Posted on February 1, 2019
Thunk of the Week
If you could take a pill that meant you would never make a mistake, would you?
Write 4 short paragraphs:
1: An introductory sentence or two explaining the question, eg: “Imagine going through life without making a single mistake………”
2: Argue a case from one point of view, eg: “On the one hand……..”
3: Then from the other point of view, eg: “On the other hand………”
4: Conclusion – what would you do? Why?
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake. A mistake is when you are wrong about something, whether it is in a test or an argument. Without mistakes, life would be so different, but would everything be as good as it seems?
On one hand, it is a bad decision to take the pill because mistakes help you to learn new things and where you can improve in areas of work. If you never make mistakes, life would be boring because you wouldn’t have to practice anything, never revise and not learn. For example, you would never have to work with help for an exam, not be able to do anything.
On the other hand, it is a good decision because you will be confident in anything you do, and you will never have to pressure yourself and worry about doing something wrong in a tense situation.
In conclusion, I would not take the pill, because life will be boring because when you are learning something, other people might make mistakes and take them as opportunities to learn whereas you will just be stuck at the same ability and level all the time.
Well done, Aran. You have made a balanced case and explained your position well.
Well done Aran
Wouldn’t it be great getting everything right and correcting your friends?
On the one hand the benefit of taking a pill and never making a mistake, is that you know everything, your never wrong and you get everything right.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t need to take a pill to not make a mistake. It’s not ideal to take pills, you’re learning and educating yourself on lots of subjects.
I would not take a pill, I would prefer to learn from my mistakes.
Mistakes mean you’re trying new things!
Well done, Sam. I love your opening sentence!
Wouldn’t be amazing if you right and never wrong. The good thing about that is you would always get 20/20 in you mental maths test .The bad thing about that is you would never learn when you make mistakes in your mental maths test the next time you get 20/20. Life would be very, very boring if you didn’t make mistakes.
For example if you were taking an exam you would get a distinction every time. I would not in a million years would I take that pill,I want to experience life and discover new places and people.
You’ve given a good reason for not taking the pill, Connor.
Imagine going through life without a single mistake, you wouldn’t know everything but you would never make a mistake…
The advantages of taking the pill would be:
1. You would get 100% in every exam/test.
2. You would always take the right choices .
3. And you would have a happy life.
This helps you to be helpful, kind, and honest.
The advantages of not taking the pill are:
1. You learn from your mistakes.
2. It’s good to have bad times in life.
3. And life would be boring without a single mistake.
This helps you to have a normal life with your friends and because it is natural, you can boast sometimes about not making any mistakes which is not right.
For my conclusion, I would choose not to take the pill because i feel that it is not right to make no mistakes and as I said before, it is natural to boast and i do not want to boast
You have balanced your argument well, Andrew. I’m interested in your idea that it’s good to have bad times in life. Why do you think that?
well done Andrew
well done!!
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake, would it be boring or would it be brilliant? A mistake is when you get something wrong or something doesn’t go as you thought it would which can sometimes make you sad or disappointed, but as long as you’ve tried your best it is ok.
On the one hand if you never make a mistake:
• You would never learn, as you always learn from your mistakes
• Life would be boring as nothing would be a challenge
On the other hand, if you never made a mistake:
• You wouldn’t get stressed and worried about tests and exams
• Life would seem easy
I would choose not to take the pill because without making mistakes you can’t learn or get better at something, and I think it would make life very boring if you get everything right all the time.
I’m glad you feel that mistakes can be positive and useful!
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake. Mistakes are when you are wrong at something or something doesn’t go correctly. Some would say that it would be good. Others think it would be bad. Find out by taking this pill…
On the one hand, it would be good because you would be able to get the lottery numbers right every time. Also, you would never have to learn anything! You would pick up a game straight away. You wouldn’t have to go to school.
On the other hand, you would never make a mistake so you would never learn and that would be really bad. No learning would mean not going to school so you would be so antisocial. You would also be quite annoying because nobody would be able to question you or beat you in an argument. Another way of saying ‘making a mistake’ is ‘to fail’ and that means:
First
Attempt
In
Learning
Also, what would you do with all of that lottery money that you win?
I wouldn’t take the pill because I love going to school and making friends. Mistakes are opportunities to learn. You should never worry about making mistakes as they open your mind.
By Henry
Wise words, Henry!
If we went through life without making a single mistake we would a) be very bored and b) we would not discover anything about ourselves such as..
1.Who we are
2.What are our limits
3.What are we capable of
4.What can we do or cannot do
5.Making mistakes helps us become more caring about ourselves and to others
On the one hand it would be wonderful never to make a mistake. To always be right and achieve perfection in everything we do. We would have great confidence knowing that every decision we make and exam or test sat would produce 100%.
On the other hand perfection does not exist. Who actually wants to be perfect and achieve 100% in everything? Perfection leaves us with no room for improvement to learn. How boring would that be?!
In conclusion I have decided that I would not take the pill. We learn through making mistakes which helps us become more confident and happier as individuals, as well as allowing us to grow and evolve and to be brave enough to tackle difficult life situations which we will all encounter at some point.
A balanced argument and strong opening paragraph. Well done, Oscar!
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake! A mistake is when you do something wrong or incorrectly like in a test.
On the one hand, it is a bad choice to take the pill as:
1. Making mistakes is good because you learn from them. For e.g. if you make a mistake in a spelling test you would learn the correct spelling. So, making a mistake makes you smarter!
2. Life would be boring if we didn’t make any mistakes. Do you want life to be boring?
3. We wouldn’t appreciate all the good experiences in life if we didn’t have some bad moments too. For e.g. when summer comes after a long winter.
On the other hand, it is a good choice to take the pill as:
1. It would make you perfect at everything.
2. You would always make the correct decision.
No, I would not take the pill as it’s good to make mistakes because you then have an opportunity to learn from them and this is what makes life interesting.
A good argument, Shay! I like your idea that, if you experience bad things it makes you appreciate the good.
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake, would it be helpful or not?
On the one hand it would be good idea because you would know everything in the world. You would finish your school work in no time at all and you could go home early. You would not make a spelling mistake ever again and you would not get stressed in a test. It means you wouldn’t get scared and you would be happy and relaxed.
On the other hand it would be a bad idea because you would never learn anything new, because your a know it all. You would probably not have to go to school and you would find it very hard to make friends. You could play games all day and it would get boring because it is nice to learn new things.
I would not take the pill because I wouldn’t have learned how to do long multiplication or right an interesting story. Life would be so so boring and you would not learn to play a video game that you really really like. Life would not be interesting and every one wants life to be interesting.
Some good points made, Luca. Well done!
Nice work Luca
Imagine making no mistakes in life. You have to make some mistakes in life because you learn from your own mistakes. I think it would be right and wrong at the same time.
I think it would be right because in your exams in school you would always be right and when you do your exams in year six you can get into any school that you would ever want to go to! Also when your doing a maths or english test in school you’ll get every thing RIGHT!!!
I also think it is wrong because you learn from your own mistakes. For e.g. you get a maths question wrong you will learn from that mistake for the next time. Your life would be SOO boring making no mistakes and do you want that?
I think it would be right to not take that pill any time soon
You have begun to make a balanced argument, Max. How could you develop your ideas?
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake after taking one special pill.
I would not take the pills, because if you try something new there would be no point in doing it because you would get it right first time.
If I took the pills my life would be very boring and I would not do that much fun things also it would be very good if I got everything right, but what’s the point in doing that stuff?
I would not take the pills because if someone was playing a game with a complicated strategy then you would know straight away what they want you to do.
If I took the pills then some people might become sad because they don’t know that much and you know everything in the world.
Some good points, Yuri, but remember the pill doesn’t make you know everything, it just stops you from making mistakes.
Imagine if you took a pill that made you never make a mistake. You would never make a mistake again.
On one hand you wouldn’t have to go to school, you wouldn’t even have to go to university. You would just go through life very quickly. You also wouldn’t have to get a job.
On the other hand however, you wouldn’t learn anything from your mistakes because you’d never made any mistakes. You could start showing off just because you never made a mistake.
I wouldn’t take the pill because life would be so boring. There would be no point in going to school. That is what I would do.
I’m glad you you would rather learn than get everything right all the time.
Imagine if you could take a pill that made you never make a mistake. What do you think life will be like if you never made a mistake…
On the one hand it is a bad decision to take the pill because you will never learn new things. If you never make mistakes then you will never learn from them. Sometimes when you make a mistake you get into a bad situation and you learn how to navigate through it, if you ever come up against that situation again you will know what to do. Also it is a bad decision to take the pill because life will be risk free and you will have no purpose or motivation to do anything because you know you will always get it right.
On the other hand it is a good decision to take the pill because you will always get your homework and class work right. You would be the perfect fit for a leader because you will never make the wrong decisions. You will always have “artificial confidence’’ (confidence which the pill produces). You will never be under pressure.
In conclusion to all this my view is not to take the pill because one small pill can’t change your life. Life is a big process and if you don’t have any ups and downs life will be very boring, you need to enjoy life! Mistakes make you stronger mentally and physically!!
A well written argument and thoughtful ideas. Well done, Jaiveer!
Imagine if you took a pill and never made a mistake again. A mistake is when you get something wrong and this is how you learn valuable lessons in life. If you never make a mistake, you wouldn’t actually be learning anything and that is not how we are supposed to live our lives.
On the one hand, never making a mistake would be boring because everything you do, say and write would always be correct. How is this learning and helping you to grow up into an adult? You learn from your mistakes when you are younger and gradually you get better at things such as school and sport. Making mistakes makes you want to try harder.
On the other hand, never making a mistake would mean I would never have to revise for my school subjects and tests and never need to practice free kicks in football because I would just know it all!
I would not take a pill to stop me making a mistake because I think it is very important to learn from your mistakes and it is not all about getting everything right all of the time.
Well done 👍 Even adults have plenty of opportunities to learn from their mistakes!
Nice work Josh
This means that you will get everything spot on first time and you won’t learn how to overcome any challenges.
On the one hand, making no mistakes at all will make you feel happy and confident because you will get everything right and make no wrong choices. You will never need to practice playing the piano or practice football skills. Life would be very easy.
On the other hand, making no mistakes means that you won’t learn anything. You won’t have the satisfaction of trying and learning anything new because you will always get it right so you will not persevere. Everyone makes mistakes. What’s so wrong about that?
I won’t take the pill because I want to learn from my mistakes and if I take the pill I won’t. I want to make mistakes and be like everyone else.
It’s very true that satisfaction comes from persevering with something!
Taking a pill that means everything you try to do always happens how you want it to, like if you kick a football at the goal and never miss. Or playing a video game and always winning.
On the one hand, life will be very different and I think very boring because you know you will get things right all the time. You learn from your mistakes, and that makes you better next time, but you wont be able to get better next time if you take the pill.
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great to always score a goal and never ever miss. It would be also great to make no mistakes ever in exams, or when playing video games. You will always be the best so it will be amazing.
I will pick to not take the pill because I want to learn from my mistakes and do something wrong in my life so I can try and get it right next time.
Well done 👍 Joe
Imagine going through life without making a single mistake I wonder if this would make you more successful in later life? A pill that could guarantee you a life time of passing your exams, making friends, having the best jobs and being happy would surely be a good thing to do, right?
Right! It sounds like a good offer to know what other people are thinking, what every right answer is and knowing what the result will be in every game before a ball is kicked eg. Who will be the World Cup winners?
Wrong!! How would you learn from your mistakes and you won’t ever have the surprise of your Christmas presents [if you’ve been a good boy or girl] or the excitement of a last minute GOALLLLL!!!!! [1-0 Spurs of course]
So, this comes down to the answer – I would [drum roll]……NOT take the pill. I want to experience the rights and wrongs of my decisions and be surprised at the results.
I like your thinking, Oliver!
I think if I did take the pill (which I would not do) I simply just could not learn. It that would also mean that you will not ever be IT in a game and would absolutely spoil it for all your best friends!
That is why I would agree with not taking the pill and there is many more good things that you can do without getting everything right. Plus why would you even bother going to school!! If you don’t go to school how will you get any friends and no one want no friends. So that’s why I would not take it
But on the other hand if you did take it and you did go to school then you would probably pass all the maths assessments and get to go to the headmaster and he would give you credits!
But I would not do it, because as I said at the top if you cannot make a mistake then you cannot learn!
I’m glad you think there’s so much more to school than getting everything right in tests 😊
I agree! Making mistakes is how you learn
Take a pill and never get anything wrong ever again! Imagine what life would be like would it really be good for you?
On the one hand taking the pill would be a good decision because you would not have to worry about getting your spellings and homework wrong ever again. You could help your teacher mark all the work. When you leave school, you could have a life saving job like making medicines for really ill people. You would be able to choose the right materials to make the medicines.
On the other hand, if you took the pill life might be very boring and I don’t think you would have much fun. People would be afraid to talk to you because they would always think you would correct them. You might get bullied because people might think you are annoying if you are always correcting them. I think you would have a very lonely life. You would not be proud of yourself or happy because you wouldn’t have to work for anything.
I would not take the pill because you would not learn anything, life would be boring because you would find everything too easy and you wouldn’t challenge yourself.
A good argument Zachary. I am particularly interested in your idea that you would have nothing to feel proud of.
If you could take a pill that meant you would never make a mistake, should you take it? There are two arguments. If you took it, you would know everything and you would be very clever, but life would be boring. However, if you didn’t take it, you would always be able to learn and improve, which makes you feel great. No! I think I would not take it because I love learning new things.
Why would life be boring, Adnan?
Wouldn’t it be great to never make a mistake in life?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a magic pill you could take that means you would always do things right the first time. Would you take it?
On the one hand if every-time you play a game of football you are guaranteed to score the most goals then it would be boring because you have no competition. Imagine if you were playing a video game and every time you won, again it wouldn’t be fun and what would be the point of playing?
On the other hand, for a while it might be nice to know you were going to get the things right the first time and to always win or pass exams without all of the hard work or revision.
I personally wouldn’t take the pill because first of all you learn from your mistakes and secondly it would be boring if you never made a mistake. You would never have any challenges or anything to work towards. It is important to have goals in life and it makes you feel good when you work hard and achieve them. When I score a goal in football I feel really good because I have worked hard to achieve it. Sometimes when I miss the coach tells me what I did wrong and I remember it for next time. When I score a high mark in my tests I am pleased with myself for spending the time revising.
Well done, Zach! You have explained your point of view well.
What would life be without making a mistake?
Good points:
The good points of taking a pill that ensures you never make a mistake are that:
1. You will pass all your tests and get good grades which will make you clever and popular.
2. You don’t have to worry about learning anything.
3. You will feel happy and confident.
4. It will make you never feel bad about your mistakes.
5. You will never have to fix anything because you have got everything right.
The bad points are:
1. Without making a mistake you will never learn different ways of doing things. Most inventors make their creations by their mistakes.
2. By making mistakes that’s where some of the best ideas come from.
3. Also, by making mistakes it teaches you to persevere and try getting it correct.
4. Mistakes helps you become a stronger character to deal with getting things wrong.
I would not take the pill because if I did I would not need to learn anything. I would not need to go to school and I like going to school. I would not be able to beat the score that I got in the last test which would be boring.
Good thinking, Ishaan! I’m particularly interested in your points in favour of mistakes.
I like being me and I certainly would not be me if I got everything right all the time. It might sound fun but life would get boring quite quickly.
If I took the pill there would be no feeling of failure. This would be good because sometimes it makes you feel ashamed and lose your confidence and start to think that you are rubbish if you cannot do things right.
But there would also not be any feeling of pride when you finally can do something that you have failed at before. This is one of the very best feelings in the world. I can remember feeling so good when I finally learned how to ride my bike. It took me ages and I keeped on falling off but then I finally did it. I don’t think I would have felt so proud of myself if I had just got on the bike and was an expert rider straight away.
All in all I think you can keep your pills and I will just try to get better at handling failure.
I like your approach, Alec!
There aren’t pills that can make you right all the time but what if there were? What are the good things and the bad thing? What would it be like to know everything?
Here is my opinion for not taking the pill. Making mistakes is very important because you should learn from them. If you don’t take the pill you would makes mistakes which is fine. If you take the pill you would always be right but never learn.
On the other hand the good things about taking the pill are, you would be the best at everything like sports, maths, English and loads of other things. You could get into good schools by getting good marks on exams, but when you are doing lessons in school and you are doing things that you have never done before you would get it right but you wouldn’t be learning would you.
For me I think you should not take the pill because you should experience the things you get right in your life and things you get wrong in your life. You should never get sad about making mistakes, just make sure you learn from them.
Well done, Stanley!
If you took a pill that meant you would never make a mistake, would you?
On one hand, I wouldn’t take the pill because I would not learn from my mistakes. Its important to learn from your mistakes because you learn what is right and wrong and how it feels.
On the other hand, if I took the pill I would get things done quicker and easier because I know it would always be right. It would be like magic taking the pill. However, if for example someone was stuck on a question to answer and my teacher said not to, it would be like a moral dilemma. Do I help my friend or not?
In conclusion I would not take the pill, so I could learn from my mistakes and make moral decisions. If I took the pill it would be like I am robot and a very lazy person that can’t make decisions, because whatever I did would be always right, boring and predictable.
I like your thinking, Valentino!
If I took pill the world would be different because no one would make any mistakes, exams would be a piece of cake and we would all get distinctions so there would be no point.
On the one hand I wouldn’t make mistakes so I would be top of the class, I would do well in all subjects get distinctions in all my exams and people would think of me as a smart boy.
On the other hand it’s important we make mistakes because we learn from mistakes, if I were to play fortnite and get victory royales every game I would get bored of it very quickly.
Now for my conclusion, I would not take the pill because mistakes are important they let us know what we need to improve on and they are a part of learning and they help us to take it that one step further.
Well done, Donal!
If you took a pill that will make you get everything right would that be a good or bad thing?
Advantages:
1. If you took the pill you wouldn’t make the wrong choices and get told off
2. Secondly, you would get everything right in each test
3. You would get a good job as you would have excellent exam results
Disadvantages:
1. You would not have sense of accomplishment
2. You only learn by making mistakes
3. Perfection is imperfection
I would not take the pill because it would be boring.
I’m intrigued by your comment ‘perfection is imperfection’. What do you mean?
The things that are beautiful about people are their differences, and what they can’t do rather than what they can.
😊
Imagine what would happen if I were perfect. I would wake up earlier than I am used to, make my bed, eat all my breakfast and do all my home ahead of time.
On one hand, life would be boring because I’d have nothing to learn from. I would also probably do the same thing over and over again which would be frustrating!
On the other hand, making mistakes would be a really big price to pay. Things would also just get harder.
I wouldn’t take the pill because things would be way too easy, and life just wouldn’t be the same. I would also rather learn from mistakes than not have any!
It’s good to embrace challenges!
Imagine life with no mistakes like when you can get 100% on every test.
On one hand, you could answer every question and get it right and you could wake up every day on time.
one the other hand, life would be boring without mistakes and you also learn from mistakes.
I would not take the pill because everything in life would be too easy.
Why would it not be good if things were easy?
I changed my mind.YES because you would know everything and you would even know the matter of life and by knowing the matter,the idea of life and that means you could tell everyone the meaning of life so I think by doing that we would all live happier.By taking the pill you would know everything because you never make a mistake.
But if you try the pill you would appreciate or dislike it or maybe you sort of like having the power to never make a mistake.On the two hands
amagian one hand you like the pill and the other hand you don’t like the pill what would you take the hand that likes the pill or not? I would.
1. You would get 100%on every exam or test.
2. You would always take the rite choises.
3. I think you would live a happy and proud life because you would do so well in life.
Well done for knowing your own mind, Sebastian!
Imagine going through your whole life without making a single mistake. It will be amazing on getting 100% on every math test, the bad thing is that you will never learn anything because you learn from your mistakes and life will be very, very boring without making any mistakes.
On one hand, it is a bad decision to take the pill because mistakes help you learn new things. You will learn and improve in places that you never knew before.
On the other hand, if you take pill, you will never revise for any tests and not learn anything new. It will be really boring to do everything again and again.
In conclusion, I would not take the pill, because I feel making mistakes and learn from your mistakes is part of your life. And you can be a better person only when you improve in life. People not only love you because you are best but sometimes, they like you because you make mistakes and overcome your problems.
Good work, Shourya 👍
Imagine taking a pill that would mean you never made a mistake, would this make you smart?
If you did not make mistakes you would have the freedom to do what ever you want, go to the best schools, have the best job, be good at lots of different subjects like sport, English, Maths, and Science.
As you would not make any mistakes, you may never need to go to school to learn….
You could be like Brian Wong who was never wrong from David Williams, The world’s worst Children.
On the other hand if you do take the pill life might be boring as you could never learn from making a mistake, which can be fun!
You may have a reaction to the pill and become very ill.
Your cleverness may make you mean to people who make mistakes as you become impatient with them.
I would not take the pill because I like learning and trying again and again when I get things wrong, I’m good at making mistakes so this suits me.
Well done, Cruz!
We all make mistakes. Sometimes big ones, sometimes tiny ones. But what would it be like if we could go through life without a single mistake? Would it make us better than others? Would it help us in any way? Or would it cause upset and jealousy?
Some people say that making mistakes strengthens your character and teaches you a lot about yourself. I think that may be the case but only as long as you learn from your mistakes, otherwise you just waste your time and possibly cause a lot of damage. Making mistakes and learning from them is meant to be good for your brain development, too. You try to do something, you fail, you try again and again, possibly make some more mistakes along the way but also explore the problem and understand it deeply as a result. It’s the only way to get really good at something.
Now imagine you go through your life without making any mistakes! You’re sensible and logical, you know exactly what you’re doing, common sense is your middle name… You’re naturally good at everything you do, you always make the right decisions and know everything better that anybody else. It doesn’t mean your life would be boring because you could still learn a lot every day, just not from your own mistakes. You could make a lot of positive change in the world and put your gift to a good use. The only problem with that is – some people could be envious of your life and not wish you very well.
If I had a choice I’d take the magic pill and try my hardest to make the world a better place for all of us to live. Perhaps I could pass my knowledge onto others and help them do the right thing, too. I’d still have to study and learn a lot every day! I’d still go out there and experience life, play games, make friends. And probably keep my gift to myself from time to time…
Food for thought! Well done, Fillip
Rohan
It sounds great to be able to never make a mistake.
On one hand it would be good because what if there is a test, you would want to get full marks right, and also it would mean that everything you do is correct. Like every time your spelling out a word you will never go wrong, and will never have to practice for a spelling test.
When you are going somewhere you will never take the wrong route.
On the downside though, sometimes it is important to a make mistakes, because you learn from them.
Did you know that Coca Cola was actually a mistake? The inventor didn’t’ plan to create coke, but came across it by accident. This is true for crisps as well. Sometimes mistakes can sometimes lead to good results
I would not take the pill, because by making mistakes you learn and I think without making mistakes life would be boring sometimes mistakes aren’t mistakes to others.
Mistakes can indeed be inspirational!
Can you imagine going through life with not making a single mistake? It will be so boring.
On the one hand if you take this pill you can get into any school you want, any job you want, you can do anything you want to do, be very confident and never lose things because the pill will not let you make mistakes.
On the other hand if you don’t take the pill you will actually learn something and if you try something new there will be a point you even trying because you can actually have some fun practising . Life is about making mistakes and the best way to learn is from your mistakes.
Over all I think not taking the pill is the best option.