Navigate Issue #2 - EJC GP 2018 2E

NAVIGATE Issue #2     Eunoia Junior College   English Department   General Paper   2018 JC1

Navigate Issue #2   Contents     Message from the JC1 GP Team 2 Application Question 3 Eunoia Junior College JC1 Mid-Year Examinations 2018: 3 Response 1 3 Response 2 5 Response 3 6 Response 4 8 Response 5 10 Response 6 12 Essays and Paragraphs 14 Eunoia Junior College JC1 Mid-Year Examination 2018: 14 1 ‘Education has not caught up with the needs of the modern world.’ To what 15 ​ extent is this true? 2 Can the media ever be trusted to report the truth? 18 2 Can the media ever be trusted to report the truth? 20 2 Can the media ever be trusted to report the truth? 21 2 Can the media ever be trusted to report the truth? 22 3 Does traditional marriage still hold any relevance in modern society? 23 3 Does traditional marriage still hold any relevance in modern society? 25 4 ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ Do you agree? 26 4 ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ Do you agree? 28 6 ‘Consensus is becoming a rarity in today’s world.’ Is this a fair assessment? 29 8 How far is elitism inevitable in your society? 32 9 Consider the view that technology is destroying the quality of written language. 35 10 ‘Rehabilitation, not deterrence, should be the goal of the justice system.’ Discuss. 37 10 ‘Rehabilitation, not deterrence, should be the goal of the justice system.’ Discuss. 39 12 ‘The solution to all environmental problems ultimately lies with the government.’ 42 ​ How far do you agree with this? Double Passage Application Question 44 Eunoia Junior College JC1 Timed Practice #2 (GCE A Level 2008 Paper 2): 44 Response 1 44 Response 2 45 Response 3 47 Response 4 49 Response 5 51 Eunoia English Department 1

Navigate Issue #2   Message from the JC1 GP Team   Dear Eunoians, “Write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you, and edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” - Arthur Plotnik Writing depends deeply on what you have to say. When you seek to communicate to an audience what you know and what you are about, you write with purpose. When you first begin writing - and especially writing about the abstract, complex and tangled ideas such as those that GP often demands of you - you may find yourself having difficulty conveying your message with clarity. You may end up inadvertently with imperfect writing that obscures instead of revealing, but this is to be expected, for how can one fit the messiness of a multidimensional world onto a page and have it make sense? This is where learning to edit comes in, as a process of refinement that begins, mentally, even before pen touches paper. Editing is a reflective process; like in your CA3, it takes discipline to scrutinise your own thinking and writing processes to determine how best to convey what you have to say exactly. This second issue of Navigate is a collection of responses to the Mid-Year Examinations - your first ever in EJC. These are noteworthy pieces of writing from some of your peers to guide you along, selected not only for their good qualities but also for the learning that they make possible. Although these pieces are commendable in many aspects, they cannot be plans for your own writing, for that must come from you. We hope that through reading and understanding these pieces you discover for yourself a little more clarity of reading and writing as we head towards the Promotional Examinations. The road ahead is no doubt long, but take heart in the company, and in the knowledge that each step you take counts towards the grand distance you will navigate. All the best, Your GP Teachers ❤ Eunoia English Department 2

Navigate Issue #2   Application Question     Eunoia Junior College JC1 Mid-Year Examinations 2018: In this article, Marguerite Johnson writes about the continuing relevance of fairy tales in our modern world. How far do you agree with her views? Illustrate your answer by referring to the extent and manner in which fairy tales (or folk tales) are significant to you and your society. Response 1 This piece incorporates salient examples that exhibit clear links to the chosen claims, while providing good balance in terms of addressing the context in which the claims are significant (or not so) in Singaporean society. Evaluation of the examples in relation to the claims is generally well done, albeit a little lacking for the second claim. Johnson claims that fairytales “showed us how courage, determination and ingenuity could be employed even by the most disempowered to change the cause of events”, which in other words, means that they demonstrate how even the average person can utilise good qualities well in bad situations to change their circumstances. This claim is very agreeable to me due to the presence and prevalence of such folklore in my society, which are commonly used to educate the young on how they can apply their virtues in any circumstance to help themselves, which is why the claim is highly applicable to my society. Pragmatists may argue that regardless of what the moral of the fairytale is, situations in fairy tales are rarely applicable to a modern, highly developed and fast-paced society like Singapore, and while I admit that this is true, I would argue that the relevanc[e] of fairy tales lies not in replicating the exact actions of the characters, but rather, in teaching young children about the salience of good values with which to follow for the rest of their lives. Singaporean folk tales include stories about how a young boy in early Singapore managed to protect his village from attacks by swordfish from the sea, by utilising bamboo shoots and other materials to trap the swordfish and simultaneously save his village. While this story is obviously fictional, fabricated and [exaggerated], it still teaches important life lessons, which is why this old tale is still being employed in pre-school classrooms all over the nation to educate children. Kids that read these outlandish fairy tales are not expected to replicate the scenarios in the tale in any way[.] Rather, they are taught to draw out learning points from the story and apply them in classroom-based scenarios and role play to develop a strong set of moral values within them. In the case of the swordfish tale, the key learning point would be creativity and bravery, which are ideal qualities that my society will expect out of all its members, and hence, fairy tales are very relevant in my society, which has a strong focus on education, which includes the usage of fairy tales. Thus, Johnson’s claim is largely applicable to my society. Salient introduction of the context of fairy tales’ role in Singapore, linking it to chosen claim Deals with alternative perspective by cogently arguing how this criticism does not impede the relevance of fairy tales Good use of example to further support argument of how fairy tales are still relevant despite the scenarios not being f