You need to summarize the passage given below. In the exam, you will have 10 minutes to complete this task. Your response will be assessed on how well you capture the essential points of the passage and the clarity of your writing.
You can draft your answer on paper, and then check your response by clicking the "View Answer" button.
Q1: The Milky Way Galaxy has whopping circumference of roughly 250-300 thousand light years. Within its main body, there are around 200-400 billion stars. It is believed that the Earth's solar system exists very close to the galaxy's galactic plane. Due to this fact only, the night sky appears to be divided into two virtually equal hemispheres. At the centre of our Milky Way is believed to be a gigantic black hole. Scientists have firm evidence that this huge sized black hole has swallowed adequate gas and dust to equal the mass of more than two million suns. But researchers still do not know how the black hole works and where all the matter and energy is lost, when it is sucked inwards. The Milky Way's black hole is called Sagittarius A or Sgr A and is thought to have between 3.2 to 4 million times the mass of our sun. Sgr A rotates making a full revolution at about every 11 minutes.
View AnswerThe Milky Way Galaxy consists of 200-400 billion stars, has a circumference of over hundred thousand light years, and has at its centre a huge black hole, which is millions of times the mass of our sun.
Q2: Wegener's "The Origins of Continents and Oceans" propounded that all of world's continents had once been joined together in a vast super continent, called "Pangaea" that means "all the earth", and that about 200 million years ago Pangaea began to split apart and the land pieces drifted apart to other locations on the globe. In 1596, a Dutch map maker, Abraham Ortelius, also suggested that America, Eurasia and Africa were once joined and drifted apart "by earthquakes and floods" that created the modern Atlantic Ocean. Extensive evidences in the form of fossils of plants and animals of the same age found in different continent shores, suggested that these shores were once joined. Wegener's theory also received support from South African geologists Alexander Du Toit and Arthur Holmes' theory of plate tectonics. The theory says that huge plates, several miles thick, lie under Earth's continents and oceans. As heat rises from deep underground, these plates move. This action is known as plate tectonics and it explains how the continents have drifted apart in the past and continue to drift today. This shows that, though Wegner had some of the details wrong, his basic idea was way ahead of time.
Wegener's theory that all the world's continents were once joined together in a huge continent called Pangaea, finds support from evidence in the form of fossils of plants and animals of the same age found in different continents, as well as from the theory of plate tectonics.
You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Carefully read the statement below and write an essay in response. A sample essay is available for you to review by clicking on the "View Answer" button.
Your essay will be evaluated based on how effectively you develop your position, organize your ideas, provide supporting details, and adhere to the conventions of standard written English. Aim for a word count between 200-300 words.
Q1: As populations around the world grow older, the cost of healthcare for the elderly is rising. Governments are increasingly finding it difficult to bear the cost of healthcare of these increasing numbers. Even their families are not able to take good care of their elderly relatives.
What is your opinion and what are your suggestions to tackle the problem?
Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience or observations.
There is no doubt that mankind's expectancy of life at birth has increased substantially. There is no doubt also that healthcare costs have gone up manifold. But hasn't the span of working life increased at the same time? I have seen people in their seventies going strong and working strong, in fact, working stronger than the youth, with their accumulated wisdom of the decades. This means that the human species has many more years to work and save for their own sunset years.
Somebody has to foot the bill for healthcare during these sunset years. If the government does, it means the society as a whole does. This may be desirable or even necessary to an extent, particularly in case of weaker sections of the society, but this cannot be turned into 'the entire' responsibility and for everyone. After all, there are limits to charity.
Why not save for your tomorrow as long as you can, and to the extent you can? The governments can definitely make it easier by encouraging contributory pension schemes, contributory provident fund schemes and health insurance schemes. Since the governments cannot help indefinitely and limitlessly, since the family also has limited resources, why not be your own Santa? Work and save during the summer of your life, so that Santa can bring the gift of healthcare, when winter comes.
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