順天堂大学医学部 自由英作文 予想問題集
全30問｜模範解答・全訳・解説・表現集つき

Among the many people I have met, the person who has influenced me most is Mr. Tanaka, my junior high school science teacher. Before I met him, I studied science simply to get good grades, but he completely changed my attitude toward learning.

Mr. Tanaka never gave us answers directly. When I asked him why the sky is blue, he handed me a prism and told me to find out for myself. Through experiences like this, I learned that knowledge becomes truly meaningful only when we discover it through our own effort. He also stayed after school to listen to students' questions, no matter how basic they were. His patience taught me that a good mentor respects every learner. Because of him, I began reading science books voluntarily and eventually decided to pursue a career in medicine, a field where lifelong learning is essential.

In conclusion, Mr. Tanaka transformed me from a passive student into an active learner. In the future, I hope to treat the people around me with the same patience and curiosity that he showed me, and to keep asking questions throughout my life.

If I could meet my ten-year-old self, I would give one simple piece of advice: do not be afraid of making mistakes in front of others.

When I was in elementary school, I rarely raised my hand in class because I was terrified of giving a wrong answer. Looking back, this fear cost me many opportunities. For example, I gave up joining the English speech contest in the sixth grade, even though I secretly practiced every day at home. It was not a lack of ability but a fear of embarrassment that held me back. In high school, I finally realized that mistakes are the fastest way to learn. When I started asking questions without hesitation, my grades improved dramatically, and more importantly, studying became enjoyable. If I had understood this at ten, I could have grown much more, both academically and personally.

In conclusion, I would tell my younger self that a person who never makes mistakes never truly challenges anything. This advice summarizes the most important lesson of my first eighteen years, and I intend to keep following it myself in the future.

The most significant failure in my life so far happened in my second year of high school, when I was the captain of the basketball club.

As captain, I believed that showing strong leadership meant making all the decisions by myself. I decided the practice schedule and the starting members without asking anyone's opinion. As a result, the team's atmosphere became worse and worse, and we lost in the first round of the summer tournament. After the game, one teammate told me honestly, "We were not playing together; we were just following you." His words shocked me deeply. I realized that I had confused leadership with control. From that day, I began holding short meetings where everyone could speak freely, and I learned to listen before making decisions. In our final tournament, we advanced to the semifinals, but what mattered more was that every member felt the team was truly ours.

In conclusion, this failure taught me that a leader's real job is not to give orders but to draw out the strength of others. This lesson has become the foundation of how I work with people, and I believe it will remain essential in any team I join in the future.

The book that has influenced me most is "Night" by Elie Wiesel, a memoir of a teenage boy who survived the Holocaust. I read it in my first year of high school, and it completely changed my understanding of human dignity.

Before reading this book, war was just a topic in history class for me. However, Wiesel describes his experiences in the concentration camp so vividly that I felt as if I were standing beside him. What shocked me most was not only the cruelty of the situation but also the fact that ordinary people remained silent while their neighbors suffered. The book taught me that indifference can be as harmful as violence itself. After finishing it, I began to pay more attention to people around me who might be struggling silently, such as a classmate who had stopped coming to school. I visited him regularly, and he eventually returned.

In conclusion, this book transformed history into a personal lesson about responsibility. It taught me that noticing other people's pain is the first step toward helping them, and this belief is one of the main reasons I want to work in a profession that cares for others.

Many people believe that success means earning a high salary or becoming famous. However, I define success differently: to me, success means becoming someone that others can rely on.

I formed this definition through my experience as a volunteer at a local nursing home. At first, I thought I was just helping with small tasks such as serving tea. One day, an elderly woman told me that she looked forward to my visits every week because I always remembered the details of her stories. She did not praise my skills or knowledge; she simply trusted me. At that moment, I felt a deeper satisfaction than I had ever felt from receiving a good test score or winning a competition. Money and fame depend on comparison with others, so they can disappear at any time. Trust, on the other hand, is built slowly through sincere actions, and it makes both the giver and the receiver happier.

In conclusion, my definition of success is to be trusted and needed by the people around me. Even if I never become rich or famous, I will consider my life successful as long as someone says, "I am glad you were there."

The habit that has shaped me most is running every morning before breakfast, which I have continued for five years, since my first year of junior high school.

I started running simply because I wanted to become a regular player in my soccer club. However, the habit soon gave me much more than physical strength. First, it taught me that small efforts, repeated daily, produce results that no single big effort can match. My time for five kilometers improved only a few seconds each month, but after five years, I had become one of the fastest runners in my school. Second, morning running gave me a quiet time to organize my thoughts. Before important exams or difficult conversations with friends, I often found solutions while running. Even on the morning of my hardest day, when I had to say goodbye to my grandfather in the hospital, running helped me calm my mind and face the day.

In conclusion, this simple habit has given me patience, consistency, and emotional stability. I am convinced that these qualities, built up through five years of quiet mornings, will support me in whatever challenges my future brings.

During my second year of high school, I experienced a situation in which my opinion clashed with that of almost everyone in my class.

Our class was deciding the theme for the school festival, and most students wanted to repeat the same food stand that had succeeded the previous year. I disagreed because I thought festivals were a chance to try something new, and I proposed a science show for local children instead. At first, my idea was rejected with laughter, and I almost gave up. However, instead of simply insisting on my opinion, I prepared a concrete plan showing the schedule, the cost, and examples from other schools, and presented it again. Some classmates began to support me, and finally we agreed to combine the two ideas: a food stand with a small science corner. On the festival day, the science corner was crowded with children, and many classmates told me they were glad we had tried it.

From this experience, I learned two things. First, disagreeing is meaningless unless you present a realistic alternative. Second, the goal of discussion is not to defeat others but to create a better answer together. I believe this lesson will be essential whenever I work in a team in the future.

If I were given one free year that I could not use for studying, I would spend it working on a small farm in a rural village in Japan.

There are two reasons for this choice. First, I have lived in a city all my life, and I know almost nothing about how food reaches my table. By growing rice and vegetables with my own hands, I would like to experience the patience and physical effort behind everyday meals. I believe that people who understand where things come from can appreciate their daily lives more deeply. Second, I want to live in a community completely different from my own. In many rural villages, most residents are elderly, and neighbors support each other closely. Through daily conversations with them, I hope to learn how people find happiness in a quiet life, which is a value that city life rarely teaches. This experience would also show me the reality of aging communities, which is one of the biggest challenges facing Japan.

In conclusion, I would use the year to gain what textbooks cannot give me: physical experience, a different sense of time, and connections with people of other generations. I am sure this year would make me a more mature person.

I have grown up in a mid-sized city near Tokyo, and although it is not famous, there is one thing I am truly proud of and one thing I would like to change.

What I am proud of is the large riverside park that runs through the center of the city. Every morning, elderly people practice light exercise there, children run to school along the water, and on weekends volunteers clean the riverbank together. I joined this cleaning activity as an elementary school student, and it taught me that a beautiful town is not given but created by its residents. On the other hand, what I would like to change is the lack of places where teenagers can spend time after school. Unlike small children and adults, high school students in my city have almost no public space of their own, so many of them stay in fast-food shops. If I could, I would turn one of the empty buildings near the station into a free study and meeting space for young people.

In conclusion, my community has taught me both pride and problems. I hope to keep the spirit of the riverside volunteers and, someday, to give the next generation a better place to grow up in than the one I received.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering the world of medicine, and some people even predict that doctors will no longer be needed. However, I believe that AI will not replace doctors but will change their role into something more human.

AI clearly has great benefits. It can compare millions of medical images in seconds and detect early signs of cancer that human eyes might miss. It never gets tired, and it can support hospitals that do not have enough specialists. On the other hand, AI has serious limitations. It cannot sit beside anxious patients, listen to their fears, or consider their family situations when explaining treatment choices. Medicine is not only about finding the correct answer; it is about helping a person accept and live with that answer. For example, telling someone that they have cancer requires careful words, timing, and empathy, which no machine can provide. Therefore, as AI takes over data analysis, doctors will be able to spend more time on communication and emotional support.

In conclusion, AI will free doctors from routine work and make the human side of medicine more important than ever. The doctors of the future will need not only scientific knowledge but also the ability to do what AI cannot: to care.

Thousands of patients in Japan are waiting for organ transplants, but only a small number of operations are performed each year. To solve this problem, some people propose an "opt-out" system, in which everyone is treated as a donor unless they refuse. Although I understand its advantages, I do not think Japan should introduce this system now.

It is true that the opt-out system could increase the number of donors, and countries such as Spain have achieved high donation rates. Saving more lives is, of course, an important goal. However, organ donation is meaningful only when it is based on a person's own will. If people become donors simply because they never thought about the issue, their families may suffer deep regret and confusion at the moment of death. In Japan, where family opinions traditionally play a large role in medical decisions, forcing this change too quickly could damage public trust in medicine itself. Instead, Japan should first improve education about donation, for example by discussing it in high school classes, and make the registration process much easier.

In conclusion, increasing donors is necessary, but the method matters. Building a society where people actively choose to donate is slower, yet it is a healthier path than changing the rule before changing people's understanding.

When a patient is seriously ill, should doctors always tell the complete truth? This is one of the hardest questions in medicine. I basically support telling the truth, but I believe the way and the timing of telling it are just as important as the truth itself.

Patients have the right to know about their own bodies, because without accurate information, they cannot make important decisions: whether to receive aggressive treatment, how to spend their remaining time, or what to say to their families. My grandmother's case taught me this. When she was diagnosed with cancer, her doctor explained her condition honestly but gradually, over several meetings, always ending with what could still be done. Because she understood her situation, she chose to spend her last months at home, surrounded by her family, and she often said she was grateful for that choice. If the truth had been hidden, she would have lost the chance to design her own final days. On the other hand, dropping the full truth on a patient suddenly, without hope or support, is not honesty but cruelty.

In conclusion, doctors should tell the truth, but as a process, not as a single announcement. Truth-telling in medicine means walking beside patients while they face reality, and that is exactly the kind of doctor I hope to become.

Thanks to rapid progress in medicine, living to 150 may no longer be a dream. However, I do not believe that simply extending the human lifespan would make us happier, unless the quality of those extra years is guaranteed.

Of course, a longer life has attractive possibilities. People could enjoy several different careers, see their great-grandchildren grow up, and have enough time to correct their past mistakes. For medicine, it would mean a victory over many diseases. However, serious problems would follow. First, if only wealthy people could afford the technology, society would be divided into those who buy time and those who cannot, creating the deepest inequality in history. Second, a much longer life does not promise a meaningful one. Many elderly people today suffer not from disease but from loneliness and the feeling of being unnecessary. Extending life without solving these problems might simply extend suffering. Finally, if people stopped making room for the next generation, society could lose the freshness that young people bring.

In conclusion, what matters is not how long we live but how well we live. Before asking whether we can live to 150, we should ask whether everyone can live their given years with dignity. As a future member of the medical community, I believe medicine should aim at the quality of life first.

Should we continue using animals for medical research? This question forces us to weigh human lives against animal suffering. My position is that animal experiments should be continued for now, but only under strict conditions and with constant efforts to replace them.

The main reason is that many essential medicines could not have been developed without animal research. Vaccines, insulin, and modern surgical methods were all tested on animals before saving millions of human lives. If we stopped all animal experiments today, the development of treatments for cancer or dementia would be seriously delayed, and patients waiting for cures would pay the price. However, this does not mean researchers may use animals freely. Because animals cannot agree or refuse, humans have a special responsibility toward them. Experiments should be allowed only when there is no alternative method, the number of animals is minimized, and their pain is reduced as much as possible. Furthermore, science itself is opening a better path: computer simulations and artificially grown human cells are already replacing some animal tests, and society should invest heavily in such technologies.

In conclusion, I accept animal experiments as a temporary necessity, not as a permanent right. Our goal should be a future in which medicine no longer needs to sacrifice animals, and until that day, we must treat every animal used in research with gratitude and respect.

Online medical consultations, which spread rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, are now becoming a normal part of healthcare. In my opinion, online medicine has clear advantages and equally clear limits, and its future role should be to support, not replace, face-to-face medicine.

The advantages are significant. For elderly people in rural areas with few hospitals, for busy workers, and for patients whose immune systems are weak, online consultations remove the burden and risk of traveling. Patients with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure can receive regular check-ups and prescriptions without spending hours in waiting rooms. On the other hand, the disadvantages are also serious. Doctors cannot touch the patient's body, and important signs may be missed. A slightly strange color of the skin or a subtle smell can lead to a life-saving discovery, but a camera cannot convey them. Moreover, elderly patients who are not familiar with smartphones may be left behind, even though they need medical care the most.

In conclusion, online medicine should work as a bridge, connecting patients to healthcare more easily, while serious examinations and first visits remain face-to-face. If we combine the convenience of technology with the careful eyes and hands of doctors, we can build a healthcare system that leaves no one behind.

Generative AI can now produce essays, songs, and paintings faster than any human. Many people fear that our creativity will become unnecessary, but I believe AI will make us more creative, on one condition: we must remain the ones who ask the questions.

My reason comes from my own experience. When I used an AI tool to study English, it wrote a perfect model essay in seconds. At first, I felt discouraged, as if my effort had no meaning. However, when I started asking the AI to show me different versions and compared them with my own writing, I began to notice choices I had never thought about: word order, rhythm, and tone. The AI did not think for me; it gave me materials to think with. The same thing happened in art history. Great painters learned by copying masters before creating their own styles. AI can now be this "master" for everyone, showing ordinary people thousands of examples that only professionals could access before. The danger appears only when we accept the first answer AI gives and stop asking, "Is there a better way?"

In conclusion, generative AI is like a powerful telescope for the imagination: it shows us further than we could see alone, but it cannot decide where to look. As long as we keep choosing the direction, AI will expand human creativity rather than destroy it.

If I could place stricter rules on one technology, I would choose the "attention economy" of social media, the system in which apps are designed to keep users watching as long as possible.

Social media itself is not evil; it connects families, spreads knowledge, and gives a voice to people who were never heard before. The problem is that these platforms earn money from advertising, so their systems are built to capture human attention endlessly. Endless scrolling and constant notifications are not accidents; they are carefully designed to exploit the weaknesses of the human brain. As a result, many teenagers, including my own classmates, sleep less than six hours, compare themselves with others all day, and find it hard to concentrate on a single book. This is not a matter of personal willpower but a public health problem, just as tobacco once was. Therefore, I believe governments should regulate the design itself: for example, banning endless scrolling for users under eighteen and requiring apps to display total usage time.

If such rules were realized, technology companies would have to compete not for our attention but for our satisfaction. People would use social media as a tool, not be used by it. In conclusion, regulating attention-stealing design would return to us the most valuable resource we have: time to think our own thoughts.

Nowadays it is common to see elementary school children holding their own smartphones. In my opinion, however, children should not own a personal smartphone until they enter junior high school, around the age of twelve or thirteen.

I admit that smartphones have real benefits for children. Parents can contact their children in emergencies, and educational apps can make learning fun. These needs, however, can be met with simple phones designed for children, which allow calls and location sharing only. The risks of a full smartphone, on the other hand, are much harder to control. Elementary school children have not yet developed the self-control to stop watching videos, and their brains are especially sensitive to the instant rewards that apps provide. Furthermore, social media exposes them to comparison and bullying at an age when they cannot yet protect their own hearts. In my case, I received my smartphone at thirteen, later than most of my friends. At the time I felt unhappy, but thanks to those extra years, reading books had already become my habit, and I am now grateful to my parents.

In conclusion, the question is not whether children should use technology, but when and how. Giving a child a smartphone is like giving them a key to the whole world; we should hand it over only when they are ready to walk through the door safely.

Every year, huge budgets are spent on rockets and space missions, while millions of people on Earth still suffer from poverty and disease. Despite this painful contrast, I believe that investment in space exploration should continue, because it eventually helps us solve problems on Earth.

History shows that space technology returns to our daily lives in unexpected forms. Weather satellites now save countless lives by predicting typhoons and floods. GPS, originally developed for space and military use, supports ambulances, disaster rescue, and even the delivery of medical supplies to remote islands. Medical monitoring devices developed for astronauts are used in hospitals today. In other words, the money spent on space is not thrown into the sky; it comes back as technology that protects the weakest among us. Furthermore, space exploration gives human beings a shared dream. When people around the world watched the Moon landing together, they felt they belonged to one planet. In an age of wars and divisions, such a common goal has a value that cannot be measured in money.

Of course, this does not mean space budgets should be unlimited, and spending must always be explained to the public. In conclusion, however, looking up at the stars and looking after people on the ground are not enemies. The knowledge we gain above will continue to serve the lives we protect below.

Imagine a Japan where no one carries coins or bills. Such a completely cashless society would bring important benefits, but I would not fully welcome it, because it could quietly exclude the very people who most need protection.

The positive outcomes are easy to see. Shops would save the time and cost of handling cash, and tax offices could follow the flow of money, making illegal hidden income much harder. Tourists could travel without exchanging currency, and in emergencies, support money could be delivered to victims instantly. However, the negative outcomes worry me more. First, many elderly people are not comfortable with smartphones; in a fully cashless world, buying vegetables at a local shop could suddenly become a barrier for them. Second, every payment would leave a digital record, which means our daily behavior could be watched by companies or governments. Third, cash plays a hidden educational role: children who receive coins in their piggy banks learn the weight and limit of money physically, a lesson that numbers on a screen cannot teach.

In conclusion, I support expanding cashless payments, but cash should be kept as an option, just as stairs remain beside every escalator. A truly advanced society is not one that adopts the newest system fastest, but one that leaves no one behind while moving forward.

University education in Japan is expensive, and many students give up their dreams for financial reasons. I believe university education should be made free, step by step, because its benefits reach far beyond the students themselves.

The strongest reason is that higher education is not just a private service but an investment for the whole society. A student who becomes a doctor treats thousands of patients; a student who becomes an engineer builds safer bridges for everyone. When ability, not family income, decides who receives education, society can use its talent fully. In Japan today, however, children from low-income families often avoid applying to university, or they spend so many hours on part-time jobs that they cannot study properly. I have seen a talented friend choose employment over university simply because she had younger brothers. Her decision was a loss not only for her but for society. Of course, free education requires huge tax money, and some argue it is unfair to people who do not go to university. To answer this concern, we could start with families below a certain income level and with fields facing serious shortages, such as medicine, nursing, and teaching.

In conclusion, free university education is not a gift to the young but a seed for the future. A society that lets money block talent wastes its most precious resource, and Japan, a country poor in natural resources, cannot afford that waste.

Today, anyone with a smartphone can take English lessons from teachers overseas and watch foreign news at home. Nevertheless, I disagree with the idea that studying abroad is no longer necessary, because living in another country teaches us things that no screen can deliver.

First, what we learn abroad is not information but experience. Through the Internet, I can know that people in some countries eat dinner at nine at night, but only by sitting at that table as a guest can I feel how family conversation continues for hours, and how uncomfortable and then how enjoyable it is. Real understanding of another culture always includes this physical dimension. Second, studying abroad forces us to survive outside our comfort zone. When I attended a two-week program in Australia, I missed a bus on the first day and had to explain my situation to strangers in broken English. Online lessons had never trained me for that moment, but it taught me more courage than a hundred perfect classes. Third, we discover Japan itself. Being asked "Why do Japanese people work so much?" made me think seriously about my own society for the first time.

In conclusion, the Internet is a wonderful entrance to the world, but it is only an entrance. To walk through the door, feel lost, and grow: this is the experience called studying abroad, and its value has become greater, not smaller, in the online age.

As a high school student preparing for university entrance examinations, I have experienced both the light and the shadow of Japan's examination-centered education.

The advantages are real. First, examinations give clear goals and fair rules. No matter what family we come from, the same questions are placed before us, and effort is rewarded in visible scores. This fairness motivated me strongly; watching my English scores rise month by month taught me that steady work produces results. Second, preparing for difficult examinations builds basic academic strength and self-discipline that support us for life. On the other hand, the disadvantages are equally serious. Because examinations mainly measure answers that can be marked quickly, students learn to search for "the correct answer" and hesitate to ask questions that have no single answer. I remember giving up my questions about why historical events happened, because "why" was not on the test. Moreover, activities that examinations cannot measure, such as art, volunteer work, and deep friendship, are easily pushed aside during examination years.

In conclusion, examinations are a fair engine that drives us to study, but an engine needs a steering wheel. The ideal education system would keep the fairness of examinations while also valuing questions without answers, and I hope to remain a person who keeps asking such questions even after my examinations are over.

After twelve years of school life, I have come to believe that good learners share two essential qualities: the honesty to say "I don't understand," and the habit of connecting new knowledge to their own lives.

The first quality sounds easy but is actually rare. In my class, there was a student who always asked questions that others were too embarrassed to ask, such as the meaning of a basic word in chemistry. At first some classmates laughed, but his grades improved fastest, and eventually his questions helped the whole class, because many of us had hidden the same confusion. From him I learned that pretending to understand is the greatest enemy of learning. The second quality turns memorized facts into living knowledge. When I studied the immune system in biology, I connected it to my own experience of getting influenza, and wondered why I caught it even after vaccination. Searching for the answer led me deeper into the textbook than any homework had, and I still remember what I learned then. Facts connected to personal questions are almost impossible to forget.

In conclusion, a good learner is not someone who never gets confused, but someone who is honest about confusion and curious enough to link learning to life. Machines can now store all the facts for us; therefore, these two human qualities will define good learners even more in the future.

Japan's population began falling years ago, and the decline will continue throughout my lifetime. This change will certainly cause serious problems, but I believe it can also push Japanese society toward a better way of living, if we respond wisely.

The problems are undeniable. Fewer working people must support more elderly people, so taxes and insurance burdens will grow heavier. In rural areas, hospitals, schools, and train lines are already disappearing, and the shortage of doctors and caregivers will become severe. If Japan does nothing, the weakest people, the old, the sick, and the poor, will suffer first. However, crisis can be a teacher. First, labor shortages are forcing companies to abandon the old style of long working hours and to welcome women, elderly workers, and people from other countries. Japanese workplaces are becoming more diverse and flexible than ever, which might never have happened without population pressure. Second, a smaller population invites us to redefine "growth." Instead of building more, we can begin repairing, sharing, and using what we already have, empty houses, for example, are now being reborn as cafes and clinics.

In conclusion, population decline is a crisis we must face honestly, but it is also a rare chance to redesign society around quality rather than quantity. My generation cannot choose the size of Japan's population, but we can choose what kind of Japan the smaller population will live in.

While hospitals in Tokyo are full of doctors, some rural towns have no doctor at all. I believe this gap exists for understandable reasons, and precisely because the reasons are understandable, solving the problem requires both better systems and the will of young doctors.

Doctors gather in cities not because they are selfish, but because cities offer what young doctors need: advanced training, many experienced colleagues, and education for their children. A young doctor sent alone to a remote clinic may face endless responsibility with no one to consult, which is frightening. Therefore, blaming individual doctors will solve nothing. What we need are systems that remove these fears. For example, rural hospitals can be connected to university hospitals online, so that young doctors can consult specialists at any time. Working in rural areas for several years could be rewarded with scholarships, better salaries, and guaranteed opportunities to return to advanced training later. Some prefectures already use such systems, and regional medical school quotas are producing doctors who stay in their home areas.

At the same time, systems alone are not enough. Medicine exists for people, and people live everywhere, not only in convenient cities. If I become a doctor, I hope to spend part of my career in an area that needs doctors, not as a sacrifice, but as the natural duty and pride of my profession. In conclusion, the doctor shortage in rural Japan should be solved by wise systems supported by the sense of mission of each young doctor.

Should high school students be required to do volunteer work? Critics say that forced kindness is not kindness at all. I understand this view, but I support making volunteer work a required school activity, because my own experience taught me that even an obligation can open an unexpected door.

Three years ago, my school required all first-year students to spend one day helping at a facility for disabled children. Honestly, I did not want to go, and on the morning of the visit I felt only nervousness. However, while I was clumsily playing with a boy who could not speak, he suddenly smiled and pulled my hand to play more. That moment destroyed my prejudice that communication needs words. I would never have visited such a facility voluntarily, precisely because I had no connection to that world. This is the point critics miss: we cannot choose to love what we have never seen. A requirement does not force students to feel something; it simply carries them to a place where feelings may begin. Of course, schools should design programs carefully, offering choices among different activities and time for reflection afterward, so that the experience does not end as a mere duty.

In conclusion, compulsory volunteering is not the goal but the entrance. If even a small number of students walk through that entrance and continue voluntarily, as I did, the requirement has done its job.

Diet, exercise, and sleep are all essential for health, but if I had to choose only one habit, I would choose getting enough sleep every night, because sleep is the foundation on which all other healthy habits are built.

My reasoning is simple: a tired person cannot continue any good habit. During my first year of high school, I reduced my sleep to five hours to study more. At first my grades seemed to improve, but within two months everything went wrong. I caught colds repeatedly, ate sweets constantly to fight sleepiness, and quit my morning jogging. In other words, losing sleep destroyed my diet and exercise at the same time. When I returned to seven hours of sleep, my concentration recovered so much that I could learn more in fewer hours. Science supports this experience: during sleep, the brain organizes memories and the body repairs itself, and lack of sleep is known to raise the risk of obesity, heart disease, and depression. Yet in Japan, sleeping less is still sometimes praised as a sign of hard work. Society tells students and workers to try harder, when it should first tell them to sleep well.

In conclusion, sleep is not wasted time but the most productive investment for health. A truly healthy life does not begin with a special diet or hard training; it begins quietly, at the moment we turn off the light at a sensible hour.

When people hear the words "climate change," they usually imagine melting ice or endangered animals. However, I believe climate change should also be understood as a health problem, because it is already damaging human bodies in several ways.

The most direct effect is extreme heat. In recent Japanese summers, tens of thousands of people have been taken to hospitals for heatstroke, and elderly people living alone are especially at risk. Secondly, a warmer climate expands the areas where disease-carrying mosquitoes can live, which means infections once limited to tropical regions may spread to new countries. Thirdly, there are less visible effects: natural disasters such as floods destroy hospitals exactly when patients need them most, and losing homes and communities causes long-lasting mental suffering. In short, climate change attacks health from the outside and the inside at the same time. Facing this reality, individuals can reduce energy use, choose public transportation, and check on elderly neighbors during heat waves. However, individual effort alone is not enough. Society must strengthen medical systems for disasters and heat, and governments must lead the change to cleaner energy.

In conclusion, protecting the environment and protecting health are no longer separate goals; they are the same goal. A stable climate may be the greatest public health project of this century, and I hope to be involved in it as a member of the generation that cannot look away.

Plastic makes our lives cheap, clean, and convenient, yet its tiny fragments are now found in the ocean, in fish, and even inside our own bodies. How far should we go to reduce it? My answer is that we should accept small inconveniences in daily life, while society keeps plastic where it is truly irreplaceable.

For individuals, most plastic problems come from single-use items we do not really need. Carrying a water bottle and a shopping bag costs us only a little attention, and refusing a plastic straw changes nothing in our comfort. I started these habits two years ago, and I found the inconvenience disappears within a few weeks as they become automatic. If millions of people accept this tiny cost, the total effect will be enormous. On the other hand, demanding a plastic-free life in every field would be wrong. In hospitals, single-use syringes and tubes protect patients from infections, and plastic packaging keeps food and medicine safe for people in disaster areas. The real goal is not zero plastic but wise plastic: cutting the careless use that serves only convenience, while protecting the essential use that serves life.

In conclusion, the question is not whether to choose convenience or the environment, but where to draw the line between them. I believe a mature society is one whose citizens accept small daily inconveniences so that plastic can keep doing its irreplaceable work, saving lives.