全國初中生英語辯論賽參考題目

　　Should students only learn from books?

　　1. Only books can provide people with the knowledge that makes them educated.

　　2. The criticism that what students learn today is not adapted to present-day society is utterly wrong because education can never be seen only in terms of how useful the subjects are when students leave school. We ought to evaluate education in terms of how much the students enjoy those subjects and how much they mean to those students.

　　3. Instead of being trained to be utilitarian, students should be encouraged to do things for their own sake, for getting satisfaction out of them rather than for what is achieved at the end.

　　4. Those with a good command of the knowledge provided in books can adapt themselves better to their future life than those without.

　　5. Those who stress only practical skills and techniques and ignore the function of books are short-sighted.

　　6. Only by urging students to read more, write more and do more exercises can education be improved.

　　7. Being practical, many children leave school and start earning money at an early age. Because of this, quite a large number of children join the ranks of the illiterate in the country.

　　8. Without the knowledge provided in books, there is no point in talking about training qualified personnel and fostering versatile talents.

　　Counter-arguments

　　1. Education is a gradual extension of oneself. It does not only take place in school buildings. It is a life-long experience.

　　2. Students should be taught how to live and how to get on with one another. This is more important than reading and writing.

　　3. Writing, reading and arithmetic don't really matter. What matters is that students should learn to understand the world.

　　4. Students are so overburdened with classwork and homework that many of them do not enjoy good health.

　　5. Instead of offering students book-learning only, we should encourage them to get to know society so that they will be more adaptable to real life.

　　6. Many students are spoilt by our present-day

　　educational system. They may be top students at school, but they are at a loss as to how to deal with practical matters.

　　7. Education is but a failure if it only produces people who are unable to put theory into practice.

　　8. We should put right the tendency of stressing only students' academic achievement and ignoring their moral and physical education. Students, in their formative years, should have a chance to broaden their outlook rather than feel compelled to work towards passing an exam.

　　Should smoking be prohibited?

　　Argument

　　1. Smoking should be prohibited, for the World Health Organization points out that diseases linked to smoking kill at least 2,500,000 people each year.

　　2. Scientific research had shown that the risk of developing lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the duration of the smoking habit, and it diminishes with the cessation of smoking.

　　3. Smoking not only leads to lung cancer, but many other diseases such as heart attacks, sore throat, headache, chronic bronchitis, pulmonary emphysema, etc.

　　4. Smoking is not only harmful to the smoker himself (herself), but also results in the deaths of non-smokers. Statistics show that passive smoking is causing 3,000 to 5,000 lung cancer deaths a year among American non-smokers.

　　5. An American scientist estimated that smokers who average a package a day for 20 years will lose about eight years of their lives.

　　6. Smoking is an expensive habit, for a smoker who consumes 10 cigarettes a day will have to spend at least 40 Yuan a month.

　　7. Smoking has a bad impact on the psyche of the smokers. On the one hand, smokers realize the bad effects of smoking and are persuaded from time to time to give up smoking. On the other hand, many of them can hardly resist the temptation to smoke. Hence they often lose confidence in themselves.

　　8. Children exposed to parental cigarette smoking are put at a higher risk of developing lung diseases later in their lives.

　　9. Smoking not only pollutes the air but also makes the streets dirty, for some smokers flick the ash off their cigarettes and throw cigarette ends everywhere.

　　10. Smoking speeds up the process of

　　aging and helps cause wrinkles on people's faces.

　　Counter-arguments

　　1. Smoking should not be prohibited, for cigarettes give a vast number of people a good deal of pleasure a lot of the time.

　　2. Nicotine can produce a tranquillizing effect during high emotional and shock situations, and, therefore, helps to calm people down.

　　3. Smoking counteracts the decrease in efficiency that typically occurs in boring, monotonous situations.

　　4. Smokers can improve their performance in complex situations while smoking.

　　5. Smokers help increase the revenue of our country.

　　6. Smoking kills no more people than epidemics or traffic accidents.

　　7. Most non-smokers spend a lot of money on snacks, a habit costing as much as smoking if not more.

　　8. If smoking is eliminated, a lot of people in the tobacco industry will be out of jobs, and that will create many social problems.

　　9. Facts have shown that if a chain-smoker suddenly quits smoking, he's more likely to have lung cancer than those who keep the habit.

　　10. Everybody has the right to keep his or her habit. Smokers are no exception

　　Does parental permissiveness affect children's development?

　　Arguments

　　1. The excessive permissiveness of present-day parents is doing more harm than good to children and society as well.

　　2. Children should develop the habit of working and living independently and, meanwhile, practice the virtue of being filial to their parents.

　　3. Children who have a surfeit of happiness in their child hood often emerge like stodgy puddings and fail to make a success of life.

　　4. The fact that young people nowadays are self-centred, indifferent and inconsiderate 'of others is largely the outcome of parental permissiveness in their childhood.

　　5. Parental authority in a family helps a child to develop his character healthily.

　　6. Parents should exercise strict discipline over their children because, the more permissive the parents are, the more rebellious against their parents the children will become.

　　7. Lavish care and excessive permissiveness will only give rise to hedonism among the younger generation.

　　8. If one lets the child do whatever he wants to, he will ruin the child for life.

　　9. We have to admit the fact that we now have got a generation of spoilt, self-centred brats with no respect for their elders.

　　10. The spread of juvenile delinquency in our age is largely due to parental permissiveness.

　　Counter-arguments

　　1. More care for children is not the same as permissiveness to them.

　　2. The truth is that parents nowadays do not take enough care of their children and often neglect their development because the parents are only interested in their careers.

　　3. Parents are not at all permissive to their children. Violence often takes place in families in which children are abused.

　　4. Only a relaxed family atmosphere can help the physical and psychological growth of children.

　　5. To let children do what they like contributes to their independence and competence in their adult lives.

　　6. It is unfair to blame parents for the

　　spread of juvenile delinquency. There are a lot of other causes involved.

　　7. Many cases show that children leave home and become members of street gangs just because they can not bear authoritarian control over them by their parents.

　　8. Strict discipline does not always work in terms of developing children's personal qualities. Too much pressure on children leads to rebellion and other extreme actions.

　　9. Parents are not justified in using violence to keep discipline and maintain their authority over the children.

　　10. Children are human beings, too. They need to be protected instead of being frequently scolded or physically abused.

　　Does the younger generation know best?

　　Arguments

　　1. The young are better educated and more broad-minded.

　　2. The young enjoy a lot more things than the old: they have money to spend; they are less dependent on their parents; they grow up more quickly; and they enjoy more freedom.

　　3. The young question the values and assumptions of the older generation and they are right.

　　4. The young enjoy more freedom and have a stronger sense of responsibility.

　　5. The old tend to settle differences by conventional politics and violence.

　　6. The old do not have noble ambitions and only strive for material possessions.

　　7. The old are unable to keep away from the rat race, in which they have lost touch with the most important things in life.

　　8. The old can learn from the young. Young people are more devoted to their friends.

　　9. The young know how to enjoy work and leisure and not to be inhibited.

　　10. The young live in the present rather than in the past or future.

　　Counter-arguments

　　1. The young do not assume their responsibility; they evade it.

　　2. The young have too much money and they are spoiled.

　　3. The young are only interested in themselves.

　　4. The young seek material possessions like clothing, cars, etc. They do not wish to work for them.

　　5. The young should feel grateful to the older generation, who have created a good life for them.

　　6. The old provide the young with a good education and money to spend.

　　7. The older generation fought in the two world wars. They faced real problems, but the young have an easier life.

　　8. Young people have too much freedom and have no sense of morality.

　　9. The older generation is too kind and soft with the young. A tougher policy is needed and might work wonders.

　　10. Young people's outlook on the world is very bleak and they are skeptical of everything.

　　Does television play a positive or negative role in the modern world?

　　1. Television is now playing a very important part in our lives.

　　2. Television is not only a convenient source of entertainment, but also a comparatively cheap one.

　　3. Television keeps one informed about current events, allows one to follow the latest developments in science and politics and offers an endless series of programmes which are both instructive and entertaining.

　　4. A lot of television programmes introduce people to things they have never thought or heard of before.

　　5. Television has been good company to those who do not work, like housewives, lonely old people, etc.

　　6. Television provides enormous possibilities for education, like school programmes via closed-circuit television.

　　7. Television provides special broadcasts for those in TV university, or open university. It also offers specialized subjects like language teaching, sewing, cooking, painting, cosmetics, etc.

　　8. Television does the job of education in the broadest sense. Instructive programmes achieve their goal through entertaining the viewers.

　　9. Compared with the radio, everything on television is more lifelike, vivid, and real.

　　10. Television may be a vital factor in holding a family together where there are, for example, economic problems and husband and wife seem at breaking point.

　　Counter-arguments

　　1. Television is a great time-waster.

　　2. Television makes the viewer completely passive because everything is presented to him without any effort on his part.

　　3. Television is to blame for the fact that children take longer to learn to read these days and barely see the point at all of acquiring the skill.

　　4. Television takes up too much of our time. We no longer have enough time for hobbies, entertaining activities, and other outside amusement like theatres, cinemas, sports, etc.

　　5. People rush home, gulp their food, which is often as simple as sandwich and a glass of beer, and start watching the TV programmes.

　　6. The monster, i.e. television, demands absolute silence and attention. No one dares to open his mouth during a programme.

　　7. People have grown addicted to television, often neglecting the necessary and more important things like meals, sleep and even work.

　　8. A lot of parents use television as a pacifier for their children. They put their children in front of the set and don't care whether the children are exposed to rubbishy commercials or spectacles of violence as long as the children are quiet.

　　9. What the viewer receives from television is nothing but second-hand experience. He is completely cut off from the real world.

　　10. Television prevents people from communicating with each other. It has done a lot of harm to the relationship between family members.