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托福独立写作常见的审题误区

2015-04-22来源:互联网

  审题,是写作的第一步,却经常被大家所忽略。有太多考生只着眼于如何写出漂亮的句子和高级的词汇,而没有搞清写作的本质--考察学生针对某一话题进行准确连贯表述的能力。这也是为什么很多同学虽然英语不弱,在托福考试的独立部分中却只能拿到 fai r或 good 当中较低的4分。那么到底怎样才能更加容易地拿到独立写作的满分呢? 笔者今天将通过列举以往考过的真题进行解析,告诉大家如何审题,换句话说,如何使高分变得更加achievable。

  同学们考写作考了这么多年,大多数出题的形式都已烂熟于心,看到题目之后觉得熟悉于是兴冲冲提笔就写,其实,这种看似"熟练"的表象下藏着巨大的隐患--同学们很有可能因为看得太快而忽略某个决定题目意思的关键词。例如:

  例1:

  Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Advertising is theonly main cause for people's unhealthy eating habits.

  看到这个题目,同学们立刻会开始想,有没有other reasons for unhealthy habits,想出三条如:1. People'stight schedules do not allow them to eat at regular hours; 2. Sometimes peopleare eager to lose weight or to keep fit so that they go on "endless diets"; 3.Bearing heavy burden both physically and mentally, some consider eatingconstantly as their most effective stress reliever. 综上所述,advertising is not theonly cause.

  这个写法看起来非常完备,但其实犯了一个不起眼却严重的错误--题目不是要我们证明it is not the only cause,而是要我们去证明itis not the only main cause。多一个"main",意思是很不一样的。如果我们只需要证明it is not the onlycause,那么找出other causes即可即例1中的写法。但是,如果我们要证明it is not the only maincause,就需要证明other causes that we mentioned are also maincauses,这就需要在每一段中加上一些专门的说明。或者,更简单的办法是去证明advertising is not even a cause,直接在每段的末尾加上advertising与该段所论述的unhealthy eating habit无关的论述即可。If it is not a cause,how can it be the onlymain cause? 这样一来,就不用通过证明还有其他maincause来反驳了,事实上,证明某种cause是maincause还是挺有难度的,因此笔者推荐同学们用后一种方式进行论述。因此,文章还是disagree,而三段的主题句分别应该是:1、1. People'stight schedules do not allow them to eat at regular hours, and it is obviousthat they are too busy to be influenced by advertising; 2. Sometimes people areeager to lose weight or to keep fit so that they go on "endless diets", and thisis more like a result of human nature, the pursuit of beauty, but notadvertising; 3. Bearing heavy burden both physically and mentally, some considereating constantly as their most effective stress reliever, and it is quite clearthat no advertising encourages them to do so.

  例2:Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Colleges anduniversities should offer more preparation for student before they startworking.

  看到这个题目,很多同学会可能会这样写:Agree. 1. Students should takemorespecializedcourses(专业课)in order to be knowledgeable and skillful enough fortheir future careers(接着开始论述being knowledgeable and skillful的重要性);2.Participating in internships helps students to have a clearer picture of theirvocational development in the future(接着开始论述,如果没有实过习,在工作的时候是多么地feel souNPRepared); 3. Attending more club activities is an effective way to improvesocial skills, which are crucial for success both in life and at work(接着开始论述goodsocialskills对职业和生活的帮助).如果不看括号里的内容,仅看主题句,这篇文章是没有任何问题的。然而,括号中的论述从严格意义上来讲,是不能支持"more"这个关键词的。举个简单的例子:"我们需要钱"和"我们需要更多钱"在证明的时候重点是不一样的。如果证明"我们需要钱",应该详细

  阐述钱的"不可或缺性",比如生活、学习、教育都需要钱;但是如果证明"我们需要更多钱",重点则应该放在"钱不够"的论述上,证明在学习、生活、教育方面的预算都很紧张。同样地,上面的题目中仅仅证明Knowledgefor careers, field experience and social skills areimportant是不够的,事实上,这些根本不需要证明,需要证明的事情是graduates today are not well prepared in thethree aspects. 因此这篇文章应该是一篇"抱怨型"的文章,详细地去论述学校工作的不足。参考思路如下:Agree. 1. Many studentstoday complain that they cannot learn practical skills and up-to-dateinformation, for some of their teachers are not qualified enough to teachspecialized courses; 2. Since many students are not allowed enough time toparticipate in internship programs before graduation, they know very littleabout what their future jobs like; 3. Joining clubs is possible for everycollege student, yet not every club provide is capable of offering enoughopportunities for students to practice their social skills.

  同学们在写文章的时候一定要注意,学术论文写作不是句型和辞藻的堆砌,整篇文章一定是一个well-organizedsystem,这个system中很重要的原则之二就是--

  1、每个中间段的topic sentence是用来支持main idea的;

  2、topicsentence后面的每句话都是用来支持该topic sentence的。在上面的两个例子中,大家会发现例1的错误主要是main idea没有很好地被topicsentence支持;而例2的错误在于topic sentence虽然看起来是支持mainidea的,但是论述的内容可能跟关键词"more"无关,从而不能有力地支持topic sentences。这些错误的起因,则是对题干中关键词的忽略。