153. "Students should bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study. They should question what they are taught instead of accepting it passively."

From the beginning of education, a student receives knowledge from his teachers. Then he takes examinations, in which what his teachers said in classes is the correct answers to the questions. After a long time, the concept that the teacher is always right is stereotyped in students' mind. However, such a concept results in a lot of disadvantages for students, no matter it is during his schoolhood or profession career. Therefore, it is very important for students to grasp critical thinking and bring a certain skepticism to what they are taught.

Without skepticism, students would become used to accept passively what teachers, books or other information sources tell them, which needs little thinking about it. Yet effective learning can not be achieved by merely remembering knowledge, but by thinking. A student who never asks questions about his courses must be the one that never thinks about the truth.

It would result in more problems in their profession career after the schoolhood is ended if students are not able to think critically. The leading one is that it is not possible for them to make a breakthrough whatever they do, for that any breakthrough is a result of skepticism of the old pattern.

For making new discoveries in science, if the student becomes a scientist, nothing is more critical than skepticism. Only when a question arise about a phenomena or an established idea does one begin to think deep into it and seek for the explanation or solution, and ultimately come up with a new idea. If he had firmly believed in the Classic Physics that was established by Newton and was accepted widely as the crest of the study of physics, Albert Einstein would not have originated the theory of relativity, which is a milestone of the development of physics.

In the business world, which is more likely to be where the student is engaged, skepticism is also of great importance. Michael Dell would not have made Dell Inc. a big success among the computer companies if he had followed what his professor said to him. While a student at the university of Texas, Michael Dell's paper in which he created a new business model----"cutting out the middle man" and selling computers directly to customers----was signed "C" by his professor, who thought that the model was impossible at all. However, Dell didn't take his professor's opinion as absolute truth and insisted in founding his own company in his model, which turned out to be a big success.

Yet too much skepticism should also be avoided. It is of no benefit if students question blindly what teachers say, which loses the function of education. What students should do is to bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study, rather than accept all passively or doubt everything. In the aspect of educators, their understanding of students' questions of what they teach is essential to create a good atmosphere for students to cultivate their critical thinking.

48 "The study of history places too much emphasis on individuals. The most significant events and trends in history were made possible not by the famous few, but by groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten."

Throughout the history, there were many outstanding figures that represented the most significant events and trends and were remembered  forever by people after them. The study of history often places emphasis on these individuals, for that they are regarded as the key role in making those significant events and trends possible. In my point of view, these excellent individuals did contribute a great deal to the development of human history. However, history was made by those larger groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten.

Admittedly, many outstanding individuals did play a very important role in the history. Let's look back at the Renaissance (the period between the 14th and the 17th century), which was an influential cultural movement in pursuit of Humanism and brought a period of scientific rovolution and artistic transformation. It is easy for us to notice Giottio at the early Renaissace, an architect who was the forerunner of Renainssace  and led the way of restoring dignity to human figures. What is more dazzling is the "Big Three Names" of the High Renaissace: Leonardo da Vinci was such a universal genuis that he was not only an artist famous for his masterly paintings, such as Mona Lisa and The Last Super, but also an successful anatomist and physiologist; Michelangelo Buoarroni,a sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, was well- known for his fresco ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, his sculptors of David, the Pieta and Moses and his design of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica; Raphel impressed many generations with the potrayal of Madonna and the painting of School of Athens. These giants made Renaissance an significant period throughtout the history of Western Culture.

However, can we own Renaissance compeletly to Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buoarroni, Raphel and other giants of that ages? From a rational perspective, I conceive that the answer to this question is no. In fact, a groups of people who have been forgotten played a role no less important than those famous few. Fundamentally, Renainssace came from most people's strong desire for attention to human selves after a long period of oppression under the medieval Church's dispensation. It was people's increasing interests of human, shifted from God, that motivated Humanisim. Only when the demand for the freedom of mind to pursuit Humanism existed among the masses can those few pioneers find supporters to advocate them and promote their endeavor.

Not only Renaissance, many other momentous events and trends all resulted from the influence of both the outstanding few and the masses. Therefore, it is unilateral to emphasis only on individuals, which fails to form the true and intact image of historical events. Too much emphasis on the famous individuals may augment individualism, which is not advantagous to improvement of the society as a whole.

In sum, the study of history should balance the emphses on individuals and groups of people so as to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the significant events and trends throughout the history. Only by doing this can we learn more from the history and do better in the future.

144 "It is the artist, not the critic,* who gives society something of lasting value." *a person who evaluates works of art, such as novels, films, music, paintings, etc. "

The speaker claims that it is the artist rather than the critic who gives society something of lasting value. I agree with the speaker with the value left by artists to us. However, the effect of the critic on art can not be ignored.

Art is like a river flowing from the beginning of human civilization to the present day, bringing us innumerous treasures created by artists many years ago. The era of Shakespeare is far from today. However, William Shakespeare, one of the world's preeminent dramatists, is still revered by people with his significant influence on English language and Western literature. His great works, such a Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, are not only studied by English-speaking people but also those who speak other language. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed everywhere of the world. In the term of music, compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of classical music and many of them are part of the standard concert repertoire. When it comes to architecture, we still appreciate the fantastic works, such as Park Guell, La Pedrera and many others, made by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi almost one hundred years ago. What can be inherited from generation to generation, no matter how long has passed, are these splendid art works created by great artists, rather than critics. It is artists who infuse their works with their originality, passion and thinking, which are the most valuable.

If artists are regarded as to play the key role in the development of art, then critics play an assistant role in it. It is not fair to ignore the influence that critics have on art. Critics help the public to make their choices among countless works of art. Every year many books are published and it is impossible and not necessary for ordinary people to read all of them. People can choose some of the books according to the comments made by critics as well as their own interests. Moreover, in some cases, it is critics that draw the public's attention to an artist and then make him or her famous.

Yet critics also brought some negative effect on the development. Comments made critics are usually subjective, which inevitably leads to unjustness. In the history, some talented artists, especially those young artists who had not become well-known, were hampered by critics who made severe and negative comments on their works. One of such artists were Vincent van Gogh, who were not accepted by the contemporary critics and lived in a poor condition all his life, even though people discovered his talent and highly praised him after his death which proved the lasting value of his paintings.

To sum up, no one can deny the truth that it is the artist who gives society something of lasting value. The critic does not create art itself. But they have an influence on the development of art, which should be thought over dialectically, for that they can both promote and debase an artist.

51 "Education will be truly effective only when it is specifically designed to meet the individual needs and interests of each student."

Education is an issue that people in almost every country have been discussing for many years. We are searching for a truly effective way of education, in respect that education plays a key role in the development of the society, which we learned from the fact that Japan got rid of depression and boomed depending on its education. I agree with the speaker that designing education to meet the individual needs and interests of each student is very important for achieving successful education. However, I conceive that more aspects should be taken into consideration.

What is the goal of education? To individuals, it is through education that we get the understanding of the world and also ourselves; it is education that makes us mature; it is also education that lends us a hand to push us to our dreams. To the community, education cultivates persons with ability to improve it and ensure its perennial prosperity. Everyone is born with certain talent, yet it is likely to be neglected or not made full use of if the person doesn't receive a proper education. In a word, education functions to mine the talent from each person. When each individual can make full use of his talent to realize his dreams, it is certain that the community will advance.

Interests often reflect the talent of a person. For instance,Jun-hui Ding, one of the top snooker plyers in the world, showed his great interest in snooker when he was only a small boy. Albert Einstain, from an very ealy age, enjoyed thinking about the physical world and at the age of 16, asked himself whether a light wave would seem stationary if one ran abreast of it, from which arise, ten years later, his theory of relativity. As interests are the signs of the talent of a person, effective education can't be achieved if it can't meet the individual needs and interests of each student.

But before they take measures to meet the needs and interests of each student, educators should first find out what students need and have interests in. Therefore, during primary education, teachers should lead children to contact various kinds of knowledge, and more important, in a interesting way. Only  by doing so can children discover their individual interest for a certain item, such as music, painting, literary, math or physics.

After the student's interest, which implies his talent, is clear, he should be given the education that is designed for his interest. That is what high education should do. Chung-Laung Liu, the former president of National Tsing Hua University once compared excellent high education to a vacuum flask, which can keep hot water hot and cold water cold. He said that high education should provide a good environment for students to learn what they are interested in and pursue their own dreams, rather than bondage the students with uniform curriculum and administration. The university is supposed to provide as much education resources as possible to students, such as professors, labs and libraries, and allow them to choose any of them when they need it.

From what has been discussed above, we may draw the conclusion that education should play a role of inspiring the individual interests of each student, which should be done in the early period of education. In the later period, education should be designed to meet the individual needs and interests of each student. Only by this can education be truly effective.

85 "Government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts."

From the old times to the present days, arts are often funded by the government or the dominators. Does government funding of the arts threaten the integrity of the arts? To my knowledge, arts do need funding but it is not good for arts if government functions as its only source of funding.

Art is an activity that needs a lot of funding. For that work of art is not an ordinary commodity, artists are not able to make profits as manufacturers. Many artists are troubled in poverty before they become famous because few people buy the works made by an artist who are not well-known. The severe poverty  often forces the artist to give up his dream for arts and to do other work to make a living, or to paint in a style that appeal to most ordinary people and to sold the painting as a decoration as a piece of colored wallpaper, which is rather ironic.

In the history, many dominators provided funds for artists. In ancient China, the emperor usually hired a group of artists in his palace and these artists painted for the royalty. In the times when the technology of photograph had not been invented, aulic artists played an important roll as to record the life of the royalty with their brushes. Most Chinese paintings reserved from the ancient time are the portraits of those royalty members and the description of their life. There were also a lot of artists doing other kinds of arts for the royalty, such as sculpting stones and making porcelains. Similarly, in the ancient western countries, artists were often employed by the church, which dominated the power of the society at that time. Today we can see many beautiful pieces of fresco in the church, which were painted by those artists of the church many years ago. For example, the famous Sistine Chapel ceiling was conceived by Pope Julius II and he ordered Michelangelo to paint it.

Admittedly, the arts funded by the dominators, mentioned above, do have significant value of art. However, artists who are supported by the government get from the government not only economic funds but also political pressure. They have to make their works appeal to the government and then they lose their free mind, which is the most important factor in a splendid work of art. In other words, they sacrifice their innovation to get the funding from the government. In the aforementioned example, Michelangelo was reluctant to accept the task ordered by the Pope, but the Pope was very adamant, leaving Michelangelo no choice but to accept. It was very likely that Michelangelo was not happy when he was creating the fresco and thus his talent could not be exerted absolutely. What is worse, sometimes government takes the advantage of art for its political purposes. The government may use art to build a positive image of itself which is not the truth so as to mislead the public and solidify its domination.

To sum up, funds for the development of the arts should not be exclusively by government. More various sources of funds, including organizations, cooperations and individuals, are of much more benefits to the flourish of the arts.