EG1471:Writing assignment 1 (Topic 1)

       People resist new technology because of inconvenience, danger, and the risk of unemployment. Four new types of technology that are commonly resisted by people are solar energy, nuclear power, biotechnology, and information technology. People resist using solar energy because the storage of solar energy is inconvenient and a storage system is unaffordable. Besides, cloudy weather, darkness and location may interrupt the storage of solar energy. Hence, the availability of solar energy is not widespread all over the world. That is why most people prefer using fossil fuel to using solar energy. People also resist nuclear power because it is dangerous though nuclear power can produce a large quantity of energy with a tiny amount of mass, the fusion reaction is hard to control and not safe enough. Residents living near the fusion reactors are afraid of radioactivity, which may cause cancer. Safety issues are also behind people’s resistance to buying and eating genetically modified food. Scientists have proved that several kinds of genetically modified foods are harmful to human health. The New England Journal of Medicine reports a strong and reliable connection between trans fat consumption and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), concluding that “On a per calorie basis, trans fat appears to increase the risk of CHD more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption” (Mozaffarian, Katan, Ascherio, Stampfer, & Willett, 2006). The fear of joblessness also makes people resist technology. Knowledge-based systems, decision support systems and groupware may improve operational efficiency; however, people resist using information technology because it may make them jobless. In conclusion, people resist new technology as it may be inconvenient, harmful, or bad for people’s jobs.
References
Mozaffarian, D., Katan, M. B., Ascherio, A.,Stampfer, M. J ., & Willett, W. C. (2006, April). Trans fatty acids and Cardiovascular Disease. New England Journal of Medicine, 354(15), 1601–1613.

Portfolio task 2:W5T2 Grammar Mistakes

     One of my common grammar mistakes is the usage of tenses especially present perfect tense and simple past tense. Since there is no tense in Chinese grammar, it is quite difficult to me to understand the usage of tenses. That is why I always take a long time to figure out what tenses should be used in my essay. For example, I do not know the difference between “I have eaten an apple” and “I ate an apple last night”. The only thing I know is both of the sentences described a past action. According to SELF Elementary Worksheet1 for Verb Tenses, the definition of simple past tense is “At one particular time in the past, this happened. It began and ended in the past” while for the definition of present perfect tense, “the exact time is not important”. From the definitions of these two tenses, I learned that if a statement of a past action did not mention the exact time, I should use the present perfect tense for the statement. Otherwise, if the time of a past action is mentioned, then I should use the simple past tense instead of using present perfect tense. For example, simple past tense is commonly used in historical book because the book mentioned the time when history occurred. Finally, I managed to use the simple past tense and present perfect tense correctly now. I will do more grammar exercises on tenses to improve my grammar.

Reference: SELF Worksheet1 for Verb Tenses (ELEMENTARY LEVEL). Retrieved 9 September 2008 from http://courses.nus.edu.sg/courseware/ITSELF/.

Exercise for Verb Tenses(This exercise retrieved from SELF Worksheet1 for Verb Tenses ELEMENTARY LEVEL part1)

Fill in each blank with the correct form of the verb given in brackets.

Of all human parts, only brains have never been successfully replaced. Artificial or natural replacements can carry out the work of all the other parts of the human body. False teeth and artificial limbs have long been used. For many years now, people who have lost a lot of blood in an accident or an operation (1)have received(receive) transfusions of blood from blood banks. These blood banks are built up with the help of donors, people who (2)give(give) their blood for those who need it. Skin damaged by burns can also be replaced by healthy skin from other parts of the body in an operation called a skin craft.

The heart is the body's most vital organ. If it (3) stops (stop) working, death soon follows. But many people in our time have bad hearts and suffer from heart disease. Christiaan Barnard, a South African surgeon, gave these people new hope when he (4) performed (perform) the first human heart transplant, after at least twenty trials on dogs, in 1967. He took the heart of a donor shortly after he (5) had died (die) in a car accident and used it to replace a sick man’s heart. Since then, many successful transplants (6) have been carried out (be carried out) and there are people who (7) have lived (live) with transplanted hearts for seven years and more. Kidneys and livers have also been transplanted, though the success rate in liver transplants (8) is(be) still very low.

Answer:
(1) have received, (2) give, (3) stops, (4) performed, (5) had died, (6) have been carried out, (7) have lived, (8) is