TOEFLライティング練習模試01
Read the passage below. You have 3 minutes to read through:
Nuclear Energy
Despite the wonder of nuclear energy, there remain too many disadvantages to utilizing it. First, the waste produced through nuclear energy offsets the benefits. Secondly, manufacturing comes at a high price for the health of the entire planet. Finally, the high cost of manufacturing and continual production is not feasible within most economies. These various disadvantages weigh heavily against an argument for nuclear energy.
A concern for nuclear energy is disposing of hazardous waste. Nuclear energy produces millions of gallons of radioactive waste that needs to be disposed of properly. This waste, if leached into groundwater, the air, or people’s yards, can have deadly consequences for all creatures. So not only is the waste itself an issue, but the disposal of that waste has further disadvantages.
As a consequence of radioactive waste, we should be concerned about biological consequences. In our time of nuclear energy production, there have been numerous nuclear catastrophes. Some were small-scale and others were large disasters. Even with minimal exposure, nuclear radiation and waste can cause vomiting, diarrhea, or cancer. Major problems take centuries to clean up during which people lose their homes, their health, and their livelihood.
Listen to the audio below related to the article you just read.
Directions: Give yourself 20 minutes to plan and write your response.
Your response is judged on the quality of the writing and on how well it presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response will be 250 to 300 words.
You may view the reading passage while you respond.
- Summarize the points in the lecture, being sure to explain how they address the specific concerns about nuclear energy described in the reading passage.
Independent Writing
Read the question below. Give yourself 30 minutes to plan, write, and revise your essay.
Typically, an effective response will contain a minimum of 350 words.
- Your school has enough money to purchase either a computer for students or books for the library. Which should your school choose to buy – computers or books?
Use specific reasons and examples to support your recommendation.
Sample Answer
In this instance, the reading and the lecture are discussing the many negative consequences of nuclear energy. Although they both mention that there are positives, they quickly say that the negatives outweigh the positives.
From the reading, the first problem with nuclear energy is radioactive waste. The lecture then goes on to explain that the radioactive material leaches toxins into the atmosphere that take hundreds of years to leave. It also goes on to show that this waste gets into our soil, water, and thus poses a big danger.
Second, the reading brings up the point that overexposure to nuclear materials can cause major diseases. Supporting this idea, the lecture uses examples from previous nuclear disasters to explain how those caused many diseases, mutations, and even deaths. They both present this danger as devastating.
The final idea presented in the reading and supported by the lecture are the financial costs of nuclear energy. They both present information about how much it costs to build the facilities. However, the lecture also mentions the difficulty of getting natural resources for creating nuclear energy. Overall it’s a lot of money.
In conclusion, both the reading and the lecture believe that the negatives are far greater than the positives when it comes to nuclear energy. Also, they present many layers of information to support their ideas.
Whether in schools or in the home, computers and books are both beneficial to learning and development. Nowadays, most schools have a library full of books and a lab full of computers. But, which one is the most essential in education? Personally, if it were my decision to choose between buying books or computers for my school, I would choose computers. For, computers make information easier to find, improve students’ computer skills, and enable them to learn in a way that may be better for them.
Firstly, of course, books are great and full of information but it can be time-consuming to find exactly what you are looking for. On a computer, you can search for anything, down to the exact word. Sure you can look in the index of a book, but once you get on the page it’s not as easy to skim for the word as it is to hit “CTRL + F” on your keyboard to find the word on a website. A computer has all the information in the world right at your fingertips. Meanwhile, your school library, even with new books, may not have what you are looking for.
Secondly, using computers in school teaches students how to use them properly which sets them up for better job opportunities in the future. Computers are everywhere and it is necessary to know how to use them. It is rare to find a job where some kind of computer is not used. Computers allow us to do things more efficiently, and they bring companies greater success because their employees can be more productive. For students, some may even be able to learn in a way that may be better for them.
Lastly, people are different and learn in different ways. Some learn by reading, some by doing, some by seeing, and others by hearing. While, still, others learn through a combination of these ways. Computers enable students to learn in a way that is easiest and most suited for them. For example, headphones may help block out noise that distracts a student from learning while they are watching a video.
In conclusion, having computers for students will allow the students to take what they need from their teachings at school and bring it home with them. It can act similarly to another teacher when a student needs more help than the classroom teacher can give at times. Books will always be great, but computers provide limitless possibilities and learning experiences and are much more efficient in the long run.
Transcript
Transcript – Nuclear Energy
| P: | Within our modern world are endless debates about the best form of energy production. However, there are many disadvantages to nuclear energy. To begin with, there are many problems with waste disposal, which other energy sources don’t have. Compounding that problem are disastrous effects nuclear exposure has. Final problems with nuclear energy are cost-benefit negatives of production. So let’s go into some more details. |
| So, one problem with nuclear energy is the need for disposing of radioactive material which can deadly leach toxins for hundreds of years. Even when exposed to air this waste turns into radioisotopes, which take hundreds of years to leave our atmosphere. So in the air, the water, or the land, this waste is dangerous. All around this poses too many dangers in just the disposal process. | |
| Underlying these dangers are vulnerabilities associated with overexposure. When something goes wrong such as at Chernobyl or Fukushima, exposure has left people dead, horribly mutilated, or with cancer. Even people exposed to the residual radiation were harmed and the land left devastated until this day. This leaves too many people in danger without their consent. | |
| Finally, outside of physical dangers, other negatives are financial considerations. On top of production costs as well as time it takes to build, there are other financial problems. Uranium is a scarce resource requiring vast amounts of money as well as worldwide permission to acquire. Considering that uranium is not a renewable resource, building a nuclear reactor is a financial disaster when the uranium runs out. | |
| Therefore, it seems obvious that the negatives to nuclear energy are astounding. With a difficult process for safety, which could lead to centuries of problems, nuclear energy is a negative no-brainer. On top of those problems are the financial difficulties or building and sustaining this resource. All in all, it appears that nuclear energy should not be the way of the future. |