Pre-Advanced & Advanced: Reading & Writing

Reading Response
Article Title: A quarter of humanity faces extreme water stress – and it’s poised to get
worse, new report finds

Publication: CNN

Authors: Hafsa Khalil

Publication Date: 16/08/2023

Topic: Water stress

Link: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/16/world/water-stress-scarcity-climate-crisis-scn-
intl/index.html

Summary:
This article talks about the concern regarding the rise of teenage vape users in New Zealand.
Researchers and doctors are asking the New Zealand government to make vapes available
only with a prescription. This means people will have to go to a doctor before they can buy vape
products. The Australian government made a similar policy in 2021. The article also mentions
that although smoking has decreased in New Zealand, more and more people are using vapes.
Furthermore, a lot of teenagers who never smoked tobacco are now vaping regularly. Doctors
are worried about the situation because the long-term effects of vaping are still unknown. Some
recommendations have been made, like limiting advertisements, reducing flavours, and selling
vapes only in pharmacies.

Response:
I agree about the proposed vaping regulations in New Zealand. Even though I am not directly
impacted by these events, I think it is an important issue that affects all communities, especially
young people. I also agree with the idea of a prescription-only model for vape products. It is
alarming to hear that more and more teenagers are taking up vaping, even if they have never
smoked before. The nicotine in vapes is highly addictive and can have negative health effects
that may not show up for years. I have several friends who vape, and they carry their vapes
everywhere they go, and this seems like addictive behavior.

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Pre-Advanced & Advanced: Reading & Writing

In my opinion, vaping should only be used as a tool to stop smoking, and not just for fun. It is
crucial to prevent young people who do not smoke from taking up vaping to avoid dangerous
health risks. I think it’s great that the New Zealand government is paying more attention to
vaping rules, and I believe that we need to do even more to fix the problem. Some changes,
such as strict sales laws, reducing nicotine levels, and changing packaging, are good ideas.
However, a prescription-only model may be the best way to make sure that vapes only go to
people that really need them. If we are stricter with the rules of who can vape, we can stop
people vaping irresponsibly. Overall, I think that helping people be more aware about vaping is
important and will help us protect people’s health.

Credibility assessment: This article seems to have credible information. There are statistics
and references to research in the main text and although not focused on health issues, the
author has written a vast number of articles related to important social issues and other health
related stories.

Vocabulary:

Nicotine – I gave up smoking years ago, but I still get nicotine cravings.

Prescription – I have to go to the pharmacy to collect my prescription

Taking up – I don’t like many team sports, so I decided to take up swimming.

Comments from classmates:

Thanks for the article. You use grammar well and I can understand your ideas. You should write
more academic. Not use ‘I’ so much. I don’t agree about vape. I use and my friends use and we
are ok. Sometimes your sentence is very long. It difficult to understand. I always see tutor to
help my grammar. I understand your ideas, but I don’t agree about the additive. I just use
sometimes and see my friends use too, but not always. We can be free to choose something we
want.
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Hi! Thanks so much for your response. I totally agree with you that vaping is still bad
management. I think the government have responsibility to citizen to help them. Of course, we
don’t want them to control everyone, but we need safety and to protect children. The doctors in
Vietnam are so important and people always listen them, we should see them if we want to
vaping! I think the nicotine in vape will make people want to smoking, too! We should stop

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them. hope this will make people produce less waste. Funding this amount of money on things that
can be reduce individually is absurd. This will be on my Facebook's wall for this purpose.

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You have interesting opinions. I agree that some control is necessary for the greater good of the
public. But this is a slippery slope. We should be free to make our own choices. We need laws
for appropriate ages and awareness of health risks. But we should not need permission to do as
we wish, as long as we do not harm others. Why should I go to the doctor? I am perfectly
healthy and I can enjoy some vaping if I want to.