No. 29
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
People’s lives are the result of the choices they make-or fail to make. The path one takes in life is not arbitrary. Choices and their consequences determine the course of every person’s life. All people whatever their circumstances, make the choices on which their lives depend.

Assignment: Are people’s lives the result of the choices they make? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

No. 30
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
Many people believe that “closed doors make us creative.” These people argue that obstacles and restrictions are necessary, for without them we would never be forced to come up with new solutions. But “closed doors,” either in the form of specific obstacles or a lack of opportunities, often prevent people from reaching their full creative potential.

Assignment: Do closed doors make us creative? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

No. 31
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
People who like to think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic tend to take it for granted that human nature is “selfish” and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this view, the basic law by which people must live is the law of the jungle. The “fittest” are those people who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.

Adapted from S. I. Hayakawa, “Language in Thought and Action”

Assignment: Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.