a) write your subjective response to the article–your reaction to the article and your feelings. Keep it to about three sentences.
b) then write an objective summary of the article. Again, let’s try to keep it to about three sentences. Typically you introduce the writer and the article along with the main point of the article. Then you go over the major reasons the writer gives to support her main point.
Be sure to include which is which.
Article:-
Its Time to Raise the Legal Drinking Age to 25
Kylie Lang–April 8, 2016 12:00am
Increase the legal drinking age to 21? Why stop there? When neuroscience tells us that young people dont reach maturity until 25 and when higher age limits are proven to decrease booze-related fatalities go ahead and hike it from 18 to 25.
There is fat chance of this happening I can already hear the cries about a nanny state but anyone serious about tackling Australias destructive relationship with grog knows that what is being done currently is simply not enough.
Nicholas Talley, president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, has
A higher minimum age to buy alcohol is just one of the RACPs recommendations.
The idea has merit. Its worked elsewhere.
In 1984, the US government under Ronald Reagan lifted the drinking age from 18 to 21. States which fought it had their funding for highways withheld. By 1988, all had complied.
Raising the age limit by three years was reported to have resulted in a 16 percent fall in the number of crashes involving young people.
A review of no less than 57 studies by University of Minnesota researchers came to the same conclusion: raising the drinking age saves lives.
One contends that 21-year-olds are too young to make decisions and not mentally responsible to drink.
Neuroscience would agree.
We now know the brain, once thought to be fully formed after puberty, is still evolving into the mid to late 20s and, says neuroscientist Jay Giedd, people manage risk and make decisions better in their 30s.
Additionally, the impact of alcohol on a developing brain is far more acute than on a mature one, as is the risk of addiction.
The earlier people start drinking, the more likely it is that they will be hazardous boozers later in life.
Most Aussie kids begin experimenting with alcohol by 14, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
In other research, 40 percent of 16 to 17-year-olds admit they drink to get drunk. With 18-24-year-olds, this ignoble pursuit jumps to 63 percent.
One in 10 kids aged 12-17 binge drink and most get their grog from friends or family almost half say their parents buy it for them.
While it is not illegal for parents to supply children with alcohol in a private residence, its time we got smarter with how we treat alcohol.
Of course, those who prefer to ignore the facts would keep the legal age at 18.
If people are old enough to go to war, vote or drive a car, they reason they should be able to have a beer.
The legal drinking age is only one piece of a complex puzzle, complex because at its heart is a deeply flawed yet culturally entrenched bond with booze.
Alcohol is not the only drug harming young people, but it is the most socially accepted.
Yet problem drinking doesnt only affect the drinker, it impacts families and communities and the socio-economic cost is exorbitant and unsustainable.
Young people deserve the best shot at life, and if lifting the legal drinking age will help, then lets give it due consideration instead of dismissing it as an attempt by the fun police to stymie personal freedom.
Kylie Lang is an associate editor at The Courier-Mail
