IB Paper 2 Common text types - Wonderful Examples

1) Essay

Should education be skills based or content based?

Education is a crucial issue in today’s society. Over the few past years, it has been the subject of endless debates and thus it’s becoming an increasing concern. Lately, the question which has gathered the most strength is whether education should be skills based or content based.

The traditional education system is content based. It prioritizes memorizing over discovering. Albeit, memory is just one skill, and a skill which not everyone has equally developed. Human intelligence cannot be measure solely by just one skill, and definitely, students should not be graded solely on just one skill.

Firstly, content based education is obsolete and inefficient. Nowadays, we can find everything that we need and more by just looking it up at the internet. Children are just one click away of all the knowledge this world has to offer, and although this may seem as a wonderful progress, it also means memory has become useless. Content based education may have made sense back when the only source of information were books and teachers, but for the modern world a skills education is considerably more suitable.

Secondly, as various scientists have reported, humans possess seven different types of intelligences. Like everything, some people have some types of intelligences more developed than others. Therefore, taking into account that memory is considered one of these intelligences, there is a school of thought that believes content based education is unfair for the students, as it is focused in only one type of intelligence.

Finally, according to the BBC, skills based education has been proven to enhance and improve students’ abilities such as critical and logical thinking.

In conclusion, education should be skills based, as content based education is outdated and unfair according to scientific discoveries, whilst a skills based education has demonstrated to be beneficial for students.

Education should help students to develop their abilities and to prepare them for the world, instead of making them memorize gigantic amounts of content that will be readily spilled out in a piece of paper and then happily forgotten. 

2) Speech

The era of change

It’s often said that we live in an era of technological development, that we live in the new world, or that we live in the best of times... But, do we? Is our world as rosy as we picture it? Because I can see that we still fail at the most basic of things: we fail at respect.

Sexism has become a behemoth in every woman’s live. Catcalling, unwanted touching and comments are just the tip of the iceberg of what every woman has to put up with on a daily basis. These offences are not spoken about, we tend to block them out and forget them, however, we should pick on every single one of them. We theoretically live in an equal world, still, in practise, we do not.

As a matter of fact, the pay gap, the rejection of feminism and sayings like “she’s too pretty to be smart” are just examples of the ramifications of the lack of respect, and inequality.

Innumerable campaigns have been launch in order to promote feminism such as “Every Day Sexism”, “He for She” and “Who needs feminism?”. Nonetheless, the idea of equality hasn’t sunk into our global conscience yet, and the fact is, that we can’t expect to change the world if sexism is so present in advertising.

How can we expect education to make a change if we are constantly exposed to women being treated like objects? Advertising is designed to appeal the widest public possible, and it is the root of the problem. Catchphrases such as Mc Donald’s “It’ll blow your mind” or the portrayal of women in the Hitman Absolution Saints trailer, they all give a negative, poisonous and undesirable depiction of women. “Sex sells”, but there is no excuse for it use in advertising.

In order to pave the way to an equal world, we have to promote the image of a strong, confident woman: someone who small girls can look up to knowing that they will be valued for more than just their body. And beyond doubt the “No more Page 3” campaign proves that slowly, we can change the circumstances.

Woman and men of the world, it is undoubtedly time to learn to respect each other. We need feminism, we need feminism because we are equal. And it is not me, nor you; it is us who have to make the change: fellow delegates we live in the era of change.

3) Diary Entry

Dear Diary,

It hurt. Seeing him damage, claw and control our souls; it hurt. Feeling his power; malicious, unbreakable power as he abused and tortured us; it hurt. Knowing that he wouldn’t change, how we needed a miracle for him to realize we are never going to be happy; it hurt. That’s why I’ve decided not to hurt anymore. I’ve changed. And soon, I will make a move.

I felt a sense of rebellion surge in me, I felt it take over my body, getting stronger by the second. I was starting to become immune to his threats and punishments. I still acted like I was the perfectly supressed man Papa wanted me to be, but I know he felt me slipping away. Slipping away to freedom. I see real happiness and love, what its really like, here in Aunty Ifeoma’s home, a home I feel closer to than my own. And I know that my family will be like hers someday. But the most important message I have learnt is that there is hope. Hope I intend to use.

Not every family is dominated by an overly-protective extremely-catholic father. Papa claims we are lucky, how so many families strive to be like us, how we should all “love and surrender to God no matter what”. But really, he is the one we surrender to. A father’s role must be one to protect and respect the family, and it exasperates me how in the wrong he is. The way I see him rule over us with no mercy, leaves me fuming and desperate, yearning times of happiness. I must put a stop to this abnormal nonsense. Not only for me, but for Kambili and Mama also because assures he feels love, but where is the love in the act of punishing?

Oh, Kambili. It used to be so easy with her. She was the only person I could communicate with, with whom I shared a magically special connection, who I loved and I felt loved by no matter what. But now, I feel detached. The sibling spark we had- no longer there. I can see how she feels that my mind is in the wrong. And that’s because in her mind Papa is everything, the same way everything is Papa. And it’s wrong, on so many levels. But being here, in Nsukka I have foreseen the man I want to become. To be free and unlike Father, who lives with God as an anchor but not as a lifestyle. I am constantly reminded at home of the grown man I should aspire to be and frustratingly anything outside the box is forbidden. I refuse to live like this for much longer.

The voices in my head have grown louder due to the encounters I have experienced here in the last few days, and they keep telling me it’s almost time to loosen my chains of repression, and try my best to take Kambili with me. The way families treat each other; actually engaging in conversation, the respect for parents and grandparents always there, but filled with love and awe, instead of force and fear. I want that. Each time I’m on the veranda, I hear laughter, I feel the freedom. I want that. At home, countless red hibiscuses lurk around our house, caging us in this never-ending suffering. Here they are a beautiful, unique purple, opening one’s eyes and possibilities to the world. I want that.

Jaja

4) Offical Report

Report on Harvard’s unconscious bias test

I have recently taken part in an academic study, carried out by Harvard University, about unconscious bias. In this report, I will endeavour to offer a comprehensive analysis and an insight into my experience of this study.

Unconscious bias

Bias and prejudice are often confused and used in the wrong way. Whereas prejudice is having a negative opinion about a group of people or a concept, bias is having preference towards something. Whether we like it or not, we are biased, and bias is part of the human nature. However nowadays, we tend to hide our bias in favour of political correctness. But bias is still there, deep inside our heads. That is why it is called unconscious bias: because we are not conscious, or we do not want to be conscious, of having these preconceived ideas.

The test

The test I carried out was created by Harvard University’s psychology students in order to consider the notion of unconscious bias. They called it The Implicit Association Test (IAT). In order to unveil your bias, they measure attitudes and beliefs that people may not want to admit to. The objective of the test is to prove that we have unknown implicit attitudes. “For example, you may believe that women and men should be equally associated with science, but your automatic associations could show that you associate men with science more than you associate women with science.”

Before the test

When I was instructed to do the IA test, I did not know what to expect. Firstly, I did some research and found out that Harvard University had invested 2 million dollars in this test. This meant that the test wasn’t a random test that you could find on the internet, but rather that it had been created with extreme detail. My first feeling about taking this test was fear. What if I was unconsciously racist? What if I had a strong preference towards white people? I was scared and though about what effect this result would have in the way people may address me.

During the test

The test I had to conduct was the Race Implicit Association test, which would tell me if I had bias towards black or white people. The test had its own instructions, which were easy to follow and understand: Just press “E” or “I” on your keyboard depending on the group you wanted to send the word or image to. The test was divided into three parts and each par was repeated three times: In the first part, you had to classify some words depending on their meaning. If they had a positive meaning, you had to put them on the left (E), and if they had a negative meaning on the right (I). The second part, was with images, and you had to classify people in white and black categories, according to their skin colour. Finally, you had to classify   white people and good words against black people with bad words and vice versa. The test would take your reaction time into consideration when telling your result. Apparently I have a “Moderate automatic preference for White people”.

After the test

After all, the test results were not inaccurate, despite some exceptions. However, the test is far from accuracy. One of the biggest flaws of the test is that taking the reaction time of a person into consideration for making a decision, it is very subjective, as reaction time is something subject to change depending on your age and health, something that was not asked during the test. Another problem I found out during the test is language. In the bad-good classification of words, you need to have an excellent command of those words in order to “feel” them. As I am from Spain, I didn’t know one of the words and ended up associating the “shape” of the word to its group, instead of the feeling that word had on me. In order to increase its accuracy, the test has to be taken in extreme concentration environment, as any distraction can have an effect on the result.

Overall, it was very interesting to take the test, but by no means should these results be taken into account for professional matters. 

5) Blog entry

Women, not objects

A few days ago, I came across a video called Olympia. It was made by Deborah De Robertis, and recorded the reactions triggered by her stripping off in front of Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia, which portrays a similarly naked woman.

The aghast onlookers’ startled and scandalized expressions and the following arrest of the artist kept me thinking. Isn’t it ironic that in a society so obsessed with woman bodies (they appear even in burger adverts!) a naked woman in a museum can cause such a stir? Maybe it is just that the realisation women bodies are attached to an actual person makes people uncomfortable.

Though, we shouldn’t be surprised. It just takes a look into any magazine or newspaper to see women being needlessly objectified. Sadly, degrading woman to mere sexual objects isn’t the exclusive practice of the media. Last week, movie producer Ross Putman shared on Twitter some extracts from film scripts he gets sent, in which female characters were being described. “Blonde, fit, smokin' hot” or “athletic but sexy”, are only a few, but they basically sum up them all. Apparently, her sex appeal and whether she knows she has it or not is the best thing script writers can come up with for their female main characters.

Now, this relentless reduction of women to mere physical appearance should not be taken lightly. According to a report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image, girls as young as five worry about their weight, and one in four seven year old girls have been on a diet. Moreover, female students all over the world are being removed from class due to inappropriate clothing, which varies from shorts “too tight” that unveil girls’ thighs to t-shirts “too revealing” that show their collarbones. Outrageous at it is, the best reason most schools can come up with is that male teachers feel uncomfortable. What type of message is this sending to little girls, and boys?

When we put first men’s comfort to a children’s education we know we have a problem. It’s necessary that society learns, for one and for all that women are not just bodies or someone to have sex with, not objects or distractions.

Let’s raise our voices against women objectification, it’s time to change the world!

6) Article

Green Papers released: University Education System open to debate

The proposal to reform Higher Education in the UK has raised a red flag for the student population. Nonetheless, these innovations have not taken place so do not panic. Instead of criticizing the new plan that may be adopted, let’s focus on the proposal at issue.  

This war broke out a long time ago when Lord Browne brought into the open the Browne Review whose first principle was ‘More investment should be available for higher education’.  This raised the alarm.  Where will this economic injection come from? Budgets must be increased to overcome the expenditure, how is all going to happen? Unsurprisingly, no limit to tuition fees was the solution found. Students should ‘pay more’ in order to ‘get more’. People took it with a pinch of salt. An increase in the fees does not sound appealing for those who were struggling with finances.

In 2012 tuition fees for undergraduate courses went up to £6,000, and in ‘exceptional circumstances’ up to £9,000. This signified, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), an estimative funding increment of £4,300 per undergraduate due to these incomes. You might be wondering how undergraduates could afford these prices, simply: loans.

The system might look logical but on closer inspection, it is not. Those who argue that students could apply for loans, study, get a job and repaid the money received are not considering the whole equation. The IFS calculated that 43p in each £1 of loans will not be repaid. That meant that the game was not over.

Green Papers came to the rescue with a new proposed structure. One of the key points of this proposal is the TEF, ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’. This system will deal with money by allowing institutions to charge higher fees to new students if their TEF levels are high enough. The highest the quality of the university, the more money it would be able to put in charge. That seems obvious, so wait… The matter was not that whether some institutions should receive more or less due to its academic excellence but that the students’ loans and funding systems have to be revised. If we want students to be able to give the money back, we better start considering how to cope with financing. Unaffordable loans are still a problem. Should not the reform focus on how students will be able to pay?