Pre-course Assesment of New Literacies

MH370 was a Malaysia Airlines plane which disappeared on 8 March 2014. At first, the Vietnamese announced that it was crashed in the South Sea but the Malaysian Govenment denied. A joint search and rescue was carried out since then yet nothing is found up to this moment. So, what happened?

 From my point of view, the aircraft was hijacked by the pilot. Investigations show that the pilot is a supporter of former Malaysian governor and he is not satisfied with the judgement made by the Malaysian court. As a result, he hijacked the flight and asked for the release of the governor. During his action, the flight reached an altitude which normal people could not breath so no communication was made by the passengers and the cabin crews. The pilot then successfully controlled the flight and changed the direction of the flight without notifying the control tower of any country.

As the Malaysian government refused to accept the request of the pilot, the pilot chose to carry out a suicidal behaviour when the fuel tank was empty. He crashed the flight in the Southern Indian Sea. Since the Malaysian Government did not want to let the public know and some confidential information might be involved in this case, no accurate news is obtained by the public and the search and rescue action was a complete failure. It is believed that the black box would not be found unless more information is revealed by the Malaysian Government.

Pre-course Assessment of Academic Literaces

Part A
Q1: Human genome decoded --> ble to identify specific genes that account for certain person attributes
V Choose desirble triats --> give rise to social and ethnic problems

Antenatal genic control --> can treat / prevent diseases (e.g. sickle-cell anaemia and cancer)
May even exercise gender control

ethical concerns (only affluent could afford --> greater inequality)
freedo and worth of an individual DIMINISHED
e worth of life neglected as a result
Geetic selecton --> "perfect" competition
Consider talents as gifts! Not something to control!

"designer babies" UNACCEPTABLE (shrpen social inequaility, diminish the rights and worth of humans)
technoogy to manipulate the natural order --> undesirable consequences

Q2. Recount

Q3. The article begins with an introduction to genetic control. And then examples of genetic control and the undersirble effects of it are given to support the argument.Finally, the wrier concludes that genetic control is morlly unacceptable.

Q4. Signposting words like "however" and " to conclude" are used to navigate the readers.

Q5. The writer opposes to "designer babies", which is described as something morally unacceptable

Q6. Ethnic concern (creating the "perfect competition"), Socia inequality

Q7. The genetic control is useful in preventing or even treating diseases.

Q8. I agree. Human being should follow the natural order and not attempt to change it. For instance, if babies' genders are controlled, the world may suffer from inequality of gender and undesirable results may appear.

Part B
Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese system dating to several thousands years ago. It is about different arrangements in an environment which people follow in the layout of their homes or offices. Feng Shui can presumably help accumulate qi (energy) that brings positive effects such as occupants happiness, health and wealth to people. To ensure the promotion of the well-being, people usually consult feng shui masters and get advice on what to do in order to get the best effect. The advice is usually related to the placements of furniture and design of homes or offices.