“Some people believe that our happiness depends on how much money we have.

Others say that

‘money cannot buy happiness’. Do you think that having money is the key to happiness, or are there
more important factors? Give reasons for your answers and include any relevant examples from your
knowledge or experience.”

Achieving happiness is undoubtedly one of people’s primary goals in life. Some people assess their
happiness levels with the amount of money they have, while others believe “money cannot buy
happiness”. In my opinion, despite the importance of money in an individual’s life, other aspects matter
are more integral when determining one’s happiness.

Money plays an important role in every individual’s life. As everything from basic necessities to luxuries
are not free, people need money to meet their own consumption needs. Moreover, people with good
finances can also afford spiritual pleasures such as entertainment or travel, which makes their lives more
enjoyable. As such, money is a necessary means to attain comfort and satisfaction in life.

However, in my view, happiness is not entirely dependent on money. As happiness is a subjective feeling
of each person, there are many other sources of happiness that are irrelevant to/ not related to financial
capabilities. One of those can be the quality of relationships, if a person is surrounded by loving and
supportive they may feel happy even without much money. Some surveys also show that the countries
with the highest happiness index are developing countries that preserve a caring culture which
promotes profound relationships between members of society. Another factor might be job satisfaction.
For example, volunteers who work for the sake of the community may not earn money, but they feel
satisfied with their meaningful social contributions. Hence, money should only be seen as a means to
happiness, not the sole determining factor.

In conclusion, while money certainly plays an important role in maintaining an averagely satisfying life, I
believe that there are more important factors that determine one’s happiness.

Achieving happiness is undoubtedly one of people’s primary

Achieving happiness is undoubtedly one of people’s primary goals in life. Some people correlate their
happiness levels with the amount of money they have, while others believe money cannot buy
happiness. In my opinion, despite the importance of money in an individual life, other aspects still are
more intergal when determining one’s happiness.

Money plays an important role in every individual’s life. As everything from basic necessities to luxuries
are not free, people need money to meet their own consumption needs. Moreover, people with good
finance can aslo afford spiritual pleasures such as entertainment or travel, which makes their lives more
enjoyable. As such, money is a necessary means to attain comfort and satisfaction in life.

However, in my view, happiness is not entirely dependent on money. As happiness is a subjective feeling
of each person, there are many other sources of happiness that are not related to financial capabilities.
One of those can be the quality of relationships, as a person surrounded by loving and supportive people
may feel happy even without much money. Some surveys also show that the countries with the highest
happiness index are developing countries that preserve a caring culture which promotes profound
relationships between members of society. Another factor might be job satisfaction. For example,
volunteers who work for the sake of the community may not earn money, but they feel satisfied with
their meaningful social contributions. Hence, money should only be seen as a means to happiness, not
the sole determining factor.

In conclusion, while money certainly plays an important role in maintaining an averagely satisfying life, I
believe that there are more important factors that determine one’s happiness.

================

“Some people argue that it is more important to have an enjoyable job than to earn a lot of money.
Others disagree and think that a good salary leads to a better life. Discuss both these views and give
your own opinion.”/ When choosing a job, the salary is the most important consideration. To what
extent do you agree or disagree?

Many people select their occupations depending on the level of salary they can earn. Personally, I
disagree that money is the most important aspect to consider while choosing a career since I believe
that other factors are just as significant.

On the one hand, it is commonly acknowledged that money is necessary for people to cover their living
expenses. For example, we all need a certain level of income to afford basic necessities such as food and
shelter, not to mention other services like healthcare and education. Therefore, most individuals
consider it a top priority to at least earn enough money to maintain an acceptable living standard. If one
only chose his job based on passion or other non-financial factors, they might find it difficult to support
themselves and their families. For instance, the lives of many artists who chose their career out of
passion but received little payments, ended up miserably in poverty.

Nonetheless, I believe that other criteria are equally as significant as to how much money we earn at our
professions. To begin with, while considering a job, interpersonal relationships and the company culture
are especially important. Having a nice leader or pleasant teammates, for example, may make a
significant difference in employees’ happiness and overall quality of life. Secondly, many individuals
derive their job satisfaction out of factors other than salary, such as their professional accomplishments
and the status they gain. Finally, some people even choose a job with meaningful social contributions
over ones with high wages. 

Many people select their occupations depending on the level of salary they can earn. Personally, I
disagree that money is the most decisive aspects to consider while choosing a career since I believe that
other factors are just as significant.

On the one hand, it is commonly acknowledged that money is necessary for people to cover their living
expenses. For example, we all need a certain level of income to afford basic necessities such as food and
shelter, not to mention other services like healthcare and education. Therefore, most individuals
consider it as a top priority to at least earn enough money to maintain an acceptable living standard. If
one only choose his job based on passion or other non-financial factors, they might find it difficult to
support themselves and their families. For instance, the lives of many artists choosing their career out of
passion but received little payments, ended up miserably in poverty.

Nonetheless, I believe that other criteria are equally as significant as to how much money we earn at our
professions. To begin with, while considering a job, interpersonal relationships and the company culture
are especially important. Having a nice leader or pleasant teammates, for example, may make a
significant difference in employee’s happiness and overall quality of life. Secondly, many individuals
derive their job satisfaction out of factors other than salary, such as their professional accomplishments
and the status they gain.

In conclusion, while salaries certainly affect people’s choice of profession, I do not believe that money
outweighs all other motivators.

Trade and travel would be a lot easier with a single, global currency that we all use.
Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Would a single currency cause any problems?

It is clear to me that the idea of a single global currency is an excellent ideal to work  towards. There can
be no doubt that trade and travel would be vastly easier. On the other hand I believe that it would cause
problems today.

The benefits of a single currency can be seen with the use in Europe of the Euro. Whenever you are
travelling between countries using the Euro, the problems of currency changing and exchange rates are
history. Similarly business between countries using the Euros is so much easier; no more worrying about
exchange rate risk and pricing. Everyone‛s money is the same. The same thing is true with the US
dollar. Most countries do not use the US dollar but it is accepted in many places. There are many
countries that you can travel to and just take US dollars to use.

At present though a global currency would be impossible. Firstly most countries would not accept the
idea. Secondly all countries are in different economic states. Some are economically very strong and
some are in a state of collapse with inflation ruining the economy. Such countries could not be brought
into a world currency as it would cause massive financial instability worldwide. So it is clear that a global
currency would indeed cause some serious problems.

So, in conclusion I see a global currency as a future ideal but it will not happen in my lifetime. It would
make trade and travel much easier but the problems it would cause nowadays would be
insurmountable.

============================

“Some people say that giving a smaller amount of money weekly to children will help them become
more capable as they grow older. Do you agree or disagree?”

A group of people in the society believes that if children are given some amount of money on a weekly
basis, they become more serious towards knowing the importance of money. While this is true, giving
money every week is not appropriate and it should actually be restricted on a need basis.

To commence with, many parents think that they should pay their children on a regular basis. One of the
possible reasons is that giving some amount of money to kids makes them responsible. It gives them the
feeling that they have been assigned some money for a reason and if they do something good, for
example, cleaning their study table, they would get paid. Apart from this, withholding some money in
their pockets, kids can try to effectively manage it for various needs such as buying a notebook or a
chocolate. Depending upon their needs only, they would spend their money.

On the other hand, there are some negative consequences of this approach. Many children would find it
too easy to get money every week rather than on need basis. So, they would actually be spending more
and asking for more money from their parents, in return. Secondly, this approach may affect their
thinking about money as they may exceedingly give importance to money rather than other good things
such as honesty, kindness, and trustworthiness. For instance, a kid who is receiving $10 every week
would feel that money is the most important thing with which he can buy anything.

Overall, though some people think that children will get a better idea of spending money efficiently as
they grow older, I disagree with this statement and feel that children should be given less amount of
money and on a need basis rather than weekly basis.

========================

Money for postgraduate research is limited. Some people, therefore, think that financial support from
government should be only provided for scientific research rather than research for less useful subjects.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the opinion?

The government cannot fund all research projects because its budget is limited; therefore, some people
insist that only research pertaining to the field of science and technology should receive government
funding. While I do admit that scientific research should receive maximum funding, I totally disagree
with the argument that the government should stop funding research in less ‘useful’ fields like arts or
history.

Scientific research certainly provides tremendous value because scientific innovations have the power to
change our lives for good. Take, for instance, the invention of the antibiotic. This wonder drug saved the
lives of millions of people and continues to be a major lifesaver even today. The computer is also the
result of scientific research. This invention changed the way we work and store information. Today, it is
impossible to imagine a world without computers. Other inventions like electricity, motor vehicles and
home appliances have also revolutionized our lives.

However, just because scientific research provides more value it does not mean that research in other
‘less useful’ fields should be discouraged. Of course, archeological research or research into the origin of
languages is unlikely to have a massive impact on our day-to-day life. Yet, this information is crucial for
understanding how we reached where we are today. The truth is that there are still a lot of things we
can learn from previous generations. These kinds of research may even lead us to a common ancestor
and that might put an end to the hostility prevailing between many nations. Historical research also
teaches us about mistakes we must not repeat. The World Wars and the Genocide are two examples.
Research on these horrific incidents keeps reminding us about the extent of damage they caused. If
future generations do not learn about them, they might be tempted to commit the same mistakes again.

To conclude, not only scientific research but research in other fields also provides great value.
Therefore, the argument that only scientific research should receive government funding does not hold
water.

Some people think that spending a lot on holding wedding parties, birthday parties and other
celebrations is just a waste of money. Others, however, think that these are necessary for individuals
and the society. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
In the current world, most of the people like to celebrate any special occasion by inviting a lot of people.
The discussion that throwing too much money to hold parties like birthday, marriage or any other
special event is a debatable one, with strong logics provided by the supporters of both the views.

A few argue that the special events need to be celebrated grandly, as it happens only a few times in a
lifetime. For instance, marriage is considered to occur once in a lifetime and the people want to have the
memory of that event until their last breath. This is possible only when the location is well decorated
and all of the friends and the neighbours are invited. By spending limited money, it is almost impossible
to achieve something special which will be remembered forever. Thus it is obvious, why some people
incline towards this point of view.

On the other hand, some people believe that it is not right to spend a huge amount money on personal
celebrations as there are a lot of people across the globe under starvation. For example, in most of the
African countries, many people do not even have food to eat for a single meal a day. In case, the money
spent on celebration can be sent to the people who are really in need, definitely, a lot of life can be
saved. Hence, it is clear why a few individuals refute with high spending parties.

Considering the memories of special occasions as well as starvation, spending much money for parties
has been supported and refuted by many. Even though memories of some special events are important,
saving human life from starvation is more important. Hence, in my opinion, it is necessary to cut down
the spending on parties and spend that money for the poor people’s food.

As well as making money, businesses also have social responsibilities. Do you agree or disagree?

In the modern busy life, responsibility to the public/ society has played an integral role in the
development for both individuals and enterprises. Many adopt that businesses should only contribute to
their economic boom without regarding the social concerns. For my own perspective, generating profits
and social duties are equally important.

On the one hand, people recognize that firms need to make money to survive in this competitive world.
Firstly, it is logical that the top priority of any company should be to cover its running costs, such as
employee’s salary and office rental. Only by satisfying these expenditures can entrepreneurs generate
innovations and makes more improvement in their businesses. Secondly, the expansion of businesses
can effectively help the government to mitigate the problem of unemployment. In other words, a great
number of employees are always needed in the process of expanding any company. Finally, if
enterprises generate more money, they will pay more taxes to the government. As a consequence, the
authority can use this capital to spend on key fields to enhance the quality of life of the whole
community.

On the other hand, there are some strong reasons why businesses should accept that make
contributions to the society. One reason is that enterprises must concern about environmental
contamination because their production has direct negative impacts on the surrounding. A typical
example is that if many factories in industrial zones installed wastewater system instead of discharging
chemical waste directly into lakes and rivers, water degradation could be controlled. Another reason is
that there are various simple measures that firms can take to contribute to the society. For example,
they can carry out some charitable activities such as providing scholarships. As a result, not only may
they help those who are less fortunate but they also enhance their image.
In conclusion, enterprises should place as much importance on their social obligations as they do on
their financial goals.

/////////

It is true that besides generating money, companies also need to take responsibility for social issues. I
completely agree with this idea.

On the one hand, there are some reasons why businesses are the importance of making money. One
reason is that company with prosperity can boost the country’s development. For example, if companies
make/ earn more money, they pay more taxes; as a result, the government can spend these budget on
hospitals, schools, and other services. Furthermore, businesses which make a huge amount of money
can expand and provide more jobs. For instance, nowadays there are a lot of youngsters unemployed, so
thanks to the expansion, these businesses could give them countless opportunities to have a job.

Apart from the practical benefits expressed above, I believe that businesses should accept that they
have social responsibilities. Firstly, a business must not harm the environment. Without controls, some
factories discharged raw wastes, gases and poison onto the land, the air and the river, which result in
the environmental degradation. Secondly, businesses which make profits should put money back into
the community through charity and financial scholarship. As a result, increasing number of homeless
people could have an adequate amount of food and sweater, poor/ underprivileged students could have
much more motivation to keep their study.

In conclusion, I believe that it is important for firms to make money to cover their cost, but they must
also have responsibilities in social life.

As well as making money, businesses also have social responsibilities. To what extent do you agree or
disagree?

Some people believe that businesses should embrace social responsibilites besides their aim to make a
profit. Personally, I entirely agree with this statement.

It is important for businesses to make money in order to survive in today’s competitive market. In fact,
the highest priority of any company is to maximize profit, regardless of the economic sector they are
working in. This is because they have to not only cover all the company’s operation costs, including staff
salaries and facility costs, but also expand their business. Furthermore, when a company makes a profit,
it will contribute to the development of society by paying taxes.

In addition to making money, businesses, especially large ones, should play a role in helping society to
deal with pressing problems. Firstly, the manufacturing of consumer products is a major cause for
environmental degradation. Waste and exhaust emissions from industrial factories contribute to
increased levels of water and air pollution, which is a strong evidence that the responsible companies
should act to rectify their mistakes. More importantly, in many areas where local people are forced out
of employment because of the appearance of large companies, it is reasonable for those companies to
provide job opportunities for local people.

In conclusion, I believe that businesses should be responsible for helping society to solve problems, such
as environmental degradation and increased unemployment rates.
=========================

Multinational companies are becoming increasingly common in developing countries. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of this?

Multinational enterprises have been increasingly popular in today’s business world. It is claimed that
these enterprises provide plenty of opportunities for host countries; simultaneously, they are also
pregnant with certain drawbacks for local businesses and the environment.

The activities of transitional corporations can create a significant economic boost for less developed
nations. Firstly, thanks to projects concerning the construction of factories and infrastructure, more jobs
and trainings for local people are created. Secondly, due to their activities, these corporations help other
nations improve economic governance as well as broaden export and import, which enables them to
gain further integration into global economy. From the international perspective, the activities of
transnational companies also contribute to hunger eradication and poverty alleviation in developing
countries. Additionally, the local industry can get access to higher technology from foreign countries
through transitional companies, which helps improve its technological parameter.

On the other hand, multinational enterprises obviously have negative impacts on the local community.
First, the jobs that they create are not permanent because these enterprises could relocate to another
country, which is caused by management barriers in the host nation. Second, in developing economies,
large multinational companies can have greater competitive advantages than local firms which may lead
to the latter becoming broke. Last but not least, in order to maximize profits, transitional corporations
often contribute to pollution in the local areas, which puts the environment under threat.

To summarize, despite the inevitable negative impacts when setting up business in other nations,
transitional enterprises are evidently appealing to and are welcomed by the nations provided that their
practices also respond to their social responsibilities apart from making money.

Large businesses have big budgets for marketing and promotion and as a result, people gravitate
towards buying their products. What problems does this cause? What could be done to encourage
people to buy local products?

These days there seems to be a tendency for people to purchase products from large companies, mainly
due to the fact that such businesses are able to afford more effective marketing and advertising
strategies. This essay will discuss a number of problems that are caused by thistrend and some possible
solutions that could help to minimize these issues.

There are several problems arising from this situation. Firstly, due to the higher demand for more
appealing and affordable products from larger companies, many smaller, local and family-run businesses
are faced with a decrease in sales and a significant loss in revenue. This, in turn, affects their profits and
as a result, many small businesses go bankrupt and close down. This can then severely affect the local
economy of a city or a country and lead to a loss of employment for many people. Furthermore, with
less businesses competing with each other, larger companies can monopolize the market which may
eventually result in a limited variety of available products and the possibly of lower quality services.
There are, however, a number of feasible solutions to tackle this increasing problem. To begin with, local
governments and businesses could cooperate in order to spread awareness to citizens about how
purchasing local products and supporting local businesses has a positive impact on a city’s or country’s
economy. In addition to this, governments could enforce some regulations upon big, international
companies, such as tax increases, to try to decrease the negative impacts they cause, and try to
encourage them to conduct business in a socially responsible manner.

In conclusion, although larger companies should be allowed to conduct business, governments and
people must ensure that these businesses do not cause detrimental harm to the local economies and
the citizens within these areas.

In most successful companies, some people think that communication between employers and workers
is the most important factor. Other people say that other factors are more important. Discuss both
views and give your opinion.

Some people think that effective communication between managers and subordinate employees is the
most important feature of an organization’s success. However, there are other contributing factors to an
organization’s success that may be more important. I will discuss both sides of this argument in this
essay.

Managers make decisions about the direction of an organization and employees implement those
decisions. Consequently, it is important that, when a decision is made, this decision can be
communicated effectively to the workers. (1) If the workers misinterpret a decision, the consequences
could range from a minor discrepancy, to a serious setback for the organization. Effective
communication and implementation of decisions will result in the organization running as the managers
want it to be run.

There are many other factors that contribute to a company’s success, some of which could be
considered more important than effective communication. (2) For example, the competency of
managers themselves contributes significantly to success. It does not matter if a worker can effectively
employ a policy if the policy, created by the manager, is useless or detrimental to the organization’s
success. (3) Another contributing factor to success is the reliability and availability of good workers. An
organization could have the best managers in the world, but if there is not a skilled and reliable work
force available to them, progress will be slow and success difficult to come by. I believe that both of
these factors are more important than communication between managers and workers itself.

Many employers find that their new employees lack sufficient interpersonal skills such as lack of ability
to work with colleagues as a team. What are the causes? Can you suggest some possible solutions?

Some employers nowadays are observing that their newly-hired staff lack fundamental interpersonal
skills, such as teamwork. This problem results from a number of cause to which several solutions will be
proposed in this essay.

First, the lack of interpersonal skills in new employees is attributable to the nature of their previous
workplace. In many companies, employees are divided into departments and work in small separate
spaces or cubicles, in which each member is assigned particular tasks unrelated to their colleagues. (1)
Opportunities to share experience or exchange work-related subjects therefore rarely arise and
teamwork skills cannot be developed. A lack of proper training during time at university could be
another cause. Tertiary education nowadays seems to place more emphasis on training students to
excel in their major through theoretical subjects rather than equipping them with fundamental soft
skills.(2) Many fresh graduates as a result are unable to collaborate effectively with their co-workers
once entering the workforce despite having extensive expertise.

There are some solutions that can be implemented by companies and universities to address the
problem. For instance, companies need to alter the way in which their employees work in order to
create more opportunities for colleague interaction. Instead of working individually, projects could be
more teamwork-orientated. Also, the grading criteria currently applied at university need to be changed
to incorporate more soft skill training. Apart from compulsory major-related subjects, students should
also be engaged in workshops or subjects specializing in job-related skills. All of these subjects will count
towards students’ overall GPA when they gradate to ensure they are wellequipped with appropriate
workplace skills.

In conclusion, a lack of basic interpersonal skills in new employees stems from businesses’ workplace
practices and the educational system, and there are a number of feasible solutions to tackle this issue.