2 . It is quite apparent that competition surrounds every aspect of human life whether in the United States or the Amazon rainforest. Without it we would not have grown into primates (灵长类动物) . Or we would probably still be struggling to sharpen a bronze tool while crawling around on four legs in search of meat. Without competition, Columbus wouldn’t have discovered America and Edison would never have invented the light bulb.

Friendship, like all relationships between two people, involves competition. It isn’t competition in a traditional sense because there are no goals to be scored and no prize. Perhaps the ecological definition --- the simultaneous (同时) demand by two or more organisms for limited environmental resources, such as nutrinents, living space, or light --- better explains it.

As in nature, high school life is governed by a set of laws, similar to a shortened version of Darwin’s theory of evolution, overpopulation, and competition. There is an abundance of high school students and to distinguish them, ranking and categorizing (分类) take place. In high school, friendships learn to coexist with competition even though at times the relationship is rough. In fact, in some circumstance, competition is too much of a burden for a friendship to bear, causing it to fall apart. College admission is the final high school objective. Four years of hard work is to achieve good grades, and a student’s fate is determined not only by these achievements, but by the records of thousands of other seniors trying to achieve a similar recognition.

Nevertheless, by necessity, competition between students exists in all aspects of high school life. It sets and improves the standards in everything from sports to schoolwork. A healthy, friendly competition can have only benefits, but when it becomes too fierce, jealousy (妒忌) can tear friendships apart. Yet, despite all this, without competition, we would be lost.