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Presenting a point of view in a monologue

General preparation

Develop your skills in using formal language: practise making points in full sentences, and using appropriate ways of describing cause and effect, referring to evidence and examples, qualifying statements and introducing and concluding your ideas. Having all these tools will mean you can readily develop a line of argument in Chinese.

Practise summing up an argument: read or listen to a point of view and then quickly summarise what has been said.
Brainstorm a variety of topics: quickly think of lots of points you could make in relation to the question being asked and then decide on your point of view in relation to the question by grouping your points together into two or at most three major or overarching points. Now you have a secure framework or scaffold for approaching the question and developing a line of argument, which will also make it much easier for you to introduce and conclude your monologue.
Develop your technique in presenting a well-structured and coherent text: do this by attempting to tackle various questions and planning your approach, so that you can eventually do the planning in 5 minutes.
Study the prescribed issues in a wider context: do not only think about an issue in terms of the way it is presented specifically in the prescribed text you are studying. There are other resources available to cover the prescribed issues.

Interpreting the question

Present your point of view by either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement or presenting both sides of the argument. However, if you choose the latter, you must ensure that your argument remains coherent. It is sometimes more difficult to present a convincing text by presenting both sides of the argument.

Planning

In planning your text, write in dot points rather than lengthy sentences. These may be written in English or Chinese.
Keep the task manageable: you do not want to start speaking with many half-formed ideas leading in various directions. This is why you must think about your overarching points. If these immediately occur to you, that is great! Jot them down. Otherwise you must develop them: brainstorm a variety of ideas very quickly and then group them into overarching statements, so you have a scaffold on which to hang supporting examples. Fleshing out the supporting examples in relation to your plan enables you to present a point of view.
You are told to answer in depth and breadth, in just over two minutes in total, so make choices. As you deal with each overarching point think of at least two very different examples to support your ideas (this constitutes a range of examples in the time available.)
It is advisable to actually write down your opening and concluding statements during the preparation stage. Following the preparation technique outlined below will result in coherent opening and closing statements.

Make a list of useful opening statements

You are encouraged to begin by addressing the question, using your own words rather than those in the question. For example:

这个问题是……
这里有几个不同的问题……
我不同意……

Make a list of useful closing statements

Conclude your argument with an effective closing statement. Useful phrases are:

因为……，所以……
根据以上解释……
以我的意见……
我觉得……