings A,B,C. Then, say which technique has been used in each.

1 You may live in a comfortable house in a clean neighbourhood with all the amenities. You would probably not be so lucky in one of the cities where urban growth has been allowed to get completely out of control. This problem is virtually destroying a number of large cities, particularly in developing countries, and a solution must be found before it is too late.

2 "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is the biblical phrase we use to refer to capital punishment, the killing of criminals in order to punish them for their crimes. But whether the neat balance suggested by the phrase is reflected by the actual practice is a moot point, and whether one human has the right to kill another in any circumstances remains a much-debated question.

3 While most people agree that a woman has the right to work as a heavy-machine operator and a man to become a midwife, is this supposed open-mindedness being put into practice? There is plenty of evidence to suggest that work¬ers are still being judged by their gender and not by their skills, and this is a situation which needs to be dealt with.

A On the whole, I believe that those cities suffering as a result of urban growth could solve their problems, given financial support. Sadly, however, the chances of this happening are slight, especially in developing countries. Should we not, therefore, be thinking about encouraging people to return to rural areas in order to shift the balance of populations?

B To sum up, gender should not be an issue in any work¬place, since a powerfully-built female is just as capable of hard manual labour as a kind and gentle male is of childcare. The only obstacles are those which exist in our own minds; as the American therapist Dr F. S. Perls once said, "We have to lose our minds to come to our senses."

C All in all, it is easy to understand the reasons behind the continued existence of capital punishment in a number of countries, in spite of this, however, I cannot personally condone it, since to my mind the act itself is simply legalised murder, the ultimate crime.

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