Grundlag for klage?

Hej

Jeg sidder her med en bedømmelse på engelsk skriftlig eksamen B, som ligger lidt under mit normale niveau. Egentlig er jeg ikke meget for at skulle gøre en sag ud af det, da jeg for det første tror på, at censorerne vurderer på et retfærdigt grundlag og da det ikke drejer sig om dumpekarakterer.

Men jeg er alligevel blevet opfordret til måske at gøre noget ved det af klassekammerater, så derfor vil jeg hører folk herinde, som måske kan vurdere opgaven nogenlunde, hvordan den umiddelbart vurderes, og derefter tage stilling til min situation og om der er belæg for en eventuel klage.

Det drejer sig om den skriftlige eksamen Engelsk B STX fra maj 2010, delopgave A om plastikoperationer:

Håber der er personer som gider ulejlige sig.

På forhånd tak...

A: Cosmetic surgery on teeangers
1. Both texts do in fact seem to agree in general on the view on cosmetic surgery and query the idea of increased self-esteem. Even though text 1, “Plastic surgery for teens” by Valerie Ulene, focuses more on the surgery and text 2 more on image and self-esteem, they do to some degree share the same angle, problematizing the image issues of teens and the consequences of surgery. The president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, Diane Zuckerman, does for example appear in both articles, due to her relation to the issues. In the first article by Valerie Ulene, she emphasizes the problems of the modern world’s view on beauty and the culture of unrealistic ideals. This is in her opinion one of the primary issues in this topic, and she does as well refer to a study that shows no evidence of improving self-esteem after surgery. Valerie Ulene is querying the surgeons herself, but does refer to the president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Dr. John Canedy, who seems to have a critical view as well on cosmetic surgery among teens, but doesn’t exclude the possibility of improved self-esteem. By this it is crucial in Canedy’s view that the surgeons select the patients carefully.
Text 2, “Seeking Self-Esteem through Sugery” by Camille Sweeney does, as mentioned before, also focus on the beauty issues of the modern society and “a culture of celebrity obsession and makeover TV shows”. This is among others expressed through co-author of “So Sexy, So Soon”, Jean Kilbourne, who emphasizes the impossibilities of meeting the values of beauty. Another one, Ann Kearney-Cooke, does even characterise the tendencies as “an epidemic of low self-esteem among girls”. A last angle appearing in the two articles are the consequences that can happen due to cosmetic surgery, which teens often forget or ignore, and at the same time a better life is not assured at all, as Diane Zuckerman puts it.

2. Valerie Ulene engages the reader in several ways, like personalization and the use of “experts”. She starts the article by referring to herself as one having beauty problems in period of adolescence, more specifically her nose. This keeps reappearing in the article, as well as her daughter in the teen period: “With a 14-year-old daughter of my own, I recognize how difficult that can be”, referring to parents banning surgery to their teenage children, and that is a well known trick to engage the reader personally. Most people can probably relate themselves to the problems Valerie Ulene once experienced, and thereby people are more likely to find the article’s topic interesting and relevant.
Another way of engaging the reader is to strengthen the article’s reliability, which is important to point out the relevance and actuality of the topic. Valerie Ulene does this by involving several ex-perts specialized in the issue, but from different angles. Diane Zuckerman and Dr. John Canedy is the two experts in this article representing knowledge and well chosen arguments which proves their point: “no well-designed studies demonstrate that cosmetic surgery significantly changes teenagers’ quality of life”, as Diane Zuckerman states, and supports her view by an argument that few can contradict.
The use of statistics does only support the two “experts” and proves the importance of this issue. Although Dr. John Canedy is partially pro surgery when teens are selected carefully, both him and Diane Zuckerman represents a critical view on surgery and due to this there is, as often in articles, a clear angle in the article where one side is preferred to another.

3. The debate of banning and prohibiting is an all time debate, and keeps reappearing in every nation when a new problem occurs in the political agenda. That could be the use of alcohol or cigarettes among minors, the use of allergy causing perfumes and other materials, or in this case the possibility of cosmetic surgery. The argument are quite the same every time: on one side prohibitions is necessary in some cases when a problem becomes important to the society, or if one believes that individuals can’t be held responsible of the many possibilities in the modern world. On the other side, the prohibitions are limiting to the individual and these tendencies will cause a nanny state, where society is taking complete care of all of us. This is also the general views in this case. On one side we got the Australian state of Queensland, which see necessity of banning surgeries, but as Anna Bligh says, the main reason is that a surgeon’s blade is better left until one is responsible. This argument requires a premise of seeing minors and teenagers as incapable of making such decisions and to live in freedom with responsibility. Whether this is true or not can be discussed completely on its own, but the main arguments against the banning seem to be that it causes unnecessary limitations to teenagers with an actual need, physically or psychologically. This argument is however quite typical from the opponents and does indeed show their general mistrust to governments and legislations (especially prohibitions), typically a view represented by the neoliberals and neoconservative. They are making a bogey on such proposals far more than actually trying to oppose the prohibitions, and completely ignore the possibility of adjusting legislations so that teenagers in real need are able of undergoing surgery if an expert is finding it necessary.
Returning to the first debate mentioned about responsibility, this seems far more important in the process of debating these issues. The question is whether the government or in general the society is in the right to moralize and deciding which values and norms are correct. In this case however, the morality has got a less importance than in for example the prohibitions of alcohol and cigarettes, so when looking at pros and cons, prohibiting cosmetic surgery seem to be necessary, but must be followed by actions that can improve teenagers’ self-esteem.