English loanwords As the English language becomes more widespread some speakers of other languages fear that English loanwords are gradually replacing perfectly adequate native words. To what extent do you believe that people should seek to protect 'the purity' of their language from the influence of English? It is impossible nowadays not to notice the influence of English language on other languages of the world. We all live in a global village now. But to what extent does English interfere into native languages of people of the world? First of all we notice English loanwords which substitute native words of our mother tongues. For example, my mother tongue is Russian and I see that Russian speakers tend to use more and more English words especially in IT sphere. Whereas most of these words have lexical doublets with the same meaning in Russian. On the other hand some languages tend to over preserve their vocabulary from English intrusion. For example Arabic language has words with meanings like 'a car for rent' for a taxi, 'calculating device' for a computer and 'the caller' for a phone. However, Arabic native speakers anyway use these international words. What is more, English language affects not only vocabulary but also grammar structures of a particular language. For Arabic language inversion is a normal word order but under influence of English Arabs started using straight word order. Personally I think that the key point here is to find the balance between usage of international words and overuse of English words in every sentence in your native language.

'pen and paper' examinations Many people believe that formal 'pen and paper' examinations are not the best method of assessing educational achievement. What is your view of examination? Speaking about types of examinations nowadays i can not say that traditional exam with 'pen and paper' is something out of date. For me the choise of exam type depends on several factors. Many people think that this type of exam is not the best way of assessing student's knowledge. It really doesn't show the level of student's speaking skills when testing foreign language abilities for example. On the other hand written exam shows a clear picture of student's work and gives an evidence, a product for assessing. Whereas when it comes to an oral examination it is not that obvious what exactly is to be assessed. On the other hand, oral exam gives more freedom to a student. It also doesn't take as much time as writing an aswer. But oral type of exam is not suitable for such disciplines as Mathematics, Physics or Chemistry where a student must show the process of calculation, not only the result. If to speak about computer based exam it seems to be more objective then teacher's assessment which can be somehow influenced by personal attitude. However, such an exam is not available when we speak about art exams or creative projects. On my opinion, it's better to use complex type of exam which would combine oral and written parts. Anyway, choise of exam type should be done accrording to the subject being tested.

Convenience foods will become increasingly prevalent and eventually replace traditional foods Convenience foods are really poular nowadays and a question whether they replace traditonal home-made dishes has the right to exist. First of all, this type of products is very fast to cook, you need just to heat up your pizza or put some hot water into your soup and it's ready to be eaten. If you want to cook a pizza yourself you'll have to preapre pastry, then cut all the vegetables, sausage, chease or whatever you put into your pizza. Then you have to wait untill it is ready. Cooking really takes time. What is more, convenience foods are suitable for those people who spend a lot of time on the road and stay in hostels or motels. Such people usually have no place and opportunities for cooking themselves. Even for those women who do not work and stay at home taking care about their little children or aged relatives convenience foods can become a helping hand. Because sometimes a woman simply is too tired or too busy with other activities to cook something herself. Furthermore, eating convenience foods can be a ruslt of unknowing how to cook. Lot's of women nowadays do not learn cooking in their teens but spend this time for studying, going out, searching the net and so on. As a result when they become wives and mothers they simply do not know how to cook a cake or a soup. So, they go and buy these foods from shops. On the other hand, convenience foods are not healthy. They contain lots of preservatives which are aimed to keep a product fresh as long as possible. Manufacturers also add to their products cheap materials in order to spend less and earn more. So the quality of convenience foods ir really lower then the quality of home made dishes. That's why they can lead to certain helath problems and obesity. In addition to understanding the fact of convenience food's danger lot's of people nowadays like cooking themselves. You have definetely heared about cooking courses in your city, cooking is a popular hobby and a kind of art. You can watch famous people on TV who share their favourite recepies. Home cooking is not dead yet. Moreover convenience foods are not designed for vegetarians. More and more people today think about becoming vegetarians or already prefer such lifestyle. There are not convenience foods for this category of consumers. Finally, more and more people now prefer living a helthy and fit life. If you take care about yourself why would you eat convenien foods?