Paraphrasing exercise.
A3:1 - Latin transformed into an international language among the Roman. The reason was not due to the people being outnumbered but because they were more influential.

A3:2 - Operating at higher temperature would increase productivity of the new reactors. Basic safety features would be inbuilt into the system rather than complicated operating systems. They are less accident-prone and are capable of mitigating an emergency situation on its own. Professionals believe that it needs to be more cost efficient to function. To convince the general residents; the new reactors will have to reduce radioactive by-products at the anti-terrorist infrastructures.

B3: 1 - Income inequality is common in every country. Most of the data, that are focused on the quality of life of people, collected by the sociologist are from the World Bank and the United Nation.

B3: 2 - There is a co-relation between the language and the speakers, rather than the number of people who speaks it. An example is Latin. The Romans were simply more powerful.  However, Latin remained as the international language, even after the Romans fell due to new type of influence.

C1. believe, imply, claim, mention, suggest, propose

C2. Lester (1976) asserts that students are overusing quotations in their research papers. He believes that this is due to overuse direct quotations in taking notes. He suggests in order to minimize quote use, students should reduce the use of quotations when taking notes.

The first half of the year proves to be profitable. According to department reports, there is twenty percent cost cuts and sales have risen five percent. However, most department heads believe that profit will go down in the second half of the year. 

My English Language Learning Journey

I have been studying english ever since I had nursery education. Even though I started learning english since young, I was never good at it. I never really liked reading, and I come from a chinese speaking family, I only write essays when absolutely necessary. I feel that what I'm lacking is in fact practice.

However, I do enjoy english media such as "How I Met Your Mother" and"South Park". I actually understand most of the script without the help of subtitles, I think that my comprehension skills are actually okay, what I'm not so good at are probably writing and speaking.

This es1102 module that I'm taking this semester will most likely help me with that. I've seen the lesson plans and I find that there are a lot of writing and summarizing involved. My tutor Mr.Brad also make it a point during his lesson for everybody to speak and present, which I think is very beneficial for me. So far I have had 2 lessons of es1102 and I already had a few mini presentations and text annotation practice.

I personally think that the standard requirement for english in National University of Singapore (NUS) is quite high. I have friends from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) who score badly for their general paper and are still allowed to skip the english module. Their grades range from D to S, all of which are exempted from the module. Having said all these, I have high hopes that by the end I finish this es1102 module I would be able to write and speak much better than before.

(267 words)