2021年1-4月 雅思口语 Part 3 Topic 39 许下的承诺

What kinds of promises do people often make?

In general, people often make three kinds of promises, namely strong promises, shallow promises and bad promises. As the name suggests, strong promises are the ones we strongly keep and are fully committed to, like, “Whatever happens, you can rest assured that you can count on me.” Shallow promises are made out to look like strong ones but there are unspoken conditions like, “I could go out with you for lunch tomorrow” (unless something unexpected comes up). Bad promises on the other hand, are the ones we don’t want others to make. They are what people make but have no intention to honor and keep firmly, like “I promised my parents that I’d do the chores but I am still on my phone.”

Do parents in China make promise to their children?

Definitely. It is common for parents all over the world to make promises to their children. Like, ^£ if you eat broccoli, 111 take you to the toy shop/ Parents make promises as a means to communicate better with their children or create a connection, because making and keeping a promise is a great opportunity for parents to teach something as valuable as the concept of trust or giving credit to their innocent children. This sets a good example for their children to follow.

Do children keep their promises?

It depends. I assume most children would keep their promises, but it is hard to believe that they all do. Some children are raised to think that it is perfectly okay not to keep some *all promises, because no one cares about the promises they make. On the contrary, other children perceive such action as immoral, and will do everything it takes to keep their promise, because that is their upbringing and what they usually see from the people around them. So long story short, the environment that children come from really dictates what they think about the promises they make.

Why do some people fail to keep their promises?

The most obvious reason is that people think it is not a big deal. Yeah, they’ll not be given any punishment for going back on their word and it’ll not have grave repercussions, so logically speaking, they definitely do not care about keeping their promises. When they were put in an environment where everyone cares deeply about integrity and the society has developed a systemic moral constraint in penalizing people who do, then we’d see more people doing their best to keep their promises.