band 60-70: CRITERIA FOR A GOOD FRIEND

        When we think ticklish sides of the world, we need somebody to cope with difficulties. We want to trust him/her and share our problems and our happiness with him/her. Therefore, we are always looking for the most suitable person. Of course, it is not easy as we thought but we might try to recognize people and decide which one suits us.It is also crucial that this person must give you confidence,love and listen you and make feel that s/he is always with you.Person who you choose as a friend must be like a father and always tries to protect you against harmful situations or must be like a mother and be compassionate.Of course there are a lot of criteria for a good and real friend but being always reliable,honesty whatever happens and keeping secrets can be the basic criteria.

        First of all, one of the features of a wanted friend is being always reliable because reliability is one of the most crucial qualification that is expected from a friend.For instance, when you need somebody in any situation,there must be somebody who is always near you and supports you.You must have a friend protecting your private goods when you entrust them to him/her.For example,when you are away,your friend must protect your goods. There must be a friend who you can go anywhere with him/her without hesitating. So,reliability gives you durability and makes you feel in secure.

        Secondly, honesty may be one of the qualifications which affects a person.Everybody can tell good sides of you but a good friend tells you bad sides,as well because his/her aim is not deceiving you.For example there is a problem about your friend and you realize that but you think if you mention about it,s/he can take offense but you think you should be honest about it because this problem can affect his/her life negatively.You choose your best words and tell. Maybe at fist s/he can get angry with you but then s/he will realize that you are right.Because of your honesty your friend will start to behave carefully. Relationship between you and your friend will be more durable thanks to honesty.

        Thirdly,keeping secret is one of the features which is wanted from a good friend.For example,when something bad happened although you are cross with your friend,you are comfortable that your friend is a real and good friend and will not tell your secrets to anyone.Secrets are sometimes can be too heavy incubus to live with them so you need to share them with a trustful friend.For instance,you heard a very terrifying admission from somebody and you learned it but it is too heavy to hide it and you tell it to your friend and feel that your incubus decreased.After that you start to feel more comfortable and also trustworthy. That is to say, secrets sometimes can be very crucial for our lives,finding a good friend to keep them is also significant.

        All in all,being reliable,honesty whatever happens and keeping secret are the most important qualificaions of a good friend. Everbody wants to be with a reliable person.’’When ditrust began,friendship disappeared.’’said Epicure. Reliability is equal to friendship so we must rely on somebody and try to find a real person. In my opinion, nobody rejects a person who is honest. If there is something bad or wrong,being honesty solves all the problems. Honesty shows that a person is moral.Everybody has secrets and sometimes we need to share them with somebody but this person is not be an ordinary one.We want to choose a trustful person who can keep our secrets. These criteria can hold friends all together.I mean,go on a long journey and in this journey eliminate handicaps,in the end you will reach an infinite sea then resign youself to the sea.

by Merve Cukaz 1st year ELT Student @ Erciyes University.

Band 60-70

Population: “Asset or Alarm Bells”

Population indicates the number of people who lives in a specific area. According to the sources, the number of livings on earth is now more than 7 billion and increasing progressively. This seems like a good thing or can be considered as an asset for the world but it can also turn to be an affliction if the explosion cannot be controlled. This is because, people need particular things to survive and there should be a balance between the things –resources- and the rate of population. However, due to tremendous growth in population, resources cannot responding our needs. Consequently, high rate of population growth turns to be an affliction when it actually could be an asset. The general rate is currently growing at a rate of approximately 1.14% per year and if it continue to growing more, the problems we should have to face with will be more in relation to lacking of resources. Some of these problems are shortage of food, poverty and housing (accommodation) problems.

To begin with shortage; Shortage is one of the major problems, nearly can be seen every part in the world. It can be in economy field or for instance; labor shortage but the most important one for all human being is shortage of food to stay alive and carry out vital functions. On account of growing population, food supply in markets do not provide the population needs, the resources are starting to run out. Approximately 7 billion people live in the world and more or less one in eight cannot find enough food supply to eat. This is because, as the population rate increase, the amount of food supply which people have to take increase. It seems like the population are growing drastically and in a fast way than people’s ability to grow food and that will eventually open the doors for a mass starvation in the near future. Even right now, 10 million people die of starvation and hunger-related diseases every year because they could not have the chance to get sufficient food supply.

The second problem which population explosion –though not directly- led to is poverty. Everything about this problem start with another problem: Educational problems. In many countries in the world, some families are not send their children to schools maybe it is because economic reasons and fees or maybe it is because some cultural beliefs. Therefore, in a situation like this, children cannot access to education and their job alternatives which they will do in the future are diminishing. Especially, in undeveloped countries usually these children have job prospects like farming and manual labor which do not even supply the simple needs. That is why some families think to give birth to benefit their children to provide extra income. However, that just makes the things worse than ever because according to some research, people who make a living by farming have more children to provide more labor and income. Due to increasing population rate, access to health services and education are becoming less and the next generation is prone to repeat the cycle. As a result, lack of education with population growth, trigger the poverty.

Thirdly and lastly; Housing problems are also one of the critical results of population explosion. The population is growing with an uncontrollable way so the accommodation needs of people and the number of households are rising. This is because some people are living alone and maybe some of them have second properties. Thus, a country with a dense population might need extra houses per year. However, these extra need houses come up with new problems like great pressure on limited resources such as water and electricity. This is because, when there is more home the more amount of water will be consumed and the more electricity, natural gas will be used. In this respect, for instance, UK could not obstruct this problem and called for a new law. The report stated that London is in a housing crisis due to steadily increasing population. This housing crisis make the rents 64% higher, consequently, the number of families cannot afford to own a home has increased. Plus, the report finds that in addition to housing, population growth generates supplementary demand for food, water and electricity because of the number of living humans in houses.

In conclusion; this unbalanced and unconscious increase is one of the global problems we should deal with. Each day, with growing population, our problems are getting bigger proportionally. People need adequate quantity of food to survive but due to high growth in population, shortage shows itself with insufficient resources. This time, poverty starts to show itself on account of the people who obliged to live with insufficient resources and food, that is to say, constitution of bad conditions. Bad conditions make life even harder. Housing problem is also one of them. Rising number of households, expensive land prices are all results of population explosion. From this point of view, since population dense is important for us to live in better conditions, we should be careful about it. If we can take a look at mathematically, we already see instability between resources and population. Though in the moment, we do not recognize it clearly, approximately within 50 years our resources will be finished according to the estimates. Therefore, we should take some precautious to keep a balance between population and resources for the world’s future.

Author: Damla Uygun (1^st year ELT)