[Veronica L] Writing Practice Test 597640

The table illustrates a comparison between the underground railway systems of six different big cities in terms of date of first opening, route's lenght and the number of passengers per year.

According to the reporte data, it is noticeable that London counts the oldest underground transport system, indeed it was opened in 1863. Following a chronological order, metro was then built in Paris (1900), Tokyo (1927), Washington DC (1976) and Kyoto (1981). Los Angeles was the last city which was provided with a metro system in 2001.

In regards to the lenghts of the each route, it seems that the oldest undeground is the most extended one, with a railroad track of 394 km. While, Kyoto appears to be the city with the shortest metro system, which is only 11 km long and 17 km shorter than the Los Angeles's one. By contrast, the lenghts of the routes of the railway systems of Paris, Tokyo andWashington DC are similar, showing small gaps between one another ( 199 km, 155 km and 126 km respectively).

Finally, turning to the number of passengers, we can easily point out the fact that, although London's railway is the longest, it is not the most crowded over the year. In fact, this record is achieved by Tokyo's metro system, with 1927 millions passengers per year, followed by the 1191 millions passengers of the metro of Paris. At the bottom of the rank we find Los Angeles and Kyoto, which metro are used to travel by 45 and 50 millions of people every year respectively.

In recent years, the world we live in has become more an more competitive, forcing us to try to keep up. Unfortunately, this reality is currently manifesting in children's lives. In fact, children are nowadays forced to develop a strong sense of competition in order to face the world properly, and this is what is taught them in school. Anyway, people manifest contrasting thoughts about this new trend, dividing themselves between the ones who believe that children should be encourage in the developing of competition skills, and the others who think that cooperation is a more meaningful message to pass. In this essay both views will be discussed.

Firstly, it can be argued that giving to children the possibilty to experience the display of competition, would prepare them to the future world. For example, creating an competitive and stimulating environment in class, would probably take the children to do their best and, as a resukt, to succeed in teh majority of fields. Because of it, lots of people suggest that teachers should encourage the students to always be the best in class, the best in sport in order to be the best at work one day.

On the other hand, this can be critized affirming that if children are forced to be always in competition with others, they would be more likely to experience too pressure on them which could eventually turn into anxiety and other psychological problems. So, it would be better for their mental and also physical health not to be put into too competitive envitonment. In addition, we can also say that lots of jobs require co-operate skills which children must acquire in school.

In conclusion, I believe that it is important for children to learn how to cope with a competitive world, but I also think that it is not necessary to force them to experience an exaggerated level of pressure.