Task 3 (5 marks) introductions

The following criteria in Column A are often found in a good introduction (although not all 8 criteria are used in this introduction). Identify which criteria has been used in the following paragraph. Write the corresponding number in the Column B. You may put the number of the sentence more than once in Column B. .

The Science of Stress: How Well Do You Test?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/science/jan-june13/stress_02-18.html

1. To figure out why some students perform well under pressure and others don’t, a team of scientists in Taiwan took blood samples of 779 Taiwanese students who had just taken an extremely difficult and important test. (2) They compared each student’s genes to his or her test score and discovered the COMT gene has two variants – one that works quickly, and one that works slowly. (3) When you’re stressed, your brain is flooded with dopamine, a chemical that affects how your brain works. (4) The COMT gene’s job is to clear that dopamine from the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for cognitive ability, problem-solving, reasoning, and planning. (5) Too much dopamine and students have a hard time concentrating and recalling facts.

COLUMN A	COLUMN B
Pose a challenging or interesting question
Tell a story
Use a quotation
Give an overview of the key issues involved in the topic
Provide some background information
Define terms
Citations of a few major works, developments, (facts and statistics) and findings in the field.
Indicate the direction your argument will take
Make a link to the first part of your essay

Task 4 (6 marks) summarization

Write a summary of the introduction from the article ‘The Science of Stress: How Well Do You Test?’ above. Your summary should be a maximum of 3 sentences.

Task 5 (12 marks) comparing and contrasting

Below are 3 arguments for the advantages of using social networking sites and 3 arguments against the use of social networking sites.

Write a paragraph of 6 to 8 sentences stating which you feel is more convincing and why.

Source: Procon.org

Against Social Networking Sites

Social media enables the spread of unreliable and false information.

49.1% of people have heard false news via social media. [1] On Sep. 5, 2012 false rumors of fires, shootouts, and caravans of gunmen in a Mexico City suburb spread via Twitter and Facebook caused panic, flooded the local police department with over 3,000 phone calls, and temporarily closed schools. [2] Shashank Tripathi, tweeting as @ComfortablySmug, spread false information in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy by posting on Twitter that the New York Stock Exchange was flooding and that the power company would cut off electricity to all of Manhattan; the bogus information was picked up by national news outlets including CNN and the Weather Channel. [3]

1) Kristin Marino, "Social Media: The New News Source," www.schools.com, Apr. 16, 2012

2) Olga R. Rodriguez, "Mexico Tweets Cause Massive Shootout Panic," www.huffingtonpost.com, Sep. 8, 2012

3) Sam Laird, "Twitter Troll Who Posted Fake Sandy News Apologizes to Internet," www.mashable.com, Oct. 30, 2012

Students who are heavy social media users tend to have lower grades.

Students who use social media had an average GPA of 3.06 while non-users had an average GPA of 3.82 and students who used social networking sites while studying scored 20% lower on tests. [4] College students’ grades dropped 0.12 points for every 93 minutes above the average 106 minutes spent on Facebook per day. [5] Two-thirds of teachers believe that social media does more to distract students than to help academically. [6]

4) Paul A. Kirschner and Aryn C. Karpinski, "Facebook and Academic Performance," Computers in Human Behavior, Nov. 2010

5) Jimmy Daly, "How Is Facebook Affecting College Students’ Grades [Infographic]," www.edtechmagazine.com, July 2, 2012

6) Leslie Lanir, "Digital Information Overwhelms and Distracts Students," www.decodedscience.com, Nov. 4, 2012

Social networking sites entice people to waste time.40% of 8 to 18 year olds spend 54 minutes a day on social media sites. [7] 36% of people surveyed listed social networking as the "biggest waste of time," above fantasy sports (25%), watching TV (23%), and shopping (9%). [8] When alerted to a new social networking site activity, like a new tweet or Facebook message, users take 20 to 25 minutes on average to return to the original task. In 30% of cases, it took two hours to fully return attention to the original task. [9] 42% of American Internet users play games like Farmville or Mafia Wars on social networking sites. [10]

7) Victoria J. Rideout, Ulla G. Foehr, and Donald F. Roberts, "Generation M2L Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds," www.kff.org, Jan. 2010

8) Mark Dolliver, "Social Networking: A Waste of Time?," www.adweek.com, Oct. 7, 2010

9) Urs Gasser and John Palfrey, "Mastering Multitasking," Educational Leadership, Mar. 2009

10) David P. Willis, "Social Media Games Have Become Big Business," www.usatoday.com, Feb. 24, 2012