hell_abhi

Question To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position. Response Societies are often measured by the development of its major cities. But on second thought it seems that the idea in itself is quite wrong. It is not the city that makes up society, but the people. We can have a well-developed city, but with unhappy residents. We are also ignoring the fact that rural areas don't contribute to the culture, economy etc of a society. By defining the characteristics of society by just studying its major cities handicaps the whole argument as it is simply ignoring the rural part of society. The rural part can have a major population, for example, in a country like India nearly 70% of the population dwell in villages. This case is true for the major of the developing countries. In fact, the rural parts contribute to society in a lot of ways, be it economy through farming, animal husbandry etc, culture by their local traditions, beliefs, festivals etc. By simply measuring a society by cities will be incomplete and wrong. Even if we assume that the major part of the society consists of cities, then by simply studying it won't tell us the true color of the society. It is quite possible that majority of wealth is distributed among a small percentage of the population, and most of the people live under the poverty line. On average, it will seem that the city is doing great, but is it correct to say that when most of the population is struggling to even get two square meals? This inequality in the division of wealth is often the case in a lot of cities, which lead to the development of slum areas, and the condition of those areas are quite petty. It is also possible that on average the people of the city are doing quite good, but still living in the city is problematic. The city can be quite polluted, which is often the cost of development by setting up factories and industries. A lot of cities in China is facing this issue, where people have enough wealth, but they lack pure air to breathe. Should wealth be the only criteria for defining a society? Even a city can be small and underdeveloped, but people living there could be happy and content with their life. Friendly neighbors, helpful people, good environment these factors affect the people on a day-to-day basis and should not be ignored. To conclude, I would like to state that by just studying the cities for knowing the characteristics of a society, we are not doing justice to the conclusion of the study. As we are ignoring a major part of the population which reside in rural areas, and also by just studying a city we can't know the conditions of the residents.

Question Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean. Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument. Response The argument does not provide enough evidence to solidly reach the conclusion that Lithos' baskets were not of Palean origin, by ignoring the facts like changing geography, the presence of alternate routes etc. The argument simply believes that the geography of a region remains constant over the course of years, but that is not the case as proved by a lot of studies. For example, Sahara, the largest desert of the world, used to be green and lush. Movement of tectonic plates, climatic variance, volcanic eruptions etc can change the geography of any region. So if the Brim River is very deep and broad currently, that may not be the case centuries ago. It is even possible that it may not have existed during that period. Have the argument given us some proof regarding the condition of Brim river in pre-historic time, even then we can't be sure that baskets found in Lithos is not of Palean origin. It is quite possible that the idea of Palean baskets could have traveled across any land route by some tribes who keep traveling constantly. There could have been existence of some trade routes between the city of Palea and Lithos. History is full of examples of trade between the various region which lead to exchange of items, ideas, and even culture. If the argument has shed some light over this that it would have been clearer and easier to reach any conclusion. Even if we assume that the idea of Palean baskets could not have traveled through land. Then also we can't be sure of the fact that baskets were not of Palean origin. It is quite possible that by keep searching we may get some source which proves that the city of Palea used to have means of traveling across water bodies. It is often the case in archaeology when some major discoveries are missed. For example, a lot of Egyptian Pyramids were found by chance through the pics of satellites. To conclude, I will like to state that we can't directly come to the conclusion that baskets of Lithos were not of Palean origin. The discoveries related to trade routes, some source which proves of Palean boats etc could sway the direction of the argument.