<p>Hey everybody! The "new" and not improved College Board website no longer provides the essay topics. So in the true CC spirit here is the East Coast or Prompt 1. Calling on the West Coast and International students to post your prompts. Thanx!!!!</p>
<p>External constraints - factors that limit people's plans and projects - can create stress, but this stress is not always bad and may even be necessary. In fact, the pressure of deadlines, budgets, rules, and the demands imposed by others can push people to accomplish things they would find impossible to accomplish with unlimited time, money, and the absence of pressure.</p>
<p>Do the demands of others tend to make people more productive than they would be without such pressure?</p>
<p>Great discoveries often occur when a person explores the unknown, venturing far from what is familiar. But important breakthroughs–innovative solutions to difficult problems, for example–can also result when people take the time to look closely at their daily surroundings. In fact, the greatest discoveries often occur when people recognize in their familiar surroundings certain opportunities that others have overlooked or when people recognize that the way things have always been done is unjust or ineffective or unnecessary.</p>
<p>Do people make the greatest discoveries by exploring what is unfamiliar to them or by paying close attention to what seems familiar?</p>
<p>Are people entitled to have their own opinions? Yes and no. People can have virtually any opinion, no matter how illogical, uninformed, or foolish. But this does not mean that they are entitled to have their uninformed opinions taken seriously or that their opinions should be considered as valuable as informed opinions. Opinions are valuable only when they are backed up by thorough knowledge of the subject.</p>
<p>Adapted from John Chaffee, The Thinker’s Way</p>
<p>ASSIGNMENT: Should all people’s opinions be valued equally, or should only informed opinions be taken seriously? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>