竞赛简介 Introduction
约翰洛克写作竞赛(John Locke Essay Competition)由位于英国牛津的独立教育组织John Locke Institute主办，该组织与牛津、普林斯顿、布朗、白金汉大学等名校教授都有合作。正如约翰·洛克精神一样，竞赛从极富趣味性和挑战力的写作题目出发，旨在培养参赛者的议论文写作能力，考察参赛者对于不同学科领域独立深刻的见解、广博的认知、清晰的说理能力、批判性的分析思维能力和说服力。此前参赛者被牛津、剑桥、普林斯顿、哈佛、耶鲁、斯坦福、芝加哥、加州伯克利等名校录取。
The John Locke Institute encourages young people to cultivate the characteristics that turn good students into great writers: independent thought, depth of knowledge, clear reasoning, critical analysis, and persuasive style. The Essay Competition invites students to explore a wide range of challenging and interesting questions beyond the confines of the school curriculum. Past students have gone on to study at Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, and Berkeley.
竞赛时间 Timeline
2025年4月1日-5月31日间学生必须完成报名注册，否则无法递交论文参赛
2025年6月30日（英国时间晚11：59，即美东时间下午6：59）截止投稿
Registrations open 1st April 2025.Only candidates who registered beforethe registration deadline of Saturday, 31 May 2025may enter this year's competition.All entries must be submitted by 11.59 pm BSTonthe submission deadline: Monday, 30 June 2025.
参赛资格 Eligibility
全球学生均有资格参赛，其中分为高年级组和低年级组。
高年级组：15-18岁
低年级组：14岁及以下
Entry to the John Locke Institute Essay Competition 2025 is open to students from any country.Candidates must be eighteen years old, or younger, on Monday, 30 June 2025. (Candidates for the Junior Prize must be fourteen years old, or younger, on that date.)
适合学生 Recommended to Students
➡专业兴趣方向为经济、心理、法律、新闻、国际关系、哲学、历史等人文社科的学生。
➡欲提升并证明自己议论文写作能力的学生。
➡Students who want to apply for majors including economics, psychology, law, media, international relations, philosophy, history, and other related fields.
➡Students who want to develop their persuasive writing skills.
竞赛话题 Topics
Philosophy 哲学
Q1. What moral obligations do we owe to living persons that we do not owe to future persons? What are the implications of your answer for policy-making?
Q2. Should we treat non-human animals well because they have rights, interests, neither, or both?
Q3. "When civilians are the main target, there's no need to consider the cause. That's terrorism; it's evil." Is this correct?
Politics 政治
Q1. Should politicians ever be punished for lying?
Q2. David Hume celebrated the wisdom of "unlettered men". In a democracy, do the votes of the unlettered tend to protect a country against the bad ideas of the lettered or do the votes of the lettered tend to protect a country against the bad ideas of the unlettered?
Q3. Diversity is fashionable, but is it valuable?
Economics 经济
Q1. What kinds of behaviour are engendered by the hope of profit? Is such behaviour better or worse, on balance, than the behaviour we should expect if all enterprises were owned by charities or governments?
Q2. What will be the effect on socio-economic mobility of the UK government's plan to impose value added tax on school fees?
Q3. Should Oxford lower its admissions standards for the sons and daughters of generous benefactors?
History 历史
Q1. According to Bertrand Russell, "Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill of Locke." To what extent was he correct?
Q2. Should anyone be ashamed of their nation's history? Should anyone be proud of it?
Q3. Which figure in history did most to enlarge human freedom?
Law 法律
Q1. What injury should one person be permitted to inflict on another in the defence of private property?
Q2. “Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping?” Should the law treat offenders better than they deserve?
Q3. Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Psychology 心理
Q1. Is objectivity all in the mind?
Q2. Eleanor Roosevelt declared, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Is she right?
Q3. What is self-deceit?
Theology 神学
Q1. Is atheism implausible?
Q2. Why would the creator of a trillion galaxies become angry if you have sex with your boyfriend or eat bacon for breakfast?
Q3. Why pray?
Junior Prize 低年龄组
Q1. Your citizenship at birth was chosen for you. Which citizenship would you have chosen?
Q2. Do you benefit more from your own freedom of speech or from other people’s?
Q3. Who is more powerful - Donald Trump or Elon Musk?
Q4. Since 1920, twenty-one presidents and prime ministers from nine countries have been graduates of Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE) at Oxford. Would it have been better if they had studied history?
Q5. What is your fair share of what someone else has earned?
Q6. Why do you continue to use your smartphone more than is good for you?
Q7. Why do people become more boring as they grow up and grow older?
写作要求 Entry Requirements
➡字数要求不超过2000字（不包括图表、援引等）。
➡需以PDF形式提交文章。PDF命名方式：名-姓-论文话题组别-论文题号。
➡不允许加脚注。
➡原文中不得出现 参赛者姓名。
➡参赛者需提供一名导师邮件地址，以证明论文原创性。
Each essay must address only one of the questions in your chosen subject category, and must not exceed 2000 words (not counting diagrams, tables of data, endnotes, bibliography or authorship declaration).
The filename of your pdf must be in this format: FirstName-LastName-Category-QuestionNumber.pdf; so, for instance, Alexander Popham would submit his answer to question 2 in the Psychology category with the following file name:
Alexander-Popham-Psychology-2.pdf
Essays with filenames which are not in this format will be rejected.
The candidate's name should NOT appear within the document itself.
Candidates should NOT add footnotes. They may, however, add endnotes and/or a Bibliography that is clearly titled as such.
Each candidate will be required to provide the email address of an academic referee who is familiar with the candidate's written academic work. This should be a school teacher, if possible, or another responsible adult who is not a relation of the candidate. The John Locke Institute will email referees to verify that the essays submitted are indeed the original work of the candidates.
奖项设置 Prizes
➡每个参赛话题组别的第一名将获得5000美金奖学金，用于参加约翰洛克提供课程。第二名和第三名将分别获得2000美金和1000美金。特等大奖将获得10000美金。
There are prizes for the best essays in each category. The prize for each winner of a subject category, and the winner of the Junior category, is a scholarship worthUS$5000 towards the cost of attending any John Locke Institute programme. The second place winner will receive a scholarship worthUS$2000 and the third place winner will receive a scholarship worthUS$1000.
The candidate who submits the best essay overall will be awarded an honorary John Locke Institute Junior Fellowship, which comes with a US$10,000 scholarship to attend one or more of our summer schools and/or visiting scholars programmes.
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