Category: Outlines

There are many opinions regarding the environment and how we should treat it. Explain what would be the most effective environmental initiative that could be taken.

Points for environmental initiative that could be taken

• More can be done, particularly in developing countries, for example: animal hygiene (the cause of recent pandemics.)
• Pandemic preparedness has made good progress in recent years thanks to partnerships at regional and global levels which keep early warning communication channels open. Thus authorities in different parts of the world can heed warnings on possible causes for concern.
• Environmental initiative that could be taken are that Pharmaceutical companies are geared up to finding speedy answers to various viruses, albeit at a considerable cost which may not be affordable to developing countries.
• Efforts at the national level to meet health crises will vary because of awareness, organisation and financial clout and should be closely geared to international monitoring.

What do you understand by the rule of law? Consider how it might be applied in the modern world.

How can the rule of law might be applied in the modern world.

• A definition is required
• Democracies and the rule of law
• United Nations and human rights
• Law and religious belief
• International courts
• Protest and representatives of the law
• The fairness or otherwise of individual laws
• The limits of legislation
• Situations that call into question the legitimacy of legal systems or individual laws
• Dictatorship and the law
• Forms of codification

To what extent might a country’s tourist industry harm the local people?

Points for how might a country’s tourist industry harm the local people

• Customs and traditions could become a ‘sideshow’
• Land taken for the development
• Denied access to beaches/tourist sites
• Rise in the cost of living
• Only the elite/investors/government benefit from the profits
• Moral degeneration (sex tourism/rise in crime/begging)
• Seasonal work
• Growth in cottage/craft industries
• Improved infrastructure
• More employment opportunities
• Exhibit and share traditions/rituals

Many of the world’s languages face extinction. Is it important to document and revive them?

Points for many of the world’s languages face extinction.

• For historical reasons to prevent loss of heritage
• world’s languages face extinction because oral history can easily be forgotten
• Helps us to evaluate how languages work, not, for example, ‘I am
reading’ but ‘I sit reading’ or ‘I stand reading’
• Education entirely in a dominant language makes it difficult for
speakers of indigenous languages to become literate
• Dual naming develops respect and awareness
• Uniqueness – endangered languages promote community cohesion
• They reflect attitudes to the social and natural worlds
• They are the storehouse of a community’s cultural, intellectual, and
artistic life
• Loss of languages affects us all – we lose ways of seeing the world
• Making physical records is maybe all that linguists can do

Assess whether traditional stories, with which you are familiar, have any relevance to the modern world.

Points for assessing whether traditional stories have any relevance to the modern world.

• Most traditional stories have universal themes (good v evil, heroism, deception and betrayal, identity) which are relevant today
• Need to adapt character/setting to a modern setting
• Can the cultural context be maintained? (cultures do develop and change)
• Makes them accessible to new audiences
• How do you update the social/historic context?
• Identify the subtle/moral teachings within the story
• Updating could lose the folklore tone/atmosphere
• Often the setting remains traditional but the language is modernised or becomes a pantomime (traditional)/a musical
• As in oral traditions modernising can keep the story alive/in the modern consciousness

Sculpture and statues were highly regarded in the ancient world. How important are these art forms today?

Are Sculpture and statues highly regarded today?

• Sculpture an ancient art form still practised today
• Statuary and significant figures from the past
• Objects of timeless beauty
• Attractions, sometimes controversial, in our public spaces
• Statues and sport – outside stadiums, for example
• Carvings and sculptures across cultures can be remarkably similar
• Educational benefits
• For the ancients they were part of everyday life – why not today?
• Their defacement or destruction diminishes us all
• Today we can venerate the artistry both past and present
• Compare to digital art and new media

To what extent do the clothes we wear express our personality?

Points for and against the claim that clothes we wear express our personality

• Fashion and image
• Cultural identity
• Extrovert/introvert
• Some can easily be forgotten
• Clothes create meaning for us
• They can act as memory prompts
• Gender differences
• Clothes and class
• Objects of beauty and part of our quotidian experience
• Utilitarian functions and social expectation

One in nine people on our planet cannot enjoy life because of malnutrition. Suggest and evaluate ways that could cope with this crisis.

How can we cope with the problem of malnutrition

• Less emphasis on meat production
• To cope with the problem of malnutrition there is a need for more support for small farmers
• Cash crops and local needs
• Ownership of patent – GM crops – the role of GM in countering scarcity
– positive and negative aspects
• Use of water – how to more effective and less wasteful use of
• Role of charities and volunteers outside of purely cash donation
• Less waste of food in wealthier nations/adjustment of shopping
habits and attitudes
• Education in sustainable farming methods
• Food awareness and health

Nanotechnology has immense potential in medical science. How far should developments in this technology take priority in medical research?

Points for Nanotechnology immense potential in medical science

• Can target specific cells
• Nanotechnology has immense potential in medical science as it can help in attacking cancers
• Tiny robots have been developed that can travel through the
bloodstream attending to damaged tissue or carrying medicines to
specific parts of the body
• Microchip implants can help the paralysed regain use of their limbs
• Nerve cells from the nose have been removed and transplanted to
treat a damaged spinal column
• Microprocessing is an example of nanotechnology – if it has benefits
here why not elsewhere?
• Safety issues when materials are reduced to the nanoscale – they
might replicate alarmingly and congregate in the lungs, for example
• Nanoparticles pour out of car exhausts and these are toxic
• Sufferers from diabetes could benefit – no need to inject – insulin is
released when needed
• The management of treatment for a range of conditions could
become dramatically less onerous

To what extent can outside intervention in the affairs of sovereign countries be justified?

Can intervention in the affairs of sovereign countries be justified

• One rule for one, not others
• Types of espionage
• Countries that default on their debts
• The prevention of genocide
• The impacts of the intervention on other countries
• Arbitrarily drawn borders
• Is independence any longer meaningful?
• The authority of the U.N