12月19日托福独立写作真题范文：学校只上四天课

12月19日托福独立写作

Somebody suggests that primary school (elementary school), and high school students (aged 6-18) should reduce the days of attendance of school from five to four, while school hours should be added 90 minutes per day. In your opinion, is it beneficial or harmful to reduce school days while extending school hours per day?

If school weeks are shortened to four days and daily school hours are lengthened, will positive effects be exerted? I hardly think so. As a matter of fact, as this move may save schools’ expenditures, it is not financially fair for families on a budget. In addition, the prolonged school day can undermine overall performance of students and teachers.

It is admitted that by altering the traditional school schedule, schools can save money. To specify, overhead costs like utilities, transportation services and cafeteria expenses involved in each school day may be cut if school weeks are compacted. However, it is actually inequitable【不公平的】 for families, particularly those with low incomes. Now that most parents work five days a week, they have to find costly childcare or extra-curricular education institutions to accommodate their children, most likely because their children would 【这个词值得一用】otherwise become idle【闲散，懈怠】 or even slide into bad habits on the day they are not in school. 【更不用说】Not to mention, for many students who dine mostly at school, adding an extra day to the weekend comes at a real cost, which tends to be covered by their parents.  With the aforementioned burdensome expenses added, parents are likely to be overwhelmed by the extra bills generated by the unscheduled fifth day. 

The prolonged school hours per day is also a critical disadvantage of the four-day schedule. First, longer days are tough on students. It is not unlikely that after morning classes, younger students, 【丰富一个名词的信息也可以起到扮演原因状语的作用】with limited patience and capacity for learning and retention, may find the rest courses a real bore, 【更别提】let alone sitting in on the extra 90 minutes classes wholeheartedly. There is another common instance: extra 90 minutes classes often come with an increase amount of homework. In this case, older students have to 【习语：熬夜】burn the midnight oil to finish homework, which leaves little time for play, relaxation and exercise. Second, longer days mean wearier 【疲倦的】 teachers. While students may be exhausted after a long day studying, teachers may be more harassed【疲惫不堪的】 since they not only need to impart knowledge, but also supervise those students – maintain discipline in class and be ready for any likely troubles. In this sense, hardly can they ensure the teaching quality, not to mention allotting time for their own professional development. At this point, isn’t it clear that the prolonged school day is unfavorable to 【不利于】 both teachers and students? 

In conclusion, the proposal of four-day school week with longer school hours per day is biased【有倾向性的，片面的】, because of the undue burden【过分负担】 imposed on students of different grades, their parents, and teachers.