You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
In many parts of the world, there is continuous coverage of sport on television. Some people believe this discourages the young from taking part in any sport themselves. Discuss this view and give your own opinion.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1:
Whether live sports on television avert youngsters from actually playing sports in real life is a controversial issue and deserves a thorough discussion. In my opinion, participating in different sports is far useful than only enjoying it on television, though watching a few games does not hurt. In this essay, I will discuss the view and present my opinion.
To start with, many sports channels broadcast non-stop sporting competitions and many countries have ongoing tournaments. Young people these days have passions for numerous sports but hardly participate in outdoor sports. They prefer sports channel as part of entertainment rather than encouragement for their sportsmanship skill development. Non-stop sports on TV in a way deter youngsters from becoming sportsmen themselves. For example, more than half of my college friends are big fans of international sports like cricket and football but their personal experience on these games are quite limited. They are better critics of those games than players.
Only sports channels are not responsible for this decay. The rise of video games and access to gaming consoles have fueled the trend. Furthermore, parents are responsible for this degradation as well. While parents should have encouraged children to play outdoor games, they are contented with the latest PlayStation and Xbox for their offsprings!
In conclusion, the reluctance to play games rather than watching sports on TV has been kindled by the endless sporting programmes on TV, parents’ apathy and widespread access to gaming devices. No doubt sports on TV can be a good way to enjoy our favourite team’s performance but youngsters should not watch it all day long.
[Written by – Vishal Zala]
Sample Answer 2:
Television has become the state of the art entertainment tool and people may subscribe to their preferred channels at a low cost. However, some critics warn that teens would not engage in sports once they start watching sports channel fervently. I personally think that it discourages sports-lovers to play games as the intrinsic issue is whether the youths love sports deeply.
Firstly, television may alter the teenagers’ interests because of the widespread coverage of sports programmes. For example, many youths in my country prefer watching sporting competitions than taking sports in real life. This leads them spending more time in front of a TV set than taking part in outdoor activities.
In contrast, youths who are the fans of sports may not be influenced by television adversely. For example, a person who favours in watching Liverpool soccer team will be inspired by the team which appears on television and may wish to experience how they play soccer during a competition. In other words, the teenagers may start to get involved in sports due to their admirations towards the sports team. Consequently, television may be a useful tool to arouse the interests of teens having sports.
It is a basic human nature that they try to mimic something that they enjoy. According to this nature, someone who finds some sort of game interesting on TV would like to play it as well. The broadcast of sports on TV makes these games more popular in many countries and it is natural that people of these areas would spend more time playing these games. People mostly watch interesting and live sports rather than watching all the sports all the time. Sports channel not only broadcast games, they also show programs that make critical analysis and shows the history of the games and these two aspects help the interested youths learn more about the games. While there are plenty of programs that could have negative impacts on the young generation, with the popularity of sports channels, young people watch sports more than those short of negative programs.
To conclude, the fundamental issue is whether the young treat themselves as spectators or athletes. In the case of the teens imagine themselves as spectators, television may dishearten them from taking part in sports but reversely, it may encourage the youth to start engaging in sports too.
[Written by – Summer]