103 If you could invent something new, what product would you develop? Use specific details to explain why this invention is needed.

If I could invent something new, I’d invent a device or pill that could put people to sleep immediately and would have no side effects. The proper amount of sleep is important for our concentration, mental health, and physical health.

Getting enough sleep is a vital human need. For one thing, without sleep our concentration is strongly affected. We’re easily distracted, we can’t remember things, and we don’t notice what’s happening around us. For example, a lot of car accidents are caused by tired drivers. When we get enough sleep, our powers of concentration are sharper. We’re more focused on what we’re doing. We perform better.

Mental health is also affected by lack of sleep. It’s easy to tell if people don’t get enough sleep. They’re on edge, cranky, and out of sorts. They lose their tempers easily and over-react to situations. In fact, experiments have shown that lack of sleep over a long period of time can cause a complete mental breakdown. When we get our proper rest, we’re more alert and responsive. Our outlook is positive, and we’re much easier to get along with.

Our physical health shows the strain of sleeplessness, too. We have less energy, and everything seems like a major effort. Over a long period of time, we become slow and unresponsive. The wear and tear on the body from lack of sleep can be a very serious health problem. Every doctor will tell you that getting enough sleep is a basic factor in maintaining good health.

Wouldn’t it be great to go to bed every night knowing you’d have no problem getting to sleep, no matter what’s going on in your life? Getting enough sleep is always going to be an important part of how you respond to your situation. I think this device would be very helpful to all of us.

104 Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A person’s childhood years (the time from birth to twelve years of age) are the most important years of a person’s life. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

I agree that a person’s childhood years, from birth until twelve years of age, are the most important. All the information I’ve read about that time of life states that these are the years that form us. These years determine what kind of a person the child will become. During these years we learn about relationships, begin our formal education and develop our moral sense of right and wrong.

The early years are the time when we learn about relationships. First we learn about our parents and siblings, then about rest of the world. We learn how to respond to others based the treatment we’re given. If we’re loved, then we know how to love others. If we’re treated harshly, we may grow up to treat others harshly. We also form our ideas about our own self-worth from the way others treat us during these years. They can convince us we’re worthless, or they can teach us we deserve love and respect.

There are the years when we begin our formal education. We acquire the basic skills － reading, writing, working with numbers － that we’ll use throughout our lives. We need a good foundation in these subjects. Otherwise, anything we try to do later will be undermined by our lack of skills. Perhaps the most important thing we can learn during these years is how to analyze information and use it. These are skills that will always be useful.

Most important, from my point of view, these are the years when we develop our moral sense of what’s right and wrong. Others teach us about good and bad, but later in our early years we begin to decide for ourselves. It’s also during this time that we begin to develop the self-discipline to live according to our morals.