NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY

ENG 103
Final Exam: Summer 2021
Time Allowed: 80 minutes 
Instructions for students:

 You MUST answer questions of Part A and Part B. Follow instructions of each
section.
 You must submit a scanned copy/a picture of the written version of your exam
script. 
 You must NOT plagiarize- any such act will have severe consequences and might
result in the cancellation of your exam.
 You MUST spend about 75 minutes on both parts of the test. You can take extra 5
minutes for submission. 
 Late submissions will NOT be accepted. 

Please fill out the following:

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Instructor:
MARKS DISTRIBUTION
PART A 10
PART B 15
                                       TOTAL     25 

Part A                                                                                                                                 10 points

Write a summary of the following article. It should be between 150- 180 words in length.

                                                         How's Your Empathy?

                                                         By John Kord Lagemann

Empathy is the ability to appreciate the other person's feelings without yourself becoming so emotionally
involved that your judgment is affected. It sharpens our perception in all sorts of situations in our daily
lives. It's a state of mind which anyone can develop and improve. 

The biggest mistake in dealing with others is to underestimate the importance of their feelings. Dr.
Abraham Stone, the well-known marriage counselor, once said: "Much of the tension in marriage could
be relieved if each partner would ask himself, each time his mate did something annoying :  ‘ What are
the real feelings behind this behavior?’” The husband who comes home from the office and picks on his
wife may be taking out on her the anger he couldn't express to his boss. If the wife understands this, it is
not so hard for her to serve as a scapegoat. It's much better than having her husband blow up at the office
and lose his job.

"I hate you. I wish you were dead!" a child may shout. The wise parent, applying empathy, reaches back
to the feeling which prompted such outbursts and gives them their true meaning, which is usually: "I need
you and you are paying no attention. Please show you love me.”

Empathy is akin to sympathy, but whereas sympathy says, "I feel as you do,” empathy says, "I know how
you feel”. Empathy enables us to use our heads rather than our hearts. When you sympathize with
someone in trouble, you catch and reflect some of his suffering; your anxiety in turn may increase his
distress. But when you employ empathy you bring to bear a detached insight, which is of far greater help
to that person in overcoming unhappiness. After all, if you are roped to your companions on a mountain-
climbing expedition and one of your parties falls over a cliff, you don't help by jumping after him, but
rather by making your footing secure enough to haul him back.

You can acquire empathy through role-playing. To grasp the essential feeling-pattern of another person,
say to yourself: "Now I am going to imagine that I am Jones facing this situation." The first step is to find
out what Jones is like. Often we assume that others feel exactly as we do when faced with a difficult
situation. Empathy asks you to forget your own reactions while attempting to see through Jones' eyes.

Older people who become alarmed at the antics of teenagers fail in empathy; instead of imagining
themselves as teenagers again, they expect the younger generation to act like oldsters. On the other hand,
Eisenhower and his staff during World War II used empathy in deciding where the invasion of the
Continent was to take place. What they said in effect was "If we were the Germans on the other side of
the Channel, when and where would we least expect an invasion?”

A sense of isolation grips all of us at times. As one student in a large eastern university put it, ' “I feel like
a B-minus walking around on two legs." His professors may do nothing to relieve this feeling if they
persist in regarding him only in academic terms. But one experienced counselor points out that when a
student comes after class and asks for special help on a problem of chemistry, for example, what he really
may want to say is, “I don't think anybody knows I'm here, and nobody cares. Please, teacher,
acknowledge that I count, that I am a person." In some cases of counseling, it has been found that more
difficulties can be resolved by acknowledging how the student feels than by explaining the study
problems he brings

For the doctor, empathy provides an insight into a patient's emotional state which enables the doctor to
calm his anxieties and help him get well. As one doctor told me, empathy enables him "to find out what
kind of patient the disease has got."

Learning to use empathy takes patience. It's necessary always to remember that empathy works only so
long as you remain detached, acknowledging the other person's feelings but never sharing them. But the
effort is rewarding. Using empathy to enter the mind and heart of another human being can become a
great adventure. Acquire this skill, and it will roll back the horizons of your daily life.

Part B                                                                                                                                 15 points

Essay Writing         

Write an essay on any one of the following topics within 350-400 words. (For the Exam. you
will get an essay topic on each of the following types.)
1. Compare or Contrast Essay
2. Cause or Effect Essay
3. Narrative Essay