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 70-80: FRIENDSHIP

          There is a fact that people have been interacting with one another for ages. This interaction has been engaging people not in the real life but also in their minds and dreams. This simply makes the interaction cover people’s lives to a large extent during their lives. In line with this, the interaction among people is so important for them in the world, where interpersonal relations prevail, that it brings with some strong emotions for people over time. These emotions also generate close relationship as we can label ‘’real friendship''. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, ‘’Friendship is always a sheltering tree’’. As can be understood, the friendship that people gain great experience forms a crucial part of communication among people because people are born, grow mature, and die with their friends. Nevertheless, having a real friend might require some criteria for people such aspaying special attention to personality features, mutual respect and social relations of your potential friend.

           To begin with, personality feature is a crucial criterion for people who are on the verge of making a friend. This feature forms a basis for a permanent friendship. There is a range of personality features with the inclusion of being supporting and encouraging, sharer and honest. Having a supportive friend hits the spot for people when they confront with a vague problem. In such cases, the friend manages to raise people’s moral and encourages them. For instance, while I was getting prepared for the university exam, I had low scores in earlier exams. However, my sister struggled to encourage me to succeed by heeding my trouble like a close friend and consequently, I coped with the exam. Another feature to consider is about being sharer. Being sharer may be crucial to you. Sharing includes not only property, but also emotions. As long as people share their friends’ happiness and sadness, they will be more pleased in the life. For example, I was staying at dormitory in high school years and we were always celebrating our friends’ birthdays, so we shared one another’s happiest day and consolidated our friendship. The last thing would be related to having honesty. As it forms backbone of friendship, even tiny lie may damage the friendship, so people should love each other without profit. Otherwise, they may not have even a friend. In short, above mentioned personality features are vital to make friends.

         Another point to consider in making friends is the mutual respect. This point is effective for long-standing friendship. For one thing, racial discrimination is a disruptive attitude in friendship, so you should not give priority to people’s appearance and races in making friend. The thing that you need to care in making friend is to have mutual respect. For example, a lot of blackish people may go to your country to work or study. However, when you run across these kinds of people in your circle of friends, you should never give prominence their races to make friendship. It is because people’s races are not important for friendship and people should be judged with their behaviors not races. The other point to consider is about empathizing with people. The empathetic understanding provides to continue your friendship for a long time. For instance, if your friends make a decision which you do not appeal, you should empathize with her/him to see the point instead of being angry with her/him. The last thing would be related to choosing

your words carefully in conversation. While you are in communication with your friends, you should think twice your words which will say. Otherwise, you cannot draw back your words and consequently, you may be on the brink of disagreement with your friends, so talking carefully in friends is an important criterion. To wit, mutual respect is also crucial criterion in making a firm friendship.

        Thirdly, social relation is a critical matter for a peaceful friendship process. As you know, every person wants to make a friend who is compatible with her/his circle. Nobody wants to be harmed or killed because of their friend acquired, so people care about their friends’ social relations in making friend. For example, some people come across a person who has been in the prison because of committing offense and the situation precludes making friend due to people’s prejudices against the person. In addition, people’s relationship with their families is a crucial criterion for friendship. For instance, every person cannot get on well with their families. This disagreement brings about great problems for them like not staying at their home, staying at their friends’ home or living rough and consequently, this situation causes to be approached against the people with bias in the way of making friend. Above mentioned reasons, social relations have crucial role for an impeccable acquiring friends.

          To sum up, making a friend includes criteria like personality features, mutual respect and social relations. When we look in general, these species of criteria vary from person to person. The reason of variability in making a friend stems from having different qualifications like personality features. These features are enough for people to give confidence one another. Mutual respect is a crucial criterion in terms of being understanding and not being prejudiced for people’s appearance and behaviors. Social relations are also vital matter about making a reliable friend and not being exposed to threats by friends people have. I think, while comparing the criteria, personality features are the most inclusive criterion in above mentioned criteria. Having mutual respect and good social relations will be also inevitable in making friend if people have decent personality features. In short, as Aristotle said ‘’Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit’’. As can be understood, this qualification diversity that people have causes to process slowly period of making friend. Therefore, it takes time to find a friend who has an excellent feature.


by Çetin Özgür Düzgün 1st year ELT Student @ Erciyes University

Band 80-90: The Sharpest Sword or The Mightiest Shield

            Friends are as effective as a sword that is being used to attack us or a shield that will protect us from the attacks in the battlefield that we call 'life'. They help us getting through hardships, cheer us up and when we need, they become our back-ups. But when picked carelessly our friendships may backfire and leave us in a tough situation. There are many kinds of friends; colleagues, friends met through social media, neighbors, classmates. Each of them has their significant role in our life. Some of them helps us doing home works, some of them are always upbringing and cheers us up, some of them accompany us when we are alone and depressed. But we must be careful on friends whom we will completely trust and share our private matters. We must judge their characters well. One might look different than he or she really is. There are qualifications that we must find in a real friend who we can trust such as characteristic features, social interactions and maturity.

            First of all, characteristic features of a person whom you will choose as a friends is a crucial matter which you should be aware of. Every person is different from the other hence characteristic features differ from one to another. If one does not act strictly when judging characteristic features of friends around, s/he might be lied to or even get betrayed. For instance if you keep trusting a person who does not value loyalty, you will eventually got betrayed from that person like Julies Caesar, who said ''You, too, Brutus?'' as his last words. In addition to loyalty, honesty is also vital characteristic feature to find in a real friend. The lack of honesty can cause insecurity between friends and that leads to parting ways with each other. Overall, one must be aware of what are the characteristic features of the people around him/her and choose friends depending on these qualifications.

            Secondly, social interactions of a friend is way too pivotal to ignore when choosing a friend. The way your friend interacts with other people will eventually influence your own relation with those people too. If your friend is acting hostile towards someone then that person will probably feel resentment towards you too since s/he sees you with your friend. On the other hand, your friend's positive interactions will benefit you. For instance, when your friend acts respectful towards your elders then they will think that you are such a kind person too unless you disrespect them. Human nature mostly been this like this; people will usually judge you with what you look like or especially with whom they see you are close with. Overall, a friends interactions with others are another compelling matter that you must not miss when choosing a friend.

            Lastly, maturity is a must-have prerequisite in choosing a friend. The way your friend reacts to the events (which are occurring around you and your friend) will shape your own reactions too and being mature helps us with our responsibilities or problem solving abilities. Thus progress will be made within our life. As an illustration, a mature friend would not make biased decisions and think twice before deciding while considering every circumstance. On the other hand, an immature friend who rushes every decision with a lack of the grasp in the matter would also abash the harmony of your decision making thus make you vulnerable to the negative consequences of your wrong moves. The aforementioned reasons are why you must be vigilant about maturity of a person when choosing a friend.

            In epitome, the process of choosing a friend has three main points: characteristic features, social interactions and maturity. You must pick friends attentively and look for at least these three qualifications since friends are like double edged swords. Characteristic features are what makes someone worthy of others respect. A friend must be equipped with good characteristic features to avoid bringing harm to others. A friend who has pleasant interactions with others will raise the quality of your life, as well. And a mature natured friend would help one to cope with unexpected events that we face within our lives. Since a human being cannot live a  life without interacting with others nor live without a friend, every single person must be cautious when choosing a friend otherwise you would find yourself sinking in a swamp; thinking about how you ended up in that situation while going down.

by Kadir Akkaya 1st year ELT Student @Erciyes University

Band 90-100: Best Decisions and Best Friends

My grandfather always says ‘the bond of communion is more significant than kindredship’.  Kindredship, blood relationship, is involuntary but friendship is in your hands. Real friends are like your siblings without ties of blood. Sometimes, your friend knows you better and h/she is closer than your relatives or even your family.  Besides, you choose the person to be your friend whom you will build strong and deep bonds. How strong the bond of friendship depends on how you choose your friends. Choosing a friend wisely makes camaraderie last forever, however, choosing him/her carelessly makes it go down in flames.  That is why criteria of choosing friends are immensely crucial. In parallel with this, there are some criteria about what makes a person a good friend. By taking into account his or her characteristics, life style and point of view, you can decide whether a person will be a good friend or not.

First of all, for choosing a superb friend, one of the remarkable and pivotal criteria should be characteristics. The steadier his/her characteristics are, the more durable your friendship would be. S/he should be understanding when you make a mistake or take a decision. A real friend thinks that you have a strong reason for what you did or asks why you did so and tries to understand your situation. Otherwise, h/she can easily cut the painter in every mistake you made. Likewise, a friend should not be revengeful after you do something wrong. Such a negative and hazardous personality can harm both of you. Also, a real friend is not self-seeker as your success should be his/her happiness. If not, friendship does not last for a long time. For instance, I had a friend who blamed me for being overambitious whenever I wanted to get higher marks and I was happy, she would be upset and said I was selfish and did not understand how she felt. In such circumstances, friendship would probably end with an irrelevant pretext. When considering the criteria for choosing a friend, characteristics of your potential friend can play a big part in it.

Secondly, life style is another crucial criterion for choosing a real friend. The proverb ‘if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas’ verifies this criterion. How they live can have an enormous impact on your life, your friendship and your personality. Specifically, a true friend should not have bad habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol. Even if you avoid these habits, after a while, such bad habits would seem good and you would get used to them. Indeed, the significant reason for getting into the habit of smoking and alcohol or drug dependency is mainly related to choosing friends carelessly. Moreover, if you are shy and asocial, it is important to have a friend who always socializes with people and loves outdoors. Such friends could provide you to get rid of your shyness and to learn how to communicate. Importantly, having hobbies that both can enjoy would improve your friendship. Hereby, you can have good time and become real friends in time. Also, h/she knows what can entertain you when you are in a bad mood. By looking at such details, life style can definitely be a decisive criterion to take into consideration while picking a friend.

Lastly, the less effective but consequential criterion for choosing a friend is point of view of your potential friend. Friends may have different enjoyments, and they may (dis)like different things nevertheless they would not be close friends unless they have similar point of view to yours. If a thing is absolutely wrong for one and the thing is certainly wrong for another, one day, they would conflict with each other. In particular, doing something behind someone’s back or lying should be wrong for both of them. Also, your friend’s point of view on life impacts you. It is significant that your friend is whether optimistic or pessimistic. Joel Osteen says ‘’you cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.’’ Accordingly, negative people consume your energy of life. Moreover, if a person thinks himself/herself superior, it is difficult to be his/her friend because the person cannot accept that h/she is wrong or you are better at something. Such a friend always underestimates you and causes to lose your self-confidence.  Although people do not exactly pay attention to point of view when they choose a friend, it influences not only friendship but also their life.

In a nutshell, choosing a person whom you can call a real friend can probably be based on his/her characteristics, life style and point of view. Of course, we do not think about the criteria while becoming friends at first. However, these criteria might help you decide how you can select a person whom you will let him/her know all about you and have remarkable effects on your lives. Especially, characteristic has great importance in friendship because it determines their life style and point of view. In addition, characteristics are corner stones of camaraderie and steady characteristics lay the foundations of strong friendship. If you bear this criterion in mind when choosing a friend, your friendship stays strong for years like a well based building. As Rashida Rowe said ‘friends are angels who lift our feet when our own wings have trouble remembering how to fly.’


by Zarife Nur Göveç 1st year ELT student @ Erciyes University

Band 90-100: Elected Features for a Selected Friend

        Considering humans as social beings, there are certain and crucial requirements for them to survive, ranging from fundamental physical necessities to emotional ones. These emotional needs are based on building healthy relations with others as a part of the psychological aspect of human life. As is known, relation is the bonds in family, between spouses, even colleagues and of course between friends. There is no possible way to determine our parents, still we can be quite selective on the matter of accepting someone as a friend. Although, there are several specific features we look for on someone to build up the friendship bonds, the following three would be the basic but common ones for many; personality, point of view and life style. 

        First of all, it is certainly inevitable to observe the personality of someone before setting up a close relationship with him/her. Indeed, there are various attitudes that can be treated as the components of personality such as being supportive, trustworthy, thoughtful, forgiving, genuine and kind. For instance, having supportive and kind manner may be the essential ones for some considering that people need emotional support in most cases and wish to have it in the kindest way possible. In similar to this, being accused of the unintentional mistakes is purely severe; therefore, a person who is forgiving and gracious would be what many people look for. Another point to consider is that, imagine someone who is far away from being judgmental conversely and s/he cares about other`s thoughts by being a good listener, all could determine the significance of personality of a desired friend.

        Secondly, another crucial point to take into consideration while choosing a friend is perception of life. To be clearer, it is the fact that people see and approach the events and others in numerous ways. For instance, people tend to see the glass either half full or half empty. This perspective may determine whether someone seeks the good and illustrates the bright side both in people and in themselves. In relation to this, the attitude of a person towards the life would basically influence the others around. Indeed, “the way the people around us respond to stressful events — whether those people react negatively or positively — may be contagious” *, a new study says. Therefore, to avoid negative thoughts and to embrace a healthy and glamorous mind and life, it is critical to opt someone who is glowing with a sparkling light and inspires around to be the same.

       Thirdly, it is possible to count the life style as a distinctive determiner in point of choosing a friend. Certain habits like eating healthy food, sleeping times, engaging in profitable issues in spare times could be thought as the life style. In particular, the activities or hobbies one perform in his/her spare time are extremely important because people generally spend their free time together by doing the things they enjoy. If two people do not have any kind of pleasure in common, probably, having time together will be suffering for them. Another point to take into account is eating habits. Since there could be wide variety of food choices range from healthy, organic to rubbish, fast-food types, it is essential to select someone who shares the similar eating habits. As it will eventually influence your body and health. Hence, the way we choose to live the life had better be similar to him/her whom we choose as a friend.

        All in all, personality, point of view and life style could be the foremost criteria inquired by the majority before commencing to build up a friendship. Therefore, it is highly important to bear in mind them with respect to one`s priority. As point of view and life style are bound to personality, they could be shaped or built according to personality. Hence, it is highly possible to suggest that personality could be the one which is mostly required to be prioritized. Yet, being over selective could result in solitude, impact of which is negative on people`s daily lives. As Mark Twain stated “Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide with it” *. The key point is to hold the balance between being fussy or being hasty for the purpose of living and cherishing the life with its entire sense.

  

References

*1: www.livescience.com/28877-negative-thoughts-depression-contagious.html

*2: www.quotationspage.com/quote/31084.html 

by Sema Akbaş 1st year ELT Student @ Erciyes University

*IMNASSIPLE

             Once upon a time, there was a prince and a princess. They lived far far away from each other. The princess lived in the Gayseri Kingdom and the prince lived in the Gars Kingdom. The princess was the most beautiful princess of them all. Her name was Albunea. The prince was as strong as a lion. His name was Italos. 

            Both of their parents wanted them to get married. But they were waiting for their true loves. One day, Italos got bored of playing farmville on facebook. He started to look at ‘’people you may know’’ part of facebook. Then Italos found himself looking at Albunea’s profile. When Italos was stalking her, Italos saw that Albunea was single and the lady of his dreams. Italos decided to meet his little lovely ladybug. There was just one problem. Italo did not know were Albunea lived. He waited Albunea to check-in, so Italo would know which kingdom she lived in. Suddenly Albunea checked in. She was in starbucks in Gayseri Kingdom. Italo decided to go to Gayseri without his parents’ permission. However ,the next morning, Italo started his journey with his horse. It’s name was Duldul.

            Italos and Duldul were riding through the forest. Strange things started to happen! They exceeded their speed limit. They did not realize there was a radar control ahead of them. After a little while, the snakepolice swang from the tree. The snakepolice told them to stop. Italos did not listen. The snakepolice showed Italos his teeth. Still Italo kept riding his horse. All of a sudden, the snake jumped from the tree and bit Duldul’s hoof. Duldul fell to the ground and his brain was in million pieces on the ground. Duldul was suffering in pain. Italos looked back, he saw the snakepolice under Duldul’s hoofs. Both of them were dead. Italos, crying, got up and carried on. Later on Italos arrived to Gayseri Kingdom doors. He knocked the door and went inside. He was lookig for the princess. Miraculously, Italos noticed the princess taking selfies with other ladies. Italos ran into Albunea and told his story. Despite his dirty look, princess was so impressed of Italos’ courage and ambition.

The prince and the princess got to know each other more when they spent a lot of time together. One day, the prince was going to propose to the princess. He hid the diamond ring inside a cake. He was so excited. The princess had her first bite. She did not notice the ring. Suddenly she started to choke. The prince was in shock! Albunea turned red. She got breathless! She fell down and died! The prince lost his mind! He always waited for Albunea to come back but it was too late..

P.S.: NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT ASKING PARENTS’ PERMISSION! :)

Imnassiple: A make up word that means ''something not destined to be (by God) '
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Note: This is an original piece of narrative please cite this website if you want to use this for any educational purposes. The text was produced by YÜSRA YILDIRIM; ELİF AKAN; SAİDE ARSLAN.

THE HEROINES OF THE SMART BOARD

Once upon a time, in Kasseria there was a joyful English Language Teaching Class which was full of bighearted students. In this class, there were three intelligent and hardworking girls named Cansumius, Zeynorious and Hatchengle. Also these were such mysterious girls that nobody knew who they really were, where they came from and with whom they did hang out.

One day, when this sweet class was having an Advanced Text Analysis course, their lecturer Mr. Erdemous realized that the class had not done their homework, but the three famous girls. He got mad and started to shout at students. ‘You all made me sad!’ said he. ‘Five points will be taken from your score back!’ And suddenly, a huge black hole emerged on the smart board behind him and swallowed him up.

While the students were stupefied and panicked, Cansumius, Zeynorious and Hatchengle had already started to think about what happened to Mr. Erdemous. They told the rest of the class to calm down. They thought that it happened because Mr. Erdemous said the magic words for the parallel universe behind the smart board. They tried to figure out the magic words. They repeated almost all of the things he said and when they said ‘Five points will be taken from your score back’, again the black hole emerged and swallowed them up. They landed on a green area and they saw a creature which is like a skeleton.  ‘Who are you!’ said the bravest one Hatchengle. The creature said: ‘I am Grendel. I have a riddle for you. If you answer it correctly, I will give you the map that paves the way for finding your lecturer.’ The girls said: ‘We all are ready to do everything.’ ‘What do you call a witch at the beach? (*)’ asked Grendel. They thought for a while and found the answer. ‘Sandwich!’ said they. ‘Correct!’ said Grendel and gave them the map. It was time for challenging journey.

Their first station was brobdingnag. They stepped into the village of giants. Giants told them that if they wanted to pass the village to reach their lecturer, they had to wash their dishes. Their boilers were huge and girls washed them for days. Fortunately, giants were pleased with their efforts and let them go. Then, their second station was the valley of spiders. They were supposed to pass through the forest full of those huge creatures. They were rounded with them. At that hopeless time, three handsome boys came into view with three Pegasuses which looked magnificent with their huge wings. They saved the girls and took them to the foot of the Olympus Mountain. The girls saw Mr.Erdemous beside the Giant Dragon. The Dragon said: ‘The smart board took your lecturer because of his cruelty. He shouted at miserable students and I will not give him to you.’ But the three brave handsome boys and clever girls fought with the dragon and killed it. The girls said the magic words and the black hole emerged again. They thought that they found their real love but they had to make sacrifice to return to real life so they said their farewells to the boys and went back to the world with their lecturer. Mr.Erdemous thanked to them and promised to give them extra points in front of the class.

They lived happily ever after with their high scores.

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Note: This is an original piece of narrative please cite this website if you want to use this for any educational purposes. The text was produced by  CANSU AKYOL- HATİCE NUR DOĞAN – ZEYNEP NUR DOĞAN!

  

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