Model Answer 4: (Disagreement)
It is undeniable that the population size of the human is expanding with a significant speed. Thus, the country's birth control policy has become a major concern for many governments in the world. But should such policies control the number of offspring one family can have through taxes? In my opinion, that solution could be replaced with many more efficient methods.

Some people believe that taxes can lower the fertility rate in countries since it involves directly to one family’s financial state. This belief has some merits on the surface. However, with families which have low income, especially the ones below the poverty line, there is an extremely low possibility that they can manage to pay extra taxes for having many children. Therefore, tax evasion may occur, which leads to another unexpected problem the governments to deal with.

Although birth control policies are inevitable, there are more reasonable methods that governments can apply rather than raising the tax. For instance, sex education may be taught at elementary schools. Since elementary educating universalisation is becoming a trend, children would have a better perception about sex protection and unwanted pregnancy, thus reducing the birth rate. Another solution is to propagandise for citizens the benefits of having few children, such as more education and healthcare that a sole child would receive, or less financial pressure having only one to two children.

To sum up, I totally disagree with the idea of putting more taxes only to reduce the country's birthrate. Instead, more non-financial policies should be taken place to convince couples to the root, making them have fewer children with no objection but to their heart's content.

[by - Hung Vuong]

Model Answer 5: (Agreement)
Since overpopulation is often an unbearable burden to the national economy and development of a country, it is certainly very understandable that some governments should start looking at ways of limiting their populations to a sustainable figure. So I agree that some governments should take a one or two-children policy to curb the population growth problem, but that should be done in a way so that people do not feel that their freedom has been taken away.  

In the past, populations were partly regulated by frequent war and widespread disease, but in recent years, the effects of those factors have been diminished. Countries can be faced with a population that is growing much faster than the nation's food resources or employment opportunities, and whose members can be condemned to poverty by the need to feed extra mouths. They identify population control as a means to improve living standards.

But the government should target to achieve it in gradual steps and not make citizens angry in the process. Clearly, this whole area is a very delicate personal and cultural issue. Many people feel that this is not a matter for the state to decide. For that reason, it would seem that the best approach would be to work by persuasion rather than compulsion. This could be done by a process of education, awareness campaigns and advertisements that point out the way a smaller family can mean an improved quality of life for the family members, as well as less strain on the country's perhaps very limited resources.

This is the preferred way, but, if this does not succeed within a reasonable time scale, it may be necessary to consider other measures, such as tax incentives or child-benefit payments for small families only. These are midway between persuasion and compulsion but would be effective, in my opinion.

It is sometimes logical, even necessary that governments should try very hard to persuade and educate people first to restrict the population growth. They should also remember that this is a very delicate area indeed, and should try to impose things gradually and never drastically.