CPE Article: Life and the city

In some of the University of Cambrige ESOL Examinations (FCE, CAE, CPE) you are asked to write an Article. This is an example of a CPE Article. Click here for more on how to write an article. 

Life and the city

It is said that love is blind and it must be so. 
I have got a soft spot for cities, polluted or heavily congested as they might be. 
I would not like to live in the country at all !

There is something soothing about cobblestone roads and the reek of exhausted fumes. I can´t explain it, it just makes me feel at home. It may have something to do with having been born and raised in a city. One gets used to the odours and the noise, and the sight of the hoardings advertising beer and the queues at the bus stop.

It is not true what some anti-city people say, that they are difficult places to live in. On the contrary, more  and more people are choosing to live in them, as they have so much to offer, both socially and culturally.  There is the theatre, the malls, the 24/7 multiplex cinemas, the workshops, the concerts, and so on. In the city there is always somewhere to go, someone to meet and something to think of.

That is not the case of the country. I recently travelled to the hills, in the outskirts, to visit some friends of mine. What a nightmarish experience I had ! All that quiet and peace was nerve-racking. I was constantly, secretly, expecting something seriously bad to happen, just to escape from that silence and hear some noise!

Needless to say, I did not like it at all. I got bored to the bones and arrived at the conclusion I never want to return. So never mind how heavily country dwellers criticise cities, don´t believe them. It is true that in the cities we have  muggers and hooligans, but... we also have music, and people, and cosmopolitan bars and  ginger ale! and God, don´t we love ginger ale?

Gustavo Albarracín
words: 311

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