IELTS Essay: Future or Present?
Created by Jeenn Lee Hsieh

中国考区2012年4月21日雅思大作文
海外大学教师谢振礼原创

Some people prefer planning for the future while others argue that we should focus on the present. What is your opinion? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

真题大意：有人认为应该计划将来，也有人认为重点就是现在。你同意哪一种想法？请说出你的道理，并却从个人的知识或经验中，举出例子来证明。

Example Writing:

The present is where everything begins and there is no time like the present. Without being prisoners of the past, winners prefer working in the changing present toward the unpredictable future. The trouble with some people is that they are planning only for the unforeseeable time to come and not facing the reality now.

Paradoxically, the future is now. It is more realistic to regard life as an awareness of the present rather than a prediction beyond knowledge. Since the future is anybody's guess, "one today is worth two tomorrows," to quote Benjamin Franklin. Therefore, the way we live and the way we work ought to keep in step with the present leading to the future. The logic may be that we can only learn from the past, and on the other hand the future does not affect us now as much as does the present. It also makes sense that the way to plan tomorrow is to enjoy living and working as wisely and beautifully today as possible.

Our argument for focusing on today may as well be based on the fact that the present does not sit still for a portrait, but is changing constantly. Change being the law of life, concentrating our mind on what is happening in the present is probably more true to life than dreaming of the future. It means that life for us today is always becoming and never being. Obviously, today has its own problems to be solved, so there is no need to be over troubled about the future. Accordingly, it is better not to foresee the future but be concerned about taking care of the present. It is one thing to prefer planning for the future, but it is quite another to control the change that follows soon enough.

Focusing on the present is more important than merely planning for the future because right now is one of the moments we are influencing our future. Practically, we should see the future in the present which carries more weight in real life. It stands to reason that the future actually begins now.

国外雅思大作文试题：
议论文的论证：男人不适合做家务事
英国(2012年4月)真题
谢振礼老师原创范文

真题：Men and women employed in full-time jobs have to share evenly household chores and caring for children at home. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

Example Writing:（推理论证）

立场：不同意男人与女人一样做家务事。天生是妈妈的事。
支持：从知识与经验中提出论证——理由，例子，细节。
抽象：逻辑推理；抽象比喻。

Housework and child-care ought to be shared by full-time working men and women "naturally" which means "unevenly." To insist on having the same degree of responsibility, for that matter, is likely to get a wrong picture of what family happiness is all about. Office hours being equal, mothers know best regarding child-rearing and house-cleaning, but no father should have a feeling of quilt for doing less.

It is not easy being a mother; if it were easy, men would do it. However, usually busy mothers are happy women. From doing the dishes to sweeping the house to keeping an eye on kids, any mother can perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. It can be seen that most men cannot outdo women in this respect, even if they would like to. By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off as men do. Women employed in nine-to-five jobs belong to the vacation-less class, in a way almost like destiny. In all appearances, a mother can take the place of all others at home and no one else, including a father, can take the place of a mother.

Men are not to blame for not doing enough housework since housework is not the main reason that women go to office. Although people of both sexes have equal rights under the modern law, it seems strange that men and women should take turns mopping up the floor or feeding a new-born baby. More by biological nature than by social tradition, women probably enjoy doing that kind of things which most men are not born to do. No wonder, the trouble of a man living alone is that it is always his turn to do the dishes. In a certain sense, even a husband's weekend role at home turns out to be something poetic like a perfect summer day when the sun is shinning, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the land mower is broken. In short, men are always like men; and women, working or not, always become like their mothers.

In real life, what is equally shared by working men and women alike is the joy of raising their children and not necessarily of sharing the same amount of the household chores. Therefore, it is proper to conclude that the happiness of a "healthy" family does not depend on the cleanness of the house, which is next to impossible. In fact, the house may be clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy, no matter who does what. (Created by Jeenn Lee Hsieh)