Which is better – a supermarket or a
corner shop?
( a for-and-against
essay)
Usually we buy something
everyday. There are many different kinds of shops in a modern city. As a rule
we go to a supermarket or a corner shop to buy food and the most necessary
goods. Each of them has both advantages and disadvantages.
In big cities people try to go to a
supermarket once a week, normally at weekends. Supermarkets can usually provide
their customers with everything they need, from clothes and electrical items to
matches and salt. They are usually large, often covering several floors and conveniently
located to attract as many customers as possible. Besides, as supermarkets can buy stock cheaply
in bulk they can offer more competitive prices.
On the other hand, when we
return home from work we often find out that there is no bread in the bread bin
or sugar in the sugar pot. In this case we hurry to our corner shop. Corner
shops are generally small, stocking a very limited range of goods, such as
basic food products and some household items. The owner of the corner shop, as
a rule, knows his/her customers, so the service is usually fast and friendly,
sometimes you can even have a nice chat or share some problems with a shop
owner, which can be psychologically rewarding for the busy and stressed city dwellers.
All things considered, I think that cities need both supermarkets and
corner shops, depending on what you need to buy.
Slepko Margarita, 11th grade, 2013
A
letter to a pen-friend, describing your city
Dear Peter,
It was great to hear from you!
I’m sorry I haven’t written so long, I’ve been really busy all those days. It
is a real pleasure for me to hear that you can come to my place for the
holiday! I do hope you will like my city and its people.
Chernihiv is one of the most
beautiful and picturesque cities in Ukraine. it’s situated on the right
bank of the river Desna. Do you know, by the
way, that the word "Desna” meant "Right” in
Ancient Slavonic?
The city is as ancient as Kyiv
and, of course, its outstanding attractions are worth seeing. This is
especially true for its historical part, the Rampart or the Val, as we call
it.it is situated at the very entrance to the city. There is an old shady park
there, snow-white churches and cathedrals always attract a lot of tourists. St
Catherine’s Cathedral is considered to
be the visiting card of Chernihiv. You can also see there 12 old cannons which
were presented to the city by Russian emperor Peter the First.
Besides, Chernihiv is a
cultural center. There are some theatres there and a Philharmonic Society, so
if you like, we can go to some performance.
If you are fond of sports we
can go to one of the gyms or fitness centers, or go swimming to a modern and
up-to-date swimming pool.
In the evening we will be able
to go to one of the night clubs to listen to music and dance or to the bowling
club.
I forget to mention that the
city has an extremely convenient lay out and quite an efficient system of
community transport. You can easily get from one end of the city to another in
half an hour.
As you see, you will have a
lot to do and see and will never be bored in my beautiful hometown.
Write me as soon as you book
tickets for I can meet you.
Looking forward to our
meeting.
Take care, Vova
Moskalenko Vladimir, 8th
grade, 2013
Age shouldn’t tell you if you are adult or a teenager. Is it how you act that is important? ( an opinion essay) Graham Green once wrote: "There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and let the future in”. it is exactly that moment when you have to greet your adult life. In my mind, getting to some age does not definitely mean you can start your adult life, because only experience, knowledge of life and getting some skills make you a mature grown-up person. I am sure that it is more important how you act than how you look like. Firstly, to be a really adult person you should always control your thoughts, feelings and, what is more important, actions. Lady Life can prepare different unpredictable surprises especially for you which can be sometimes very unpleasant. In any case you must never lose your temper and fight until the end. To be a mature person everyone has to be responsible for everything they do. You must always remember about the moral aspect of any subject or problem. Thus the first aspect of being a grown-up is a full recognition of the great responsibility, which is an integral part of an adult life. Secondly, to be a grown-up person you should be financially independent and have enough money to satisfy at least the most essential of your needs. However nowadays it is not a rare thing when grown-up children continue to live under one roof with their parents and, what is more, on their parents’ money. I think that financial independence is one of the bricks which build the necessary foundation of your independent adult life. As an example I would like to tell you about my neighbour. She is only 15, although I think that she is an adult person already. She gets a monthly grant for special achievements at the musical college, that gives her an opportunity to be more or less financially independent. She also has clear and realistic plans for the future, having set the priorities and working persistently on their implementation. I guess she has great chances for the brilliant future. All things considered I should say that to call yourself an adult person you must always be responsible for your actions, have clear understanding of what you want from your life and how to achieve the goals. Believe, dream, will and put it in the hands of God. Irine Dasuk, the 9th grade, 2012
Age shouldn’t tell you if you are adult or a teenager. Is it how you act
that is important? ( an opinion essay)
How
many times have you been astonished by someone revealing his age? It is no
longer an obstacle for the underage to buy alcohol or cigarettes just because
they really look like adults, while some in their mid thirty’s can feel a bit
awkward when a shop-assistant demands their AD for those purchases. So, appearance is deceptive, as
a famous proverb says. I am inclined to think that the only thing which can
define your maturity is your behavior.
Since
olden times people have been creating certain age frames, based on some social
demands and common sense, as for the marriage age, giving birth to a child, for
work and other socially important things. Those have been commonly accepted
rules that community follow. Now they are reflected in the laws of the states.
However, can they be applied to all the members without exception? Definitely
not. Every individual becomes mature at his/her own age. For some maturity can
come much later than 18 or 21, and for others
earlier. So it could be evidently wrong for a society to try to forbid people
to act or behave according to their inner feeling of how mature they are.
I
think that being an adult means to behave and act like an adult person in any
socially important situation. It means, first of all, your financial and
economic independence, your ability and readiness to take responsibility for
your life and the life the other people who depend on you.
If
you can’t earn your own living, how can you claim your maturity?
Besides,
an adult, mature person considers all the consequences of his/her behavior and
try not to act spontaneously. He/she is able to plan his/her future and to work
hard to make this plan come true.
However,
there must be some rules and regulations as for the age frames for all the
members of the society, that allow or forbid them certain socially important
acts and deeds. Without those laws a society takes a risk of finding itself in
a real chaos.
Taking
everything in consideration, I would like to say that only a person’s ability
to act maturely should tell if he/she an adult or a teenager. Paraphrasing a
famous saying "Beauty is as beauty does” we can make a conclusion "An adult is
as an adult does” Kyrylo Beskorovayny, 11th grade,
The person I admire most of all (a
description of a person)
"We grow through sharing ourselves”, - said Herbert A.
Otto. I think that this statement gives us a perfect description of ideal
relationship. Any community is built on different kinds of cooperation between
people. Personally I do appreciate my family, relatives, my friends and
schoolmates. However there is a special person in my life I adore most of all.
This is my mother.
My mother is my faithful helper and reliable friend
who will not definitely betray me in any situation. No one in the world could
take the place of her/ I found the very sound of her name melodious – Oksana.
She is a beautiful, gracious woman in her
mid-thirties. The features I love most are her deep-blue eyes. The feeling of
kindness shines in them brightly. When she smiles, sweet dimples appears on her
chicks. She usually wears her long thick brown hair loose or on two plaits
which make her look younger that she is.
She works as a school teacher and I think that her
profession is one of the most important and responsible in the whole universe.
That is why I feel proud that students respect her and even school leavers
remember her as a fair, just, but at the same time understanding teacher.
My mother has got really a great character. She is a
kind-hearted, out going, friendly, sunny and together with this, very
strong-willed person. She always helps her old school friends, takes care of
her parents. Besides, she is really trustful. I can share any of my secrets or
problems with her and at times even gossip a bit.
Of course, any relationships, how strong and perfect
they would be, cannot exist without quarrels, disagreements and
misunderstanding at times. My family is not an exception. Sometimes my mother
disapprove my clothes or the music I listen to. This problem of generation gap
seems to be eternal and the only clue to solving it is our good will and desire
to understand, respect and love each other. I am proud to say that my mother
and me always manage to do it successfully.
In conclusion I would like to say that we all should
respect, value and protect our family and home spirit. We should always bear in
mind that each of us is a small part, a brick, which must become in the end a
tiny basement to something whole.
Irina Dasuk, 9th grade, 2012 School
life is a big part of the young people’s life all around the world. Do you
agree with the statement? (an opinion essay) Can you imagine our modern society without schools, colleges,
institutes and other educational establishments? I think it is impossible.
Schools have become an integral part of our world and for nearly ten years
children spend most part of their life at school. So I can definitely say
that school life is certainly a big part of the young people's world. First of
all, school is considered to be a temple of knowledge. Even nowadays in the age
of high technologies and the Internet, students go to school not only to get
information, but to learn to use it, to apply the knowledge in different
situations, to work systematically not only on their own, but in groups and
teams.
Secondly, a
school is a place of socialization. Here children get their first skills of
communication with their peers, learn to share their opinions, to express their
thoughts, to make presentations – in a word, they gain skills of cooperation
that are absolutely vital in modern society.
Moreover,
the school gives you as much life experience as you can get nowhere, but there.
Very often it becomes a real second life, where you consider your teacher to be
your second mother and the classmates to be the members of your family.It
especially concerns the children who have problems at home – for them the
school sometimes becomes the only place where they can feel safe and sound.
However,
according to the recent surveys, about 30% of Ukrainian children and teenagers
don’t attend school – some of them just because they think that school is a
dull, out-of-date place, others due to the problems with teachers or the meer
pressure. Whatever the reason be, the main message is that each third child
appears outside the state system of compulsory education. This fact can’t but
make us worry about the situation in the field of modern education.
All things
considered I can say that nowadays school is a universal place where modern
children spend the most important part of their life. It is not just a
building, where you get skills and knowledge, but also a great source of
communication, socialization and gaining necessary life experience. I think
that we, students, should always remember this and be grateful to our school
for everything it teaches us.
Iryna
Dasuk, 8th grade, 2010
How can we
save rare animal species from extinction (solution to
the problem)
Have you ever seen
the dodo? Maybe no one in the world has seen this bird, because the last dodo
was killed in the 1680s by a HUMAN. How can we protect the other animal species
from dying out? There is a number of possible solutions which could save them
from extinction.
First of all, it
would be a good idea to set up more national parks and reserves, where rare
animals could live in safety. In such places we should ban hunting and fishing,
because there are a lot of poachers, who hunt rare animals for their fur and
skin illegally.
Secondly, another
useful suggestion would be to start more captive breeding programmes in zoos,
because sometimes the last of the endangered species dies in captivity. The
example is the last Tasmanian Tiger, who died in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
Finally, we,
people have to cut pollution and destruction of animals` natural habitats, such
as forests and rivers. Nowadays people cut down forests for building, factories
and plants pollute the water in rivers and lakes. Then animals have not got any
place to live in.
Do we want to
survive??? Let’s help animals to survive first. Otherwise, humanity can appear
on the first place in the long list of the World’s Red Book…
Iryna Dasuk,
8th grade, 2010
Children
shouldn’t believe in magic creatures (a
for/against essay)
Do you believe in magical creatures? You can find a lot of information about
them in old legends and myths of any country. However we forgot that when we
were little children we also used to believe in such magical creatures as Father
Frost or Santa Claus, Snow-Maiden, fairies and withes.
When I was a child
I also used to believe in Father Frost. I was looking forward a New Year Day,
the happiest day of a year. The best moments of my childhood closely connected
with my memories of New Year. Magical creatures are like imaginary friend, with
whom we can share problems. Often the magical heroes of fairy tails teach
children how to be kind, hardworking and generous. I think that in fact these
creatures are their fist role-models.
However some
people think it is wrong that children believe in magical creatures. Such
people tell kids that they are unreal and it is useless to think about them as
real creatures. They say that fairy tails and magic creatures take children
from reality making them helpless, idealistic and immature. When children
become adults they still continue to wait for a fairy godmother, who solve all
their problems.
One famous person
said: ”Everything you can imagine is real”. In my opinion magical creatures
develop our imagination and show the qualities that people have to posses. We
need to believe in something magical, good and fair.
Alina
Shumnaya, 9th grade,2010
Some people
say it is important to have many friends, while others would argue that it is
better to have a small group of friends
(a
for/against essay)
Have you ever
counted how many friends surround you? For us it is very hard to imagine our
life without friends at all. No matter how many friends you have the most
important thing is how many of them you can trust completely.
On the one hand, it is really
good to have some best friends with whom you go thought the whole life and not
to be betrayed. You can feel excellent in a small group of nearest friends
discussing and solving any problems together. Moreover it is much easier to
take care and to help that person who you know really well.
On the other hand
some people think that it is important to have many friends. It can be more
interesting to spend time together as each of us has different interests and
thoughts on the same subject. As a result many people enjoy big groups of
friends.
All in all, in my
opinion it is better to have a small group of best friends rather then to have
many friends who you can’t completely understand. You should remember that a
real and true friendship must be sincere. It doesn’t matter how many friends
you have, but does matter whether you can trust them or not.
Alina Shumnaya, 9th grade,2010
Nowadays
some people say that children shouldn’t believe in magic creatures – it
distracts them from reality. Express your opinion.
(аn
opinion essay) Picture this: you are a little child who is already in bed.
Mom opens your favourite book and starts reading. You close your eyes and
imagine all these magic characters of the tale your mother has just read and
fall in a dream… Nearly all of us keep some memories like these in our hearts. It
is so natural for children to believe in magic, unbelievable, mysterious
creatures that inhabit all the fairy-tales and fantasy stories. In my opinion
it is not only insensible, but cruel to deprive children of their beliefs in
magic, because it is a natural and necessary part of childhood. First of all, childhood is
ewitently the best and at the same time the hardest period of life. It is full
of our first experiences – both bad and good. It is the time of great
expectations and great worries. It is the start of our life way. And if it is
true that great beginning makes great ending, happy childhood can be a good
start of a happy life. And what does it mean - a happy childhood? Personally
for me it is a period of life, full of magic and miracles. Our first steps on
the life road always mean our first faults, failures and disappointments. So
far children need great support, backing, encouragement, somebody or something
to believe in. Normally parents play the parts of their children’s first role
models. However in some cases especially when children face the traumatic
situation, which is beyond their parents’ control, they desperately need to
believe in a mighty, powerful creature that can safe the situation. They want
to be sure that the good always wins a victory over the evil. Besides all these fairies, good
magicians and other imaginary creatures develop children’s imagination, help
them to determine their position in society, give them first notion of good and
bad. We can hardly find a person who will be against teaching the children
morality, social behavior – and the easiest way of doing it is with the fairytales and their
integral heroes, magic creatures. On the other hand, the hectic rhythm
of modern life, especially in big cities, makes some people escape from the
cruel reality with all its duties and obligations into the world of fantasy,
where you can be as mighty as you wish. Modern psychology has got a special
term for those people – "kidults” – a combination of the words "kid’ and
"adult”. This terms describe the people who refuse to accept the real
world as it is and prefer to live in their own universe, either virtual as the
Internet or imaginary as fantasy books, films and comics. All things considered, each parent should decide by
himself/herself whether their children will believe in magic creatures or
not. Personally I will always be grateful to my parents for the sweetest memories of
my childhood, full of elfs, fairies, magicians and breathtaking waiting for
Santa Claus on New Year’s eve.
Iryna
Dasuk, 8th grade, 2010
Some people say that it is important to
have many friends, while others would argue that it is better to have a small
group of friends
(a
discursive (for/against) essay)
Friendship is the basis of any other valuable and important
socialization, let it be love, family relationship or business links, while
being broken it can lead to offence, misunderstanding and even hatred. It can
start by chance or by want and always brings lots of happiness, excitement and
joy. But does the quality of friendship depend on quantity of friends a person
have?
Psychologists divide people according to their psychological type into
two categories: extraverts( or dog-people) and introverts(or cat-people). Extraverts
are very friendly, communicative, outgoing, they easily make friends and, as a
rule, have a lot of them. On the contrary, introverts are absorbed into their
out inner world, they feel quite comfortable in loneliness and prefer to have a
really small group of friends.
The main advantage of having many friends is gaining a great life
experience: the more people share their thoughts and feelings with you, the
more knowledge of life you get. With the help of these relationships you can
find new, fresh and unexpected solutions to your own problems.On the other hand
many friends demand much time to spend on connecting links. Although invention
of different kinds of sources of
communication, such as the Internet, Skype and mobile phones makes it easier to
keep in touch, it is very hard to build really strong and valuable relationship just chatting on the phone couple of minutes in a day.
Another advantage of a big company of friends is that in the case of
emergency you can any minute easily find somebody who is ready to share your
joy or sorrow or just lent you some money you need. Let us remember the famous
Russian proverb: " Don’t have a hundred roubles, but a hundred friends”. Having
many friends you will never call your life dull or boring.
However, people never feel more lonelier than in big companies. Let us
take celebrities, for example: each of them have so many friends, that it is
hard to imagine and at the same time they complain on lacking true
understanding, friendship, love. If you have a few friends you can easily grant
your attention to all of them. Such relationships produce the feeling of real
intimacy, closeness and safety.
Personally I have a lot of friends. I love all of them, love making new
friends, love everything, connecting with friendship as it is. And I think we should always remember: friends are not just puppets in our hands,
they are real people with their own feelings, thoughts and lives. Summing up I would like to say that it doesn’t really matter whether you have a
big company of friends or just a small group of them. The things that do matter are your attitude to your friends, your desire to make their
life really fuller and happier with your friendship. 1 2
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