You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Present a written argument to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: High schools should allow students to study the courses that students want to study.
Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Sample Answer
The question whether a high school should allow students to study the courses that students want to study is the one that is open for debate. Some people believe that students in high school should have the right to study the courses they like. However, other people disagree and stand that teenagers can not totally be sure what they like and what they need to know at their age. In this essay, I will analyse these points and present my view in favour of people who believe that some courses must be required to study by students.
From the one side, having a chance to choose what one likes to study can bring many benefits. First of all, a student can be better prepared for the career he likes because he can spend more time studying what he is interested in. Second of all, students will learn with more enthusiasm because they will learn what they like.
From the other side, teenagers often can not completely understand what they want to do in the future. So, given a chance to choose, they can choose classes, which are easy to learn and do not take much time to study. As a result of this after graduation, many students can be unprepared to enrol in universities and, of course, make careers. Personally, I think that some courses such as mathematics, literature, writing English must be required for studying by students. This will help them to gain more knowledge and experience, develop the ability to think logically, improve writing skills, etc. So, students will be better prepared for the real world and independence life.
To sum up, I think that high school should have required courses because it is essential for a student to have a good base for the future life. Required courses, as a rule, are more complicated but they give the opportunity for students to extend their range of interests and help them to develop many important characteristics such as self-confident, persistent, patience, etc.