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Fact or Fiction?

Non-fiction, or writing based on real events and facts, can be broken down into many categories. One category is literary non-fiction, which is still based in fact but employs some of the storytelling elements that fiction uses; for example, events are often structured around a plot, with key people being treated as characters. Literary non-fiction itself has many subgenres, including a type of autobiography called memoir. Memoir most often focuses on a certain period of the author’s life or on a common theme drawn from major life events. Its writing style is often lush and captivating, but memoir is, by definition, rooted in truth. Still, people sometimes question the trustworthiness of memoirs, and they therefore question whether memoirs should be classified as non-fiction at all.

As non-fiction, memoir is intended to be factual. Is this really the case, though, considering memoir relies on human memory? Study after study has confirmed that even recent memories shift and change. Memories can be altered by slight suggestive forces, and for an author looking into past events to complete a memoir, interviewing people may be especially problematic. One classic study, led by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, illustrates how easily an interviewer’s choice of wording can influence an eyewitness’s account of a traffic accident: an interviewer asked different people how fast the two cars had been moving before they ‘smashed into’, ‘bumped into’, or ‘contacted’ each other. Loftus showed that the interviewer’s choice of verb influenced the witnesses’ reported memories of the event. In the context of memoir, an author’s bias and feelings may rub off on their interviewees, resulting in a twisted account of events. It is therefore reasonable to wonder whether memoir should continue to be branded as non-fiction.

Certainly, human memory is fallible. However, a memoir author is undoubtedly writing about significant and impactful life events. Memories of such events are actually more reliable than others. Studies show that the more surprising, traumatic, exciting or influential an event is, the more strongly and accurately people recall the details. It is common for people to vividly recall a personally meaningful moment or a significant public event, such as the moon landing. As an emotionally charged event unfolds, the brain activity changes in a way that amplifies small details, which helps us process and understand what is occuring. This activity helps build a more precise and accurate memory, known as a ‘flashbulb memory’. A memoir often uses these flashbulb memories to structure their story.

Of course the brain is not a camera that can ‘save’ any memory with perfect accuracy. But if memoir is under scrutiny due to the imperfections of the human mind, then critics will have to tackle non-fiction more broadly. All writers are using their memories when they create, and moreover, they are relying on the memories of others. Journalists conduct interviews to tell a news story; food writers recall the atmosphere and flavours offered at a new restaurant; history writers depend on the accuracy of accounts from long ago. Yet all of it rightfully falls under the umbrella of non-fiction. This is not because everyone’s memory is entirely reliable, but because of our faith in the author’s integrity to research and fact-check such that the writing is as accurate as possible.

Some people may doubt memoir not because they mistrust human memory, but because they mistrust the author’s morality. Critics may suspect an author of exaggerating or even fabricating events. However, there is no reason to be suspicious of memoir authors’ intentions. Entirely truthful memoirs are frequently at the top of non-fiction bestseller lists. With enough literary talent, an honest author can create an enticing, engrossing tale that will sell well. Writing a factual memoir that appeals to readers has the potential to be profitable for the author, and there is no incentive for a memoir writer to knowingly alter or embellish the truth. A well-written memoir is compelling enough as it is.

Looking beyond the author’s own life events, memoir can inform readers about the world in the same way that other non-fiction can. For example, a memoir written by the head chef of a famous restaurant is likely to educate the reader about the inner workings of a professional kitchen. A memoir composed by a cello player in an esteemed orchestra will probably help the reader learn more about music. And a memoir recalling an adolescence during the 1980s may describe pop culture during that time. Memoir has a way of relaying facts about anything from an occupation to brief fashion trends, all of it meaningful to the author.

What is the author’s main claim or argument?

• The most profitable memoirs are those shown to be the most factual.
• Memoir is best categorised under the umbrella of literary non-fiction.
• While many memoirs are fact-based, many authors are untrustworthy.
• Memory is too unreliable for memoir to be considered a type of non-fiction.

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Mandarin: A Global Language

Today, around fifteen percent of the people on our planet speak Mandarin Chinese. It is the native tongue of approximately one billion people. Not only is Mandarin the primary language of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, but it is also prevalent in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines and Mongolia. In fact, Mandarin is the most commonly spoken language in the world, used by people living in countries around the globe. It stands to reason, then, that more people should learn Mandarin Chinese as a second language.

In the last fifty years, China has become a powerful, global presence with a booming economy. By all accounts, China will continue to play a major role in world affairs for many years to come. According to the Asia Society, an educational group focused on building relationships between Asia and the West, ‘The rise of China presents new economic, political and social realities that demand greater US engagement at every level. As the foundation of that engagement, we urgently need to raise the number of Americans who can demonstrate a functional proficiency in Chinese.’ Today, many employers are looking for individuals who can help bridge the gap between China and the Western world. The ability to communicate and develop relationships using Mandarin is viewed as a desirable asset in modern business. Therefore, job applicants who are fluent in a language as common as Mandarin have a clear advantage.

Career advancement aside, learning Mandarin may help your brain with tasks that are unrelated to language. For example, scientists at the Rotman Research Institute and the University of Toronto, both in Canada, have found that native speakers of languages like Mandarin are able to process some aspects of music the same way trained musicians do. Here’s why: unlike English, Mandarin is a tonal language, which requires people to process language differently. In Mandarin, basic sounds convey different meanings depending on the pitch that is used when they are spoken. For example, the syllable ma can mean ‘horse’, ‘scold’, ‘hemp’ or ‘mother’, depending on how it is said. Mandarin speakers must interpret a sound’s tone in order to assign the correct meaning to a word. The researchers believe that this extra practice with processing tone while speaking and listening may have helped their research participants in recalling and discriminating between melodies and musical pitches.

The ubiquity of language-learning technology in recent years is an indication that now is the time for more people to start learning Mandarin. Thanks to an ever-expanding library of digital resources, those wishing to study Mandarin now have a multitude of options. Online learning programmes that are often supplemented by audio recordings, video recordings and online consultations appeal to many learners. Mandarin dictionaries are now widespread on the internet. Additionally, there has been an emergence of Chinese typing apps for PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Via this technology, phonetic sounds are translated into symbols, eliminating the necessity to learn how to write thousands of Chinese characters.

Some, however, believe that learning Mandarin is not worth the time and effort required for most people. They argue that Mandarin’s tonal system and the Chinese writing system make mastery of the language extremely difficult for non-native speakers. Mandarin’s writing system consists of thousands of characters rather than a simple alphabet, so it can take years to learn all of the symbols. ‘It is impossible to reach fluency in Mandarin without spending three to four years on the ground in China. So, unless you are in your early twenties and want to make this significant time investment, it doesn’t make much sense career-wise,’ says Alex Berghofen, managing partner of HELEX Asia, a pan-Asian recruitment firm for management consultants. Others maintain, however, that the nature of the Mandarin language makes it easier to learn than most people think. For instance, Mandarin does not have a lot of complicated grammar rules, unlike English’s rules for subject-verb agreement, verb tenses and pronoun forms.

The benefits of attaining fluency in Mandarin are clear, and increasing numbers of British students have begun learning Mandarin in school. In 2016, the UK government set a target of having 400,000 students enrolled in Mandarin education by 2020. But this trend must continue to grow in order to ensure that the next generation of British students has the ability to adequately communicate on the world stage. The Mandarin Excellence Programme is a government scheme that promotes the teaching of Mandarin in the UK state school system. The programme’s view is that tomorrow’s leaders must be prepared for a globalised world, which makes learning Mandarin not a luxury but a necessity. According to the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ Now is the time for people to take the first step towards learning Mandarin.

What is the author’s main claim or argument?

• Mandarin Chinese is more commonly spoken throughout the world than people assume.

• Learning to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese is not as difficult as many people think.
• Learning a language other than English is a key to success in today’s global society.
• More people should learn Mandarin Chinese as a second language.

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Self-Driving and Safe

Technology giants and car manufacturers are racing to get self-driving vehicles on the road. Though a startling idea to some, autonomous vehicles—known as self-driving cars—will transform roads and save lives. By reducing human error, driverless cars could dramatically improve traffic safety and reduce traffic fatalities by up to ninety percent. Across the world, this could translate into ten million human lives spared per decade. Furthermore, self-driving cars will improve commuter efficiency by reducing unnecessary traffic congestion. While some believe that the idea of a safe, autonomous vehicle is far-fetched, such innovation is simply a fact of life in today’s ever-evolving, technology-savvy society.

Currently, almost two thousand people in the United Kingdom die each year due to road accidents. Alarmingly, ninety-five percent of these fatalities are the direct result of human error. While many car crashes are caused by drunk or drowsy driving, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents claims that even momentary inattention behind the wheel can result in a fatality. Unfortunately, distracted driving has become an epidemic on UK roads. It makes sense, then, that reducing the number of cars driven by distracted drivers will also reduce the likelihood of accidents. Self-driving cars take human error out of the equation by relying on highly sophisticated computer guidance safety systems.

It’s natural to wonder how a car with no driver, no steering wheel and no brake pedal could be safer than the car as we know it today. However, self-driving vehicles navigate in real time using advanced computer technology, which recreates the car’s environment in a virtual 3D space. While in use, the vehicle collects data from its environment through sensors such as cameras, radars, lasers, GPS and mapping technology. The result is a driverless vehicle with a superhuman ability to navigate its surroundings. ­­­Autonomous vehicles are also equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle communication, which allows them to stay in sync while moving. Too outrageous to be safe? Not at all.

Current research shows that, overall, self-driving cars are significantly safer than human-driven vehicles. In the United States, for instance, Waymo (formerly Google’s Self-Driving Car programme) has logged more than three million kilometres on US roads and has been to blame for only one accident as of 2017. Statistically, this makes Google’s self-driving vehicle ten times less likely to cause an accident than even the safest human drivers. Moreover, the vehicle is forty times less likely to cause an accident than new drivers, such as teenagers who have just got their driver’s licence. To illustrate the potential impact of driverless cars on teen safety, a study concluded that if all teen drivers in the US were to trade in their keys for self-driving cars, one million accidents per year would be eliminated.

In addition to improved safety, autonomous cars will vastly improve road efficiency. Human drivers are frequently the cause of phantom traffic jams, or backups with no apparent cause. These standstills often result when a driver applies his brakes (to compensate for speed, for example), and each subsequent driver follows suit. By contrast, automated cars can anticipate what is ahead and steadily slow down to avoid disruptions in traffic. Furthermore, they are designed to communicate with each other and adjust speed accordingly, thus eliminating stop-and-go traffic on the motorway. Indeed, research conducted by Cambridge University showed that driverless cars can improve traffic flow by thirty-five percent when they work together, which suggests that self-driving cars will drastically improve road efficiency and vehicle commute times.

Proven safety and efficiency aside, many are not on board with the idea. For instance, a 2020 YouGov survey concluded that sixty-nine percent of UK drivers are uncomfortable with idea of autonomous vehicles. This opposition can only stem from ignorance. Considering the ways in which self-driving cars are superior to human drivers—from their thorough safety record to their advanced traffic management—anyone who rejects self-driving cars must be expressing a simple fear of change. There was a time, after all, when people could barely imagine hurtling through the sky in a passenger aircraft. Yet, today, air travel is barely given a second thought. Likewise, the acceptance of driverless cars as a mainstream form of transport is inevitable.

While it can be daunting to think of robotic cars dominating the streets, there is no denying that this fascinating technology is right around the corner. In fact, many experts claim that by the year 2030, autonomous cars could make up over half of the vehicles on the road. Whether society approves of the idea or not, reducing the number of human drivers on the roads will make them safer and also improve traffic efficiency. And, considering the country’s current fatality rates at the hands of distracted drivers, there is no time to delay. Fully autonomous cars will soon become a reality, and passengers should be prepared to hop in and enjoy the ride.

 What is the author’s main claim or argument?

• Self-driving cars will make driving far better.
• Carnomous vehicles will eliminate traffic fatalities.
• Distracted driving causes most car accidents.
• The idea of self-driving cars is not widely supported.