IELTS Research Reports

Tim Moore, Janne Morton and Steve PriceWhat is Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of civilizations’? How convincing is his thesis?Sample A23. Exercise task - HistoryWhat is ‘liquid modernity’? How useful do you find this concept? Discuss in relation to thephenomenon of reality television.Sample A24. Exercise task – Media StudiesIn such tasks, one sees clear expression of the ‘critical’ approach to knowledge advocated by a numberof informants, as seen in the following remarks made by the lecturers from Media Studies and History:MEDIA STUDIES: On my course … students being critical in their reading is absolutelyessential. Students need to assess arguments, and part of this is identifying where argumentsand ideas have been left out.HISTORY: I stress to students the need for a critical approach. The way I get at this is to saythem: “Well just because this guy writes it in a book, it’s not something you have to accept”.GLOBAL + INTERPRETATIVEThe category ‘global-interpretative’ refers to those tasks requiring students to bring a broadlyinterpretative approach to their reading in relation to whole texts or multiple texts. Most tasks in thecorpus fitting this configuration were assignment tasks, taking in a range of genres: essays, reports andthe like. The most prominent of these genres identified in the data are discussed below.EssaysThe assignment-type task most clearly requiring a ‘global-interpretative’ approach to reading materialwas found to be the expository essay. In the study, the essay genre was set for students in about halfthe subjects investigated – with the majority of these prescribed in the ‘soft’ disciplines. Below are twosuch samples, from Management (Sample A25) and History (Sample A26). In the rubric of these taskswe can see the need for students to engage with a variety of materials (‘a range of views’; ‘availableevidence’ etc.) and to bring a critical approach to these materials (‘to ‘examine, ‘to assess’, ‘to come toyour own judgment’).Globalisation and Cultural risk“Globalisation is reducing cultural differences between countries and thus cultural risk.International firms can now pursue global strategies without fear of failure”. Please assess themerits of this advice. Can firms ignore cultural risks?In your essay you will need to consider a range of views on this issue before coming to yourown final judgment.Sample A25. Essay task - Management238 www.ielts.org