Download Purpose and Tone Exercise 2 Read each passage. Then choose

Purpose and Tone Exercise 2
Read each passage. Then choose Inform if the primary purpose of the passage is to
inform, or choose Persuade if the primary purpose of the passage is to persuade.
(1) Schizophrenia is a serious and relatively prevalent disorder. (2) It is found in roughly
1 percent of people at some time in their lives. (3) It accounts for a higher percentage of
the inpatient population of mental hospitals than any other diagnostic category. (4) The
disorder seems to be equally prevalent in males and females, but, for unknown reasons,
it typically is more severe and strikes earlier in males than in females. (5) The most
frequent age range for first symptoms is 18 to 25 for men and 26 to 45 for women.
(6) Sometimes people make a full recovery from schizophrenia, sometimes they make a
partial recovery, and sometimes the disorder takes a deteriorating course through the
person’s life.
Inform
Persuade
2. (1) Suppose Colin Powell tires of giving $100,000-a-pop speeches and wants to
teach high school social studies. (2) Suppose Meryl Streep has a hankering to teach
drama. (3) Alas, they would be “unqualified” for a public school. (4) Elite private schools
would snap them up, of course, but public schools that are begging for teachers would
have to turn them away because they don’t have teacher certification. (5) That’s an
absurd snarl in our education bureaucracy. (6) Let’s relax the barriers so people can
enter teaching more easily, either right out of college or later as a midcareer switch.
Inform
Persuade
3. (1) In 1943, a naval engineer named Richard James was working with tension
springs when one of the springs fell on the floor. (2) James noticed how the spring kept
moving after hitting the ground, and he got the idea for the creation of a toy. (3) For the
next two years, he experimented with developing a coiled spring toy that could “climb”
down stairs using a flip-flopping motion. (4) James’s wife, Betty, named the toy the
Slinky. (5) The Jameses introduced their new toy at Gimbels Department Store in
Philadelphia in 1945, selling 400 of the toys in 90 minutes. (6) The Slinky continues to
be a popular toy today.
Inform
Persuade
4. (1) Conservative politicians say that gay marriage must be banned in order to protect
the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. (2) How, exactly, does gay marriage threaten
straight marriage? (3) Marriage is a way of publicly stating that two people care deeply
for one another and want to establish themselves as a permanent couple. (4) Marriage
makes a society more stable, not less so. (5) When two gay people get married, it does
not mean that two straight people have to break up. (6) Conservatives are supposedly
in favor of “family values,” and what is more in keeping with “family values” than
committed partners? (7) If people don’t like the idea of gay marriage, they are entitled to
their opinion. (8) But they should not try to make their opinion the basis of law affecting
the lives of others.
Inform
Persuade
5. (1) Dieting is the false god of the last thirty years. (2) The whole country has been on
an extraordinarily expensive series of diets for at least that long. (3) We have spent
billions on them. (4) Enough to send every kid in Texas and Massachusetts to law
school and still have enough dough left over to fund class action lawsuits against every
fast-food chain in the nation. (5) And what did we get for our money? (6) We Americans
gained on average forty pounds apiece. (7) A handful of guys got rich, and the rest of us
got fat. (8) Not a good use of our dough. (9) Or our time. (10) In fact, it was a ridiculous,
shaming waste. (11) So maybe we should cut it out.
Inform
Persuade
(1) I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. (2) Upon this battle depends the
survival of Christian civilization. (3) Upon it depends our own British life, and the long
continuity of our institutions and our Empire. (4) The whole fury and might of the enemy
must very soon be turned on us. (5) Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this
island or lose the war. (6) If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life
of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. (7) But if we fail, then the
whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared
for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more
protracted, by the lights of perverted science. (8) Let us therefore brace ourselves to our
duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a
thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
—from a speech by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940
Inform
Persuade
7. (1) Stress comes from a variety of sources in our lives. (2) Frustration over not being
able to satisfy a motive, conflicts arising from mutually incompatible motives, pressure,
and unpleasant environmental conditions are all sources of stress. (3) Similarly, life
events, both negative ones such as the loss of employment and positive ones such as
marriage, can be potent sources of stress. (4) These sources of stress lead to stress
reactions. (5) People react to stress in both psychological and physical ways. (6) Stress
brings anxiety, anger, and depression, but also body changes such as increased
appetite, headaches, and difficulty sleeping. (7) Under some circumstances, stress even
leads to high blood pressure, increased blood cholesterol, and decreased efficiency of
the body’s immune system. (8) The body tends to react to all stressors, psychological
and physical ones, in much the same way. (9) This nonspecific response to stress has
been called the general adaptation syndrome.
Inform
Persuade