英语的八种写作策略【精品20篇】

一、四级作文概述

四级作文是提纲作文，一般按提纲写出相应段落即可。在文章内容上无需追求高深新颖，切题合理便可落笔；在思路逻辑上则要求句意通顺，文字流畅；在文字表现上要求无语法错误，个别小错可忽略(如动介搭配，单词拼写等不涉及语法类小错)。另外，值得一提的是，在篇章结构上建议写三段，所以即便题目只给出两个提纲，最好在完成两个提纲后，再多补充一段，所补内容不限，但须跟话题相关。

二、四级作文例题分析

(1) The Shortage of Fresh Water

1. 目前淡水资源非常紧缺

2. 为什么会出现这种情况

3. 该如何解决

96年6月份曾考过此题，今天来看，似乎更有现实意义。这是一道负面社会现象题，那么挖掘其背后根源，并找出解决方案，就成为探讨的主要方面，而提纲也正是如此。三个提纲各属其类，界限清晰，直接按提纲写三段即可。段1为提出现象，确立研究对象。提纲1翻译后仅一句话，作为一段话则显内容单薄，字数匮乏，所以需进一步发挥。不妨从例证角度扩充，举例时即可基于国内现状，也可纵观全球，显然前者更易行。可从我国西南地区的生活缺水，水价上升，以及河流干涸等细节方面铺陈。段2是原因分析，建议分析主观原因和客观原因两方面。所谓主观原因即是基于人的思想意念，心理意识，行为动机以及行为举措，比如人们节约意识的淡漠或者人们误认为淡水取之不尽等不当想法。而客观原因则是从非人角度出发，如社会发展，人口激增，甚至污染的加剧等方面出发，这些因素均使得淡水消耗的增加。当然，考场上由于时间紧迫，无法细想，可能会写出的两个全是主观类或客观类的原因，其实也无妨，只要二者不同即可，谨防虽言明两原因，但实则彼此混淆，出现逻辑不清的窘况。段3是措施分析，措施可从官方措施和民众措施两方面写起，也可加入作为现代年轻人，我该如何约束自己，从生活中小事做起节约水资源等内容。总之，在内容上考生尽可发挥想象力，纵马驰骋，原则依旧：切题者皆可。

(2)Part-time Jobs for College Students

1.目前大学校园里很多学生业余时间做兼职

2.对于大学生是否该做兼职工作，人们看法不一

3.我的看法

这是一道校园话题，在内容上即涉及现象，又涉及观点，能很好地考察到学生的综合分析能力。提纲1依旧是现象提出，看到提纲1，大家脑海里会浮现很多熟悉的场景，如校园布告栏里张贴着的兼职广告，校园论坛上也经常发布的一些兼职信息等等，这些都可反映在段1中。所以当我们第一眼看到话题或提纲时，脑海中常常会浮现出相关场景，把这些画面定格，进行详细描绘即可，即自然又切题。当然，段1也可从学生的兼职渠道以及兼职类型等方面加以发挥。总之，提纲是总领，而符合总领的任何附属内容都可写。段2是人们对此学生兼职的不同看法，一正一反。切记在表达上述两类观点时，提出其相关论据。段3是提出作者本人看法。本人看法既可选择上述任一方(只要不极端)，也可提出与上述均异的第三类观点，对于极度偏激的正反方观点则需做一番调和与勾兑(这个一般很少见)。需要提醒的是，继提出己方观点后，还应补充其他内容，如论据；也可写我的下一步做法，甚至可写我所认为的大家对此问题所应采取的对策云云。

(3)Private Cars of Today

1.目前私家车越来多了

2.私家车为人们带来的益处和问题

这道题只有两个提纲，所以建议在完成提纲要求内容之后再补充一段相关内容，可以在提纲2之后续补段3(如举措类：如何合理地限制私家车的出行以减少废气排放等等)，也可在1，2之间插入一段(如原因分析，即为何私家车越来越多)。先来看提纲1，依然是事实陈述，看到提纲1，会很容易联想到马路上川流不息的过往车辆，以及高峰期令人沮丧的堵车，那么即可将这些内容付诸笔端。再看提纲2，是私家车给人们生活带来的影响，该事实是一中性事实，则需辩证地分析其影响的两面性，一方面它带来好处，如让人们的出行变得更自由更方便，另一方面它带来坏处，如排放废气，污染环境，或造成交通堵塞等等。

英语写作是中考学生的一个盲点，缺乏对英语写作的专门训练和反思，老师的工作量大，造成作文讲评大多数时候只谈现象，因此学生学得也不具体、不深入，忽略写作技能的提高，甚至误认为只要句子结构正确，无单词拼写错误就应该得满分。同学们应该走出对英语写作认识上的误区。那么怎样才能写出一篇优秀作文，而在中考中获取高分呢?下面是YJBYS网作文频道为大家整理的英语写作指导。

一、写作决窍

总体把握，要点齐全;人称时态，逻辑清楚;

关键词汇，动词第一;组词成句，结构完整;

组句成文，连词增色;此路不通，绕道迂回;

字迹工整，留好印象;从句适量，高分有望。

二、写作步骤

1.认真审题。审题包括要点、格式、词数以及此篇文章要传递给读者什么样的信息，告诫读者什么(即写作目的)。

2.确定文体和时态。确定文体后，根据不同文体的特点和要求进行组织材料;同时确定出该篇文章的总时态与时态的变化。

3.写完要点，但不随意发挥。

4.先草稿，后抄写。

三、习作点评

[2004年全国中学生英语能力竞赛初赛初三组] (14分)

Choose one of your hobbies and write an article for the school magazine about it. Tell the magazine readers.

·What exactly your hobby is;

·When and how you became interested in this hobby;

·Why you enjoy your hobby;

·About your hopes and plans for the future.

写作要求：

1.根据所提供的内容，适当拓展想象空间，灵活地将提供的信息体现在文章中。

2.条理清楚，语句通顺，书写清晰、规范。

3.词数60-80.

[高分突破]

①文体：记叙文。

②要点：what → when →how → why → hope and plan for the future.

③时态：一般现在时，一般过去时，一般将来时的自然变化。

内容具有开放性，但它也是“控制性”的写作试题，因此不能随意发挥，要善于抓信息，写完要点。选用这两篇学生真实习作，一是因为他们选材相同，二是因为他们都是英语成绩优秀的同学。同学B灵活使用连词so…that，so，little by little，when，so that等，恰到好处地使用新句型和短语used to，became interested in，come true……等，使内容丰富，读起来优美流畅。其实这些表达同学A也会，只是缺乏技术加工。通过这两篇作文点评，同学们便能悟出其中的奥妙。

四、培养途径

1.根据老师布置的写作内容，独立完成一篇写作。

2.与同伴合作，交流自己的写作，通过交流找出各自作文中写得好的地方和优美的句子，合作创造一篇新的文章，供大家欣赏。

3.找老师点评，请求老师指点，尤其是怎样润色。

4.自己纠错，写下反思。

五、备考演练

A

缙云山是重庆著名的游览胜地，每天有大量的游客。请你根据下面提供的信息写一篇报道，说明现在的游客在环境保护方面的变化。

写作要求：

1.词数在100左右。

2.条理清楚，语句通顺。

3.开头已写好，但不计入总词数。

Jinyun Mountain is a famous place of interest …

B

阅读电视广告词：“If we don’t save water，the last drop of water will be a tear-drop.”根据提示，写一篇60-80词的短文。

提示：

1.生活离不开水。

2.可饮用水在减少。

3.水污染严重。

4.应保护水源，再利用水。

思路点拨与参考答案

A. [思路点拨]：

①文体：记叙文。

②时态：一般过去时态，一般现在时态。采用正反对比的写作手法，增加感染力。

③写作目的：告诉读者保护环境的重要性。

Jinyun Mountain is a famous place of interest.Every day a lot of tourists come here to enjoy its beauty. But a few years ago，some of them paid no attention to protecting the environment.They threw their rubbish，such as plastic bags，fruit skins and waste paper on the ground.Sometimes they broke trees，picked flowers and killed birds. Some even made fires in the woods to cook food.How dangerous it was.Luckily，great changes have taken place here.Tourists are used to putting their rubbish into dustbins，and they are doing their best to protect the birds and plants as well.They bring their own meals instead of cooking to prevent starting a forest fire in the mountains.All these changes make us very happy.

B. [思路点拨]：

①夹叙夹议(说明现状，谈谈感想)。

②时态：一般现在时态。

③广告词的含义——水很重要，应保护和再利用(写作意图)。

Water is very important to humans.We can’t live without water.The water we can drink is falling.But some people don’t seem to care about it.They waste a lot of water.They pour dirty water into rivers and lakes.Water pollution is getting more and more serious.So we must do something to stop the pollution.We not only protect the water but also find ways to reuse it.If we don’t do this，the last drop of water will be a tear-drop.

导语：英语作文也是需要日积月累的练习的，下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀英语作文，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

1. We re often told that ......But is this really the case ?

我们经常被告知......但事实真是这样吗?

2. People used to ......however , things are quite different today .

过去，人们习惯......但,今天的情况有很大的不同。

3.some people think that ......Others believe that the opposite is true . There is probably some truth in both sides.But we must realize that ......

一些人认为......另一些人持相反意见。也许双方的观点都有一定道理。但是我们必须认识到......

4.Recognizing a problem is the first step in finding a solution .

认识到问题是找到解决办法的第一步。

5. It is another new and bitter truth we must learn to face .

这是一个我们必须学会面对的痛苦的新情况。

6. In short , we must work hard to make the world a better place .

简而言之，为了把世界变成更美好的地方，我们必须勤奋工作。

7.Lost time is never found again.

岁月既往，一去不回。

8.Everybody should have a dream.

每个人都该有个梦想.

9.Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

抱最好的愿望,做最坏的打算。

10.Failure is the mother of success.

失败乃成功之母。

11.Lets look on the bright side.

让我们往好处想吧。

英语作文如何才能得高分呢?以下几种手段是增加句子复杂性的常见方法,也是得高分的“亮点”。

1. 改变句子的开头方式,不是一味地都是主语开头,接着是谓语、宾语,最后再加一个状语。可以把状语置于句首,或用分词作状语等。试比较:

(原文) My brother and I went to the cinema by bicycle the other day.

(修正) The other day my brother and I went to the cinema by bicycle.

(原文) The young man couldn’t help crying when he heard the bad news.

(修正) Hearing the bad news, the young man couldn’t help crying.

2. 在整篇文章中,避免只使用一两个句式,要灵活运用诸如强调句、主从复合句、分词短语、倒装句、省略句等。例如:

(1)强调句

(原文) The dog has saved my little sister bravely.

(修正) It is the dog that has saved my little sister bravely.

(2)主从复合句

(原文) We had to stand there to catch the offender.

(修正) What we had to do was to stand there, trying to catch the offender.

(3)分词短语、由with或without引导的短语

(原文) The driver escaped and didn’t stop, he left the old man lying on the road.

(修正) The driver escaped without stopping, leaving the old man lying on the road.

(4)倒装句

(原文) I went to bed at 11:30.

(修正) Not until 11:30 did I go to bed.

(5)省略句

(原文) While you are crossing the street, you should be careful.

(修正) While crossing the street, you should be careful.

3. 通过分句和合句,增强句子的连贯性和表现力。例如:

(原文) He stopped us an hour ago. He made us catch the next offender.

(修正) He stopped us half an hour ago and made us catch the next offender.

(原文) We had a short rest. Then we began to play happily. We sang and danced.

(修正) After a short rest, we had great fun singing and dancing.

4. 注意连接词与句子的运用。

以2001年高考作文为例,在信的开头,可加上“You want to know something about what is going on in schools in China?”这句话起承上启下的作用,使文章过渡自然;再如,用“What was worse?”引出减负前,晚上还要做作业,就寝时间11:30等要点。又如,“Now I have more free time...” 可引出减负后的情况。另外,在信的结尾,可用“How about you? I’m looking forward to hearing from you.”来自然地结束这封信。

5. 使用过渡词语。

写好了每个句子,并不一定就是一篇好文章,因为作为一篇文章,还必须行文连贯。那么,如何使文章行文连贯呢?这就要求我们在组成篇章时,要用好过渡性词语,过渡性词语就像是我们组装机械时使用的润滑剂一样,起着润滑的作用。常用的过渡词语主要有:

并列递进:and, also, as well as, besides, what’s more, furthermore, moreover, etc.

转折:but, yet, however, although, nevertheless, in spite of, after all, etc.

因果:because, as, for, since, for this reason, because of, so, therefore, thus, as a result, etc.

对比:or, otherwise, like, unlike, on the contrary, while, on the other hand, instead of, etc.

总结:in all, in brief, on the whole, in short, in general, in one word, etc.

总之,要使文章的层次高,可读性强,考生应增加些较高级的词汇与复杂的结构,并运用恰当的连接词和复合句,只有这样,才能在考试中取得理想的成绩。

俗话说“千里之行始于足下”。英语书面表达能力的形成不是一日之功，必须从平时的课堂学习一点一滴抓起，持之以恒。

一篇优秀的英语作文在内容和语言两方面应是一个统一体，任何一方面的欠缺都会直接影响到作文的质量。然而，很多考生在写作中或者由于粗心大意，或者由于基本功不扎实而经常出现名词不变复数、第三人称单数不加s，前后不一致，以及时态语态、句子完整性等方面的错误。

1. 审题不清

如2004年中考作文要求写一项最喜欢的课外活动，有些考生将作文的主题定位为“我最喜欢的活动”，偏离了“一项、课外活动”这一主题。依据作文的评分原则，若文章内容不切题，则不管语言如何规范、用词如何准确，都会被判为零分。

2.拼写错误

拼写是考生应该具备的最起码的基本功，但在考生的作文中却经常能发现很多拼写错误。有拼写错误的作文肯定会被酌情扣分，而且有大量拼写错误存在的作文不仅体现出语言基本功差，同时也直接影响内容的表达，通常会降低作文的档次。

3.名词单复数问题

误 my father and my mother is all teacher。

正 my father and my mother are both teachers。

[中考英语作文写作常见的三个错误

1)We have (take) pleasure in informing you that......

兹欣告你方......

2)We have the pleasure of informing you that......

兹欣告你方.....

3)We are pleased (glad) to inform you that......

兹欣告你方......

4)Further to our letter of yesterday, we now have (the) pleasure in informing you that......

续谈我方昨日函, 现告你方......

5)We confirm telegrams/fax messages recently exchanged between us and are pleased to say that......

我方确认近来双方往来电报/传真,并欣告......

6)We confirm cables exchanged as per copies (cable confirmation) herewith attached.

我方确认往来电报,参见所附文本.

7)We learn from Messrs......that you are interested and well experienced in ......business, and would like to establish business relationship with us.

我方从...公司获悉,你方对...业务感兴趣且颇有经验,意欲与我方建立业务关系.

8)Although no communication has been exchanged between us for a long time, we trust that you are doing well in business.

虽然久未通讯,谅你方生意兴隆.

9)Although we have not heard from you for quite some time, we hope your business is progressing satisfactorily.

虽然好久没接到你方来信,谅业务进展顺利.

10)We have pleasure in sending you our catalog, which gives full information about our various products.

欣寄我方目录,提供我方各类产品的详细情况。

11)We are pleased to send you by parcel post a package containing...

很高兴寄你一邮包内装...

12)We have the pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your letter dated...

欣获你方...月...日来信.

13)We acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter of...

谢谢你方...月...日来信.

14)We have duly received your letter of ...

刚刚收悉你方...月...日来信.

15)We thank you for your letter of ...contents of which have been noted.

谢谢你方...月...日来信,内容已悉.

16) Refering to your letter of ......we are pleased to ....

关于你方...月...日来信,我们很高兴...

17) Reverting to your letter of ...we wish to say that...

再洽你方...月...日来信,令通知...

18)In reply to your letter of ...,we...

兹复你方...月...日来函,我方...

19) We wish to refer to your letter of ...concerning

现复你方...月...日关于...的来信

20) In compliance with the request in your letter of ... we...

按你方...月...日来函要求,我方...

all the same 仍然,照样的

as regards 关于,至于

anything but 根本不

as a matter of fact 实际上

apart from 除...外(有/无)

as a rule 通常,照例

as a result(of) 因此,由于

as far as ...be concerned 就...而言

as far as 远至,到...程度

as for 至于,关于

as follows 如下

as if 好像,仿怫

as good as 和...几乎一样

as usual 像平常一样,照例

as to 至于,关于

all right 令人满意的;可以

as well 同样,也,还

as well as 除...外(也),即...又

aside from 除...外(还有)

at a loss 茫然,不知所措

at a time 一次,每次

at all 丝毫(不),一点也不

at all costs 不惜一切代价

at all events 不管怎样,无论如何

at all times 随时,总是

at any rate 无论如何,至少

at best 充其量,至多

at first 最初,起先

at first sight 乍一看,初看起来

at hand 在手边,在附近

at heart 内心里,本质上

at home 在家,在国内

at intervals 不时,每隔...

at large 大多数,未被捕获的

at least 至少

at last 终于

at length 最终,终于

at most 至多,不超过

at no time 从不,决不

by accident 偶然

at one time 曾经,一度;同时

at present 目前,现在

at sbs disposal 任...处理

at the cost of 以...为代价

at the mercy of 任凭...摆布

at the moment 此刻,目前

at this rate 照此速度

at times 有时,间或

back and forth 来回地,反复地

back of 在...后面

before long 不久以后

beside point 离题的,不相干的

beyond question 毫无疑问

by air 通过航空途径

by all means 尽一切办法,务必

by and by 不久,迟早

by chance 偶然,碰巧

by far 最,...得多

by hand 用手,用体力

by itself 自动地,独自地

by means of 用,依靠

by mistake 错误地,无意地

by no means 决不,并没有

by oneself 单独地,独自地

by reason of 由于

by the way 顺便说说

by virtue of 借助,由于

by way of 经由,通过...方法

due to 由于,因为

each other 互相

even if/though 即使,虽然

ever so 非常,极其

every now and then 时而,偶尔

every other 每隔一个的

except for 除了...外

face to face 面对面地

中考马上就要到来了，语文迷小编为大家整理提供中考英语写作万能句子，赶紧来看看吧。

1. 不用说…… It goes without saying that … = (It is) needless to say (that) …

= It is obvious that …

例：不用说早睡早起是值得的。

It goes without saying that it pays to keep early hours.

2. 在各种……之中，…… Among various kinds of …， … /= Of all the …， …

例︰在各种运动中我尤其喜欢慢跑。

Among various kinds of sports, I like jogging in particular.

3. 就我的看法……;我认为……

In my opinion, …

= To my mind, …

= As far as I am concerned, …

= I am of the opinion that …

例：In my opinion, playing video games not only takes much time but is also harmful to health.

就我的看法打电动玩具既花费时间也有害健康。

4. 随着人口的增加…… With the increase/growth of the population, …

随着科技的进步…… With the advance of science and technology, …

例：With the rapid development of Taiwans economy, a lot of social problems have come to pass.

随着台湾经济的快速发展许多社会问题产生了。

5. ……是必要的 It is necessary (for sb.) to do / that …

…… 是重要的 It is important/essential (for sb.) to do / that …

…… 是适当的 It is proper (for sb.) to do / that …

……是紧急的 It is urgent (for sb.) to do / that …

例：It is proper for us to keep the public places clean.

It is proper that we (should) keep the public places clean.

我们应当保持公共场所清洁。

6. 花费 spend … on sth. / doing sth. …

例：我们不应该在我们不感兴趣的事情上花太多的时间。

We shouldnt spend too much time on something we arent interested in.

7. how 引导的感叹句

例：那至少可以证明你很诚实。

At least it will prove how honest you are.

8. 状语从句

A)如果你不……，你就会…… If you dont …， youll …

例︰If you dont keep working hard, youll lose the chance.

如果你不坚持努力工作，你就会失去这次机会。

B) 如此 ……，以至于…… so … that …

例：At that moment, I was so upset that I wanted to give up.

当时，我非常伤心，最后都想放弃了。

9. 宾语从句

我认为，…… / 我认为……不 I think / I dont think that …

我想知道是否…… I wonder whether …

例：He doesnt think I should stop him joining the club.

他认为我不应该阻止他参加这个俱乐部。

10. Since + S + 过去式， S + 现在完成式。

例：Since he went to senior high school, he has worked very hard.

自从他上高中，他就一直很用功。

英语写作当中经常会用到“……很重要”这一句式，一般考生会用something be important/essential的词汇表达。不过学了比较状语从句以后，大家可以试着用一种更高级的表达方式，一定会让阅卷老师眼前一亮，作文高分就不在话下啦。

箴言仿写：Cultivation is to the mind what food is to the body.

——M·T·Cicero

上述句子可以概括为A is to B what C is to D.替换ABCD四个名词就可以用来表达“重要性”这一概念。

【例句】

★ 人生态度——乐观与悲观

A positive attitude is to life what the sun is to the earth.积极的态度对于生活，好比太阳对于地球一样。

★ 谈读书

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.阅读对于思想，好比运动对于身体一样。

★ 赡养父母——家庭

Family is to the people what life is to the individual.家庭对于人类，好比生活对于个人一样。

★ 投诉信

Cleanness is to the canteen what reputation is to the people.清洁对于食堂来说，好比名誉对于人一样。

★ 谈诚信

Honesty is to the people what life is to the creature.诚信对于人来说，好比生命对于人一样。

比较状语(倍数表达法)：

A+ be+倍数+as many/much as+ B

A+ be+倍数+the amount+ B

A+ be+倍数+what it was+ B

【例句】

★ 从1999年到2009年，奢侈品的销售增长了3倍。

①The sale of luxuries doubled from the end of 1999 to 2009.

②The sale of luxuries increased three times/three-fold from the end of 1999 to 2009.

③A three-fold increase was seen in the sale of luxuries from the end of 1999 to 2009.

④There was a three-fold increase in the sale of luxuries from the end of 1999 to 2009.

【写作练习】

定语从句与状语从句的写作方法指南：合并简单句!

1.通过指代关系合并简单句为定语从句

【例句】

★ 故事发生于19世纪末期。那个时候，中国正遭受西方列强的蹂躏。

A: The story happened in the late 19th century.

B: At that time, China was suffering from the invasion of western powers.

→合并为定语从句：The story happened in the late 19th century when China was suffering from the invasion of western powers.

2.通过逻辑关系合并简单句为状语从句

【例句】

★ 这个问题很复杂。我们花了近两周的时间才把它搞定。

A: The problem was very complicated.

B: It took us nearly two weeks to solve it.

→合并为结果状语从句The problem was so complicated that it took us nearly two weeks to solve it.

长难句虽然是考研[微博]复习中让很多考生都头疼的一部分，但可以说是无处不在的，不仅仅是阅读理解和翻译题中，需要我们去读懂并理解，更重要的是在作文题中，准确精彩地写出几个长难句，往往会让你的作文增色不少，也是你作文制胜的重要砝码，所以考研英语要想拿高分，千万不能忽视长难句哦。

一、 主题句原则

国有其君，家有其主，文章也要有其主。否则会给人造成“群龙无首”之感!相信各位读过一些破烂文学，故意把主体隐藏在文章之内，结果造成我们稀里糊涂!不知所云!所以奉劝各位一定要写一个主题句，放在文章的开头(保险型)或者结尾，让读者一目了然，必会平安无事!

特别提示：隐藏主体句可是要冒险的!

To begin with, you must work hard at your lessons and be fully prepared before the exam(主题句).

Without sufficient preparation, you can hardly expect to answer all the questions correctly.

二、 长短句原则

工作还得一张一驰呢，老让读者读长句，累死人!写一个短小精辟的句子，相反，却可以起到画龙点睛的作用。而且如果我们把短句放在段首或者段末，也可以揭示主题：

As a creature, I eat; as a man, I read. Although one action is to meet the primary need of my body and the other is to satisfy the intellectual need of mind, they are in a way quite similar.

如此可见，长短句结合，抑扬顿挫，岂不爽哉?牢记!

强烈建议：在文章第一段(开头)用一长一短，且先长后短;在文章主体部分，要先用一个短句解释主要意思，然后在阐述几个要点的时候采用先短后长的句群形式，定会让主体部分妙笔生辉!文章结尾一般用一长一短就可以了。

三、 一二三原则

领导讲话总是第一部分、第一点、第二点、第三点、第二部分、第一点…如此罗嗦。可毕竟还是条理清楚。考官们看文章也必然要通过这些关键性的“标签”来判定你的文章是否结构清楚，条理自然。破解方法很简单，只要把下面任何一组的词汇加入到你的几个要点前就清楚了。

1)first, second, third, last(不推荐，原因：俗)

2)firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally(不推荐，原因：俗)

3)the first, the second, the third, the last(不推荐，原因：俗)

4)in the first place, in the second place, in the third place, lastly(不推荐，原因：俗)

5)to begin with, then, furthermore, finally(强烈推荐)

6)to start with, next, in addition, finally(强烈推荐)

7)first and foremost, besides, last but not least(强烈推荐)

8)most important of all, moreover, finally

9)on the one hand, on the other hand(适用于两点的情况)

10)for one thing, for another thing(适用于两点的情况)

建议：不仅仅在写作中注意，平时说话的时候也应该条理清楚!

四、 短语优先原则

写作时，尤其是在考试时，如果使用短语，有两个好处：其一、用短语会使文章增加亮点，如果老师们看到你的文章太简单，看不到一个自己不认识的短语，必然会看你低一等。相反，如果发现亮点—精彩的短语，那么你的文章定会得高分了。其二、关键时刻思维短路，只有凑字数，怎么办?用短语是一个办法!比如：

I cannot bear it.

可以用短语表达：I cannot put up with it.

I want it.

可以用短语表达：I am looking forward to it.

这样字数明显增加，表达也更准确。

五、 多实少虚原则

原因很简单，写文章还是应该写一些实际的东西，不要空话连篇。这就要求一定要多用实词，少用虚词。我这里所说的虚词就是指那些比较大的词。比如我们说一个很好的时候，不应该之说nice这样空洞的词，应该使用一些诸如generous, humorous, interesting, smart, gentle, warm-hearted, hospital 之类的形象词。再比如：

走出房间，general的词是：walk out of the room

但是小偷走出房间应该说：slip out of the room

小姐走出房间应该说：sail out of the room

小孩走出房间应该说：dance out of the room

老人走出房间应该说：stagger out of the room

所以多用实词，少用虚词，文章将会大放异彩!

六、 多变句式原则

1)加法(串联)

都希望写下很长的句子，像个老外似的，可就是怕写错，怎么办，最保险的写长句的方法就是这些，可以在任何句子之间加and, 但最好是前后的句子又先后关系或者并列关系。

比如说： I enjor music and he is fond of playing guitar. 如果是二者并列的，我们可以用一个超级句式：Not only the fur coat is soft, but it is also warm. 其它的短语可以用：besides, furthermore, likewise, moreover

2)转折(拐弯抹角)

批评某人缺点的时候，我们总习惯先拐弯抹角说说他的优点，然后转入正题，再说缺点，这种方式虽然阴险了点，可毕竟还比较容易让人接受。所以呢，我们说话的时候，只要在要点之前先来点废话，注意二者之间用个专这次就够了。

The car was quite old, yet it was in excellent condition.

The coat was thin, but it was warm.

更多的短语：despite that, still, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, not with standing

3)因果(so, so, so)

昨天在街上我看到了一个女孩，然后我主动搭讪，然后我们去咖啡厅，然后我们认识了，然后我们成为了朋友…可见，讲故事的时候我们总要追求先后顺序，先什么，后什么，所以然后这个词就变得很常见了。其实这个词表示的是先后或因果关系!

The snow began to fall, so we went home.

更多短语：then, therefore, consequently, accordingly, hence, as a result, for this reason, so that

4)失衡句(头重脚轻，或者头轻脚重)

有些人脑袋大，身体小，或者有些人脑袋小，身体大，虽然我们不希望长成这个样子，可如果真的是这样了，也就必然会吸引别人的注意力。文章中如果出现这样的句子，就更会让考官看到你的句子与众不同。其实就是主语从句，表语从句，宾语从句的变形。

举例：This is what I can do.

Whether he can go with us or not is not sure.

同样主语、宾语、表语可以改成如下的复杂成分：

When to go, Why he goes away…

5)附加(多此一举)

如果有了老婆，总会遇到这样的情况，当你再讲某个人的时候，她会插一句说，我昨天见过他;或者说，就是某某某，如果把老婆的话插入到我们的话里面，那就是定语从句和同位语从句或者是插入语。

The man whom you met yesterday is a friend of mine.

I don’t enjoy that book you are reading.

Mr liu, our oral English teacher, is easy-going.

其实很简单，同位语--要解释的东西删除后不影响整个句子的构成;定语从句—借用之前的关键词并且用其重新组成一个句子插入其中，但是whom or that 关键词必须要紧跟在先行词之前。

6)排比(排山倒海句)

文学作品中最吸引人的地方莫过于此，如果非要让你的文章更加精彩的话，那么我希望你引用一个个的排比句，一个个得对偶句，一个个的不定式，一个个地词，一个个的短语，如此表达将会使文章有排山倒海之势!

Whether your tastes are modern or traditional, sophisticated or simple, there is plenty in London for you.

Nowadays, energy can be obtained through various sources such as oil, coal, natural gas, solar heat, the wind and ocean tides.

We have got to study hard, to enlarge our scope of knowledge, to realize our potentials and to pay for our life. (气势恢宏)

要想写出如此气势恢宏的句子非用排比不可!

七、 挑战极限原则

既然是挑战极限，必然是比较难的，但是并非不可攀!

原理：在学生的文章中，很少发现诸如独立主格的句子，其实也很简单，只要花上5分钟的时间看看就可以领会，它就是分词的一种特殊形式，分词要求主语一致，而独立主格则不然。比如：

The weather being fine, a large number of people went to climb the Western Hills.

Africa is the second largest continent, its size being about three times that of China.

如果您可一些出这样的句子，不得高分才怪!

1. According to a recent survey， four million people die eachyear from diseases linked to smoking.

依照最近的一项调查，每年有4，000，000人死于与吸烟有关的疾病。

2. The latest surveys show that quite a few children haveunpleasant associations with homework.

最近的调查显示相当多的孩子对家庭作业没什么好感。

3. No invention has received more praise and abuse than Internet.

没有一项发明像互联网一样同时受到如此多的赞扬和批评。

4. People seem to fail to take into account the fact that education does not end with graduation.

人们似乎忽视了教育不应该随着毕业而结束这一事实。

5. An increasing number of people are beginning to realize that education is not complete withgraduation.

越来越多的人开始意识到教育不能随着毕业而结束。

6. When it comes to education， the majority of people believe that education is a lifetime study.

说到教育，大部分人认为其是一个终生的学习。

7. Many experts point out that physical exercise contributes directly to a persons physical fitness.

许多专家指出体育锻炼直接有助于身体健康。

8. Proper measures must be taken to limit the number of foreign tourists and the great effortsshould be made to protect local environment and history from the harmful effects of internationaltourism.

应该采取适当的措施限制外国旅游者的数量，努力保护当地环境和历史不受国际旅游业的不利影响。

9. An increasing number of experts believe that migrants will exert positive effects on constructionof city. However， this opinion is now being questioned by more and more city residents， whocomplain that the migrants have brought many serious problems like crime and prostitution.

越来越多的专家相信移民对城市的建设起到积极作用。然而，越来越多的城市居民却怀疑这种说法，他们抱怨民工给城市带来了许多严 重的问题，像犯罪和卖淫。

10. Many city residents complain that it is so few buses in their city that they have to spend muchmore time waiting for a bus， which is usually crowded with a large number of passengers.

许多市民抱怨城市的公交车太少，以至于他们要花很长时间等一辆公交车，而车上可能已满载乘客。

一. 心理

古人云，不战而屈人之兵，很大程度上取决于心理因素。随着四六级考试改革的深入，会有，更新，更难的题目，包括作文题目出现，这样就要求我们有处惊不变的能力。即使是出现某种没有预料到的题型，考生也应该及时调整心态、从容不迫地应答。事实上，历史经验证明：题目要求越是高，难度越是大，考生的发挥余地也就越大。挑战和机遇是成正相关的。

二. 评分

知己知彼，百战不怠。熟悉老师的评分习惯，对于考生正常、甚至是超常发挥自身水平也十分有益。正常情况下，阅卷老师要领会贯彻考试规定的评分原则，依照文章的结构和语言水平进行评分。然而，除此以外，有“两个基本点”我们也需要给予足够的重视——闪光点和语法点。在一篇出类拔萃的范文中，我们往往可以看到像提问法、谚语总结法、从句、并列句、理由段公式、理由词汇、路线句型、插入语、名词化、和被动语态等等闪光点;而在一篇低分例文中，基本的语言错误则多得数不胜数。

三. 休息

考试迫在眉睫时，同学们往往容易进入一种临考状态。这种状态比较突出的表现是夜不能寐。尤其是在专业课和全国四六级考试纷至沓来的时候，很多同学更是发扬连续作战的精神，通宵达旦，头悬梁、锥刺骨。其实这对于像四六级考试这样的高强度考试而言是有百害而无一益的。道理很简单，四六级考试对于一个学生来说，不仅是一次英语水平的综合测试，也是一种意志力、甚至是体力的考验。没有良好的休息作为后盾，考生很难笑到最后。所以，保证充足的睡眠是最基本也是首要的应试技巧。

四. 营养

无庸置疑，营养的摄入在最后关头也是异常重要的一环。在保证充分睡眠的同时，食物是另一个“工夫在诗外”的客观因素。尤其是参加四级考试的同学，早餐一定要定时定量，不可或缺。一般来说，类似奶酪苏这样的奶制品外加一杯热牛奶或者热巧克力已经足以提供整个半天考试所需的热量，当然，这也因人而异。有些体质虚弱的同学也可以考虑服用一些如西洋参、鸡精这样的营养品。不过，安眠药等有副作用的药物一定要慎用，否则过犹不及。

五. 审题

磨刀不误砍柴工。在落笔前花两三分钟时间进行构思，既有利于理清行文思路、也避免了差之毫厘、失之千里的遗憾。尤其是在应对图表类作文时，我们更是要看清图表，牢牢把握各个数据的变化和相互关系，才能够下笔。否则张冠李戴，即使文章本身再不同凡响、语惊四座，也只会竹篮打水、甚至起到适得其反的效果。

六. 卷面

对于像作文这样的主观题而言，考生与阅卷老师从来就犹如搏弈，无形中彼此互动、相互影响。一个考生可以做的，首先是通过卷面给阅卷老师下意识地传达个人信息。用笔的颜色(深蓝色使人心情放松愉快)、粗细(粗线条给人以安全感)，整齐划一的格式(段首或一律顶格或一律空两格)，明了的段落感(每段空一行)，清晰的字数感(一行以十字为宜)，工整的字迹都会给任何阅读者留下深刻的正面印象，从而使考生先发制人、取得先机。

七. 结构

有始有终、首尾照应，是任何一篇好文章的基本标准之一，也是两大评分原则之一。如果说广大考生已经给第一段以足够重视的话，那么是不是大多数考生都意识到了理由段的条理和最后一段的呼应在全文中所具有的不可忽视的地位了呢?其实，要写好理由段，我们只需要注意表示启承转合的衔接词即可。而要写好结尾，最好的方法莫过于温故而知新，回顾第一段的大致内容了。

八. 表达

言之无文，行而不远。语言作为评分原则中的基本要素之一，在四六级作文评分的整个过程中具有决定性作用。有评分老师甚至断言：“It is not what you say, it is the way that you say it.”(重要的并不在于考生写了些什么，而在于考生是怎么表达的。)虽然这种说法本身似乎有失偏颇，可是参加过国际标准化英语考试的同学应该也听说过那么一句话，叫做：“Give the monkey exactly what he wants.”(给阅卷老师最想要的。)，不是吗?譬如同样是描述数据，一些同学拘泥于图表本身，动辄按部就班地引用图表上现成的数字和年代，其实这都是图表作文的忌讳。聪明的同学引而不用，他们常喜欢用倍数、分数、小数、百分比、或者一些动词(double / triple / quadruple)来表现极端数据，动态数据以及他们的相异之处。

九. 检查

行百里者半九十。一篇成功的作文少不了反复推敲、一再修改。然而，由于考试时间和条件等诸多因素的限制，考生绝对需要慎重对待作文的检查和修改。这里，我不得不提考生检查作文时的三大“通病”，即，数字数、孤芳自赏、和做结构与内容上的修改。我们必须明确：考试作文的润色和修改只需要达到三个目的即可：1. 拼写正确，看文章中是否有汉字、多余符号、糊乱涂改、划线、和错别字;2. 搭配正确;和3. 语法正确，特别是人称、时态、和单复数的三一致。

鲁迅先生说过，世界上本没有路，走的人多了也就成了路。我们要善于在学习实践中发现、总结和运用规律，这样才能够在复习迎考的过程中事半功倍，百尺竿头、更进一步。路漫漫其修远兮，愿以此文抛砖引玉。

一、明确作文要求，提高写作能力

一篇好的作文，要有一个主题思想，整篇作文应该是紧扣文章主题，遵循特定的文体格式，选用恰当的语言合理组织文章结构，内容统一、连贯，语法、拼写、标点 正确，用词恰当。很多同学在准备英语写作时找不到方向，一味的想在考研英语写作上面抓分，却又不知道怎么样提高。杨老师在此特别提醒考生首先要学会抓住考研英语写作要领，尤其注意文章逻辑关系在阅读中的运用。逻辑关系散布在文章的句子内部、句句之间、以及段落之间。最基本的逻辑关系有以下几种：

1、因果关系：as a result ，therefore，hence，consequently，because,for, due to, hence, consequently等等。

2、并列、递进关系：and, or, then，in addition，besides，in other words，moreover等等

3、转折关系：however，but, yet, in fact等等。

这些其实是已经很熟悉的逻辑提示词在文章中起的效果，并非仅仅是衔接文章的句子，从阅读的角度来看，其实同时在给我们某种提示，告诉我们哪些句子是有效信息，相对重要的信息，哪些信息是相对不重要的信息，因为我们在英语写作的时候，有一条清晰的思路，你不是为了完整翻译文章而进行阅读，而是为了获取主旨来写作。

二、摆脱无话可说 练习“三段式”思维

在英语作文写作时，无话可说的确让人比较头疼，无话可说是一个极端，有的考生题目看得懂，提纲也一目了然，就是不知道该说什么，在考场上头脑一片空白，想到的也只是空泛的东西，在考试过程当中，这会在很大程度上影响大家的做题效果和做题速度。杨老师表示，当头脑出现空白时，应该从具体的、细小的、琐碎的、微不足道的事物所引发的思考变成观点，再进行论述。例如，领导讲话总是第一部分、、第二部分、第三部分…这样条理比较清楚。考官们看文章也必然要通过这些关键性的“标签”来判定你的文章是否结构清楚，条理自然。破解方法很简单，只要把下面任何一组的词汇加入到你的几个要点前就清楚了。

1）first, second, third, last（不推荐，原因：俗）

2）firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally（不推荐，原因：俗）

3）the first, the second, the third, the last（不推荐，原因：俗）

4）in the first place, in the second place, in the third place, lastly（不推荐，原因：俗）

5）to begin with, then, furthermore, finally（强烈推荐）

6）to start with, next, in addition, finally（强烈推荐）

7）first and foremost, besides, last but not least（强烈推荐）

8）most important of all, moreover, finally

9）on the one hand, on the other hand（适用于两点的情况）

10）for one thing, for another thing（适用于两点的情况）

建议：不仅仅在写作中注意，平时说话的时候也应该条理清楚！

三、用词准确保证语言连贯

考研英语写作中，同样是一篇作文，在没有语法、词汇等基础性错误的前提下，一个考生的句式平平，而另外一个考生的句式灵活多变，非常漂亮，毫无疑问，后者肯定比前者的分数高。但写英语作文时最忌讳的是用一些模棱两可的词，表达不够准确，而且考试时要特别注意语法、词语、语气、标点符号等，避免单词拼写错误、语法错误，不要为了追求词语的华丽而堆积一些自己也没把握的单词，不要刻意追求长句而写一些自己不知对错的有多个从句组成的长句。建议考生考试时，最好选择自己最有把握的词汇、短语和句式。

很多考生习惯背诵模版，在写作文是喜欢套用背诵模版，但由于仓促，紧张等原因，很容易犯一些简单的错误，如语句不通。所以提醒考生选材时切忌胡子眉毛一把抓，词语堆积，不伦不类。前后及段落之间在逻辑关系上要紧密衔接，不能把没有任何逻辑关系的词放在一起，可以用恰当的关联词把思想连贯的表达出来。总之，无论想要套用那个模版，前提都要保证语言通顺，文章思想连贯。此外，要有自己的style，一来通过背诵或研究范文，把握考研英语作文的整体结构特点，以及写作格式，二来要在研究范文的基础上寻找自己的闪光点，比如闪光词汇。如果大家仔细研究真题，就会发现，几乎所有的高分作文都有一个共同点，那就是都具有几个闪光词汇，这个词汇可能并不是什么高级词汇，但是你能把它的延伸意，或者说你能把我它的一词多义，并且应用到你的文章中。

四、长短句巧搭配 精悍短语当亮点

写作时，尤其是在考试时，如果使用短语，有两个好处：其一、用短语会使文章增加亮点，如果老师们看到你的文章太简单，看不到一个自己不认识的短语，必然会看你低一等。相反，如果发现亮点—精彩的短语，那么你的文章定会得高分了。此外短小精辟的句子，也可以起到画龙点睛的作用。而且如果把短句放在段首或者段末，也可以揭示主题：

As a creature, I eat; as a man, I read. Although oneaction is to meet the primary need of my body and the other is to satisfy theintellectual need of mind, they are in a way quite similar.

杨老师强烈建议：在文章第一段（开头）用一长一短，且先长后短；在文章主体部分，要先用一个短句解释主要意思，然后在阐述几个要点的时候采用先短后长的句群形式，定会让主体部分妙笔生辉！文章结尾一般用一长一短就可以了。

1.A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight.(P.

B. Shelley ， British poet )伟大的诗篇即是永远喷出智慧和欢欣之水的喷泉。(英国诗人 雪莱。 P.B)

2.Art is a lie that tells the truth 。( Picasso ， Spanish painter )美术是揭示真理的谎言。 (西班牙画家 毕加索)

3.Humor has been well defined as thinking in fun while feeling in earnest. (Mark Twain ， American novelist )幽默被人正确地解释为“以诚挚表达感受，寓深思于嬉笑”。(美国小说家 马克·吐温)

4.The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation; the two keep in their downward tendency.( Johan Wolfgang von Goethe ， German poet)文学的衰落表明一个民族的衰落。这两者走下坡路的时间是齐头并进的。(德国诗人歌德 。 J 。 W 。)

5.When one loves one‘s art no service seems too hard 。(O. Henry， American novelist)一旦热爱艺术，什么奉献也不难。 (美国小说家 欧·亨利)

Education 教育篇

6.And gladly would learn ， and gladly teach 。( Chaucer ， British poet)勤于学习的人才能乐意施教。(英国诗人， 乔叟)

7.Better be unborn than untaught ， for ignorance is the root of misfortune.(Plato ， Ancient Greek philosopher)与其不受教育，不如不生，因为无知是不幸的根源。(古希腊哲学家柏拉图)

Friendship 友谊篇

8. Some friends come and go like a season. Others are arranged in our lives for good reason.(Sharita Gadison)一些朋友随季节离去，而另外一些则伴我们度过美好的季节。

9.A true friend is someone you can disagree with and still remain friends. For if not， they weren‘t true friends in the first place.(Sandy Ratliff)真朋友是可以与你有不同见解的，如果不是，首先就不是真朋友。

10.True friendship is felt， not said.(Mariecris Madayag)朋友是说不出的感觉。

11.Friends are like stars，you don‘t always see them， but you know they‘re always there.(Hulali Luta)朋友是感觉不到的存在。

12.Memories last forever， never do they die. Friends stay together， never say goodbye.(Melina Campos)记忆永不死，朋友永不说再见。

Health 健康篇

13.light heart lives long.( William Shakespeare ， British dramatist)豁达者长寿(英国剧作家莎士比亚。 W.)

14.Early to bed and early to rise ， makes a man healthy ， wealthy and wise.(Benjamin Franklin ， American president )早睡早起会使人健康、富有和聪明。 (美国总统 富兰克林。B.)

15.The first wealth is health 。( Ralph Waldo Emerson ， American thinker)健康是人生第一财富。 (美国思想家爱默生。 R. W.)

大家都想知道怎么写作文才能拿到更高的分数，下面就来看看语文迷网小编为大家整理的写作技巧吧。

一、了解高分作文的特点

要想作文获得高分，必须了解高分作文具有的特点，才有助于我们朝之而努力。高分作文一般具有以下特点：

1、书写工整，书面整洁，很少有涂改痕迹。

2、分段合理。全文分段一般不止一个自然段，让阅卷老师很容易就能找到作文所要求写的要点和重要句子。

3、要点齐全，不缺要点。

4、首尾呼应，自然成一体。

5、使用了大量的高级词汇和句型。阅卷老师一看就知道这个同学的功底非不一般，自然就给打高分了。

6、开头言简意赅，不啰嗦，不偏题，迅速引入主题。

7、段与段之间，自然过渡。有合适的连接词。

8、句与句之间，有恰当的连接词，使之自然成一体。

9、全文中同一个意思，基本没有重复使用某一个词、短语或者句型等，说明这个同学的词汇量不同寻常。老师自然就对该作文有好感了。

10、能够恰当使用谚语、格言等给文章添彩。

二、勤积累，巧准备

要想作文得高分，除了了解以上的特点外，还要在平时的学习中注意一下方面：

1、牢记课标词汇是基础

一篇作文多数是由积极词汇写出来的，这些词汇主要来源于课标。因此，牢记课标词汇是写好作文的基础。

2、掌握课标词汇和短语的用法

要想作文不扣分或者少扣分，有个要求是作文的语病少。怎么能够减少语病呢?这就要求我们在平时的学习过程中反复通过练习，掌握课标词汇和短语等的用法。例如，对于as soon as 、stop some body from doing something 、other 、another等的用法很多学生就经常出错。

3、高度重视同一个意思的多种表达方式

高分作文有个特点是：让老师发现你拥有丰富的词汇量，你的水平高人一筹。这由何而来?靠我们在平时学习过程中，逐步积累起来的。比如：今年的中考作文，谈的就是帮助他人的问题。同一个意思“帮助”，假如你就用一个动词“help”，岂不显得你词汇贫乏?假如你在作文中不断地变换方式，用help、give somebody a hand、 give a hand to somebody 、be in need of 等以表达“帮助”同一个意思，岂不更好呢?

像这样的例子很多，比如：大家都觉得很简单又很基础的“表示姓名的方式”就有：My name is Jim.I’m Jim.I’m called/named Jim. I’m a boy called /named /with the name of Jim. 等等。

表达年龄的方式有：She is 12. She is 12 years old. She is aged 12. She is a girl of 12(years old) 。She is a girl aged 12.等等。

很显然，使用高级一点的更好。

4、加强练习，积累经验

学习语言最好的方法是运用，作文也不例外。我们要想作文得高分，必须经常练习，才能提高水平。

5、充分利用作文范文

很多资料书上都有作文范文。诚然，他们有很多值得借鉴的地方。

我们怎么利用它们呢?首先，我们先不要看文章，自己先思考一下：假如你来写，你会怎么去写，会用到哪些词或者句子等。然后去比较，勾出其中的好词佳句，并且把它摘录在专门的作文册子上。供写作时选用。

另外，背一些范文也是很有必要的。

6、背诵一些谚语和警句

作文中如果出现恰当的谚语和警句，会有锦上添花的效果。

三、精心审题，沉着写初稿

很多同学看到作文后，下笔就写。这是不对的。一则很容易写偏题、写出病句，涂改后书面又不整洁，影响得分。

其实，会写作文的同学都知道，审题非常的重要，可以防止很多毛病，提高得分。那么我们审题要做些什么呢?

审题主要要做一下事情：

1、审人称、时态、体裁等

审题时，要求我们要弄清楚这篇文章主要使用的人称是第几人称，什么时态、什么体裁。这些问题解决后至少不会犯很严重的错误：全文皆错。例如，如果一篇文章，本来应该一般过去时，你的每句话却用了一般现在时态。你想想，那还能得高分吗?

2、明确必须表达的要点

高分作文有个特点是要点齐全。如果漏掉一个要点，则要扣分。因此我们必须认真细读其要求，把必须表达的要点勾出来。保证不漏掉任何一个要点。

3、罗列出可能会用到的短语、句型，确定好使用哪个?

4、确定好如何分段

就是要确定好，将哪些要点放在一个自然段里面，首段、尾段打算写哪些?

四、耐心修改，提炼句子

很多同学写完作文后就感觉大事已毕，高兴地放下笔就了事了。其实，这时候，不妨从以下方面去修改，相信会让你受益匪浅的。

1、巧妙选择使用高级词汇、短语、句型等

当我们掌握了一定量的同意表达法之后，在写作时有时不会让你都运用到的。这时为了展示你与众不同的能力，你务必要选择高级的。例如，就以今年中考的英语作文为例，它就要求写“帮助老人的感受”。至于“老人”的表达法，有old people和the old 。使用后者的同学自然能力比前者强。同样的道理，作文中的“病人”的表达法有sick people ，patients ，the sick ，你认为使用哪个更能显示你的高水平呢?当然是the sick了。

2、巧妙使用低级表达法代替自己的难点

我们写作时难免会遇到一些难以用英语表达的东西。怎么办呢?换为最简单的表达法吧。例如：我市今年中考作文题，就要求学生表达一个意思：帮助同学，可以增进友谊。很多学生翻译不来“增进”，面对这样的问题怎么办呢?怎么不换个说法呢?你看，If we help our classmates with their study and other things ， we can make our friendship longer 。不就达到目的了吗?

3、大胆改变句型，使之生辉

例如，我们将一些句子改为感叹句，复合句、强调句、反意疑问句、将句子改得更能显示你的高水平和能力。何乐而不为呢?

4、高度关注句与句 、段与段之间的衔接问题。务必做到过渡自然，衔接紧凑。

5、适当引用个别谚语或警句，来提高作文档次。

五、一丝不苟抄誊作文

一篇好的作文，经过审题、修改之后，务必要一丝不苟地抄誊在答题卷上，再认真地仔细检查一遍，那才是大公告成了。

一个完整的英语句子，单词的数量最好不要超过20个，否则的话，句子偏长，听话人的注意力有可能不集中，漏听一、两个单词，从而影响对整个句子的理解。为了避免句子冗长，通常采取两种办法：一种是将一个长句子划分为几个短句子，每个短句子之间有语气上的停顿，让听话人有间歇的感觉;另外一种则是简化句子的单词构成，用一些简单的单词，代替一些复杂的单词。下面给各位介绍三种常用的简化方法：

第一种方法是用一个单词代替一组意义相同的单词，比如：

用forget(忘记)代替do not remember(没有记住)

用ignore(忽视)代替do not pay attention to(不注意)

用now(现在)代替at this point in time(此时此刻)

用because(由于)代替due to the fact that(鉴于下列事实)

第二种方法是省略同义词或近义词，比如在下面例句中，形容词important(重要的)和significant(有重要意义的)，就是两个同义词(也可以说是近义词)，我们可以省略important，只保留significant。

The government project is important and significant.(这项政府计划是重要的，有重要意义。)

The government project is significant.(这项政府计划有重要意义。)

第三种方法是在不改变句子含义的前提下，省略所有可以省略的单词，比如在下面例句中，the cover of the book(书的封面)可以省略成the book cover，is red in color(是红色的)可以省略成is red。

The cover of the book is red in color.(书的封面是红色的)

The book cover is red.(书的封面是红色的)

最后我们把这三种方法结合起来，将一个冗长、绕嘴的句子，改写成一个简短、易懂的句子。

University malls must be accessible and free from congestion in order that students, faculty and employees may have unobstructed passage through those areas of the campus.(校内道路必须是便于通行的，不拥堵的，以便让学生、教师和职员能够无阻碍地通过，到达校园的各处。)

University malls must be free enough from congestion to allow people to walk through easily.(校内道路不应当拥堵，以便人们顺利通行。)

一、写提示议论文应考虑的几点

1、文章开头，能依据提示确立主题句(topic)阐明观点或看法。

2、会使用连接词分层次说明理由、缘由(supportingsentences)。

3、归纳总结，首尾呼应。

二、看图作文应考虑的几点

1、看懂图片，把图片展示的人物、地点、时间、事件等有机地串联起来，使之成为内容连贯的句子。

2、确定短文须用的时态和该用的人称。

3、确定体裁(说明文还是记叙文)，接着用简洁的语句描述图片或图表大意。

4、根据图片或图表大意议论。

一、描述图画

图画作文对图画的描述应在第一段进行，且最好在首句即开始。此类作文大部分是一幅图，也会有两幅图出现的情况。如果出现两幅图，则很有可能是突显对比的情况。

图画上可能没有任何文字，也可能在上面出现了一句话，也可以单个人物说话或两个人物对话，也可能在图画外写了总结性的一句话。大家注意，这一句话或两句话一般是非常重要的，应予译出。

一般说来，对图画的描写不必过长，应以简练、准确为标准。

二、图画类作文结构分析

我们想象中的最典型最理想的图画题提纲应该是下面这样：

1. 描述图画

2. 推导绘画者的意图

3. 做出评论

对于这一提纲我们来做具体分析，其中第三点更要细致研究。首先由图画引出一种社会现象或社会问题，可以是好的，也可以是不好的。在推导绘画者的意图时多是展开说此现象或问题的表现，以证明其引人注目。还有一种可能性是说此现象或问题产生的原因，提纲可直接列出，或还用上述提纲。这时可把简单意图推导直接放到第一段描述图画之后，而在第二段中说原因。

第三段做出评论，有可能只是简单评论、深化主题就结束，但这种可能性越来越小了。这一部分很可能说的是办法，不好的事情就是如何解决的办法，好的事情就是如何进一步发展的方法。

通过上述列表，我们可以看出，多年以来，真实的提纲是怎样一步步地向我们想象中的理想模式靠近的。对于提纲里面出现的变化和规律，我们来分析一下。

我们仔细分析，会发现历年考研真题基本上都呈现"现象或问题——原因解释——解决办法"这样的模式，但变化非常多。因为我们谈论的既可以是一件值得弘扬的好事，也可能是一个令人忧心忡忡的社会问题;针对后者我们极有可能需要提出做法;而对于前者，可能解释一下就结束了，也可能要写出相应的做法。

综上所述，可以看出，比起图表作文来，图画作文要更灵活，更富于变化。我们一定要多练习，以达到一看到图画(含图中和图边文字)和提纲(有时有文章标题)就能有效地审题解题，构造出合理的具体段落的目的。

1.According to a recent survey, four million people die each year from diseases linked to smoking. 依照最近的一项调查，每年有4，000，000人死于与吸烟有关的疾病。

2. The latest surveys show that quite a few children have unpleasant associations with homework.最近的调查显示相当多的孩子对家庭作业没什么好感。

3. No invention has received more praise and abuse than Internet. 没有一项发明像互联网一样同时受到如此多的赞扬和批评。

4. Many experts point out that physical exercise contributes directly to a person’s physical fitness.

许多专家指出体育锻炼直接有助于身体健康。

5.写信的开头：Very glad to receive your letter of July 13.

6.One day after school,XiaoMing passed a Café on his way home.

7.The boss had no choice but to let him in.

8.How he enjoyed himself on the computer!

9.Walking home full of fear,he was sure that he would be scolded.

10.However,other students are against the idea.

11.Sometimes we have too many examinations which are too difficult for us.

12.today’s activity has taught us the new meaning of the spirit of LeiFeng:sharing with others what you have—you time,energy,or knowledge—makes you fell warm in you heart.It has truly a difference in how I feel about myself.

13.The girl whose composition was well written is spoken highly of.

14.No matter what he says，I won’t believe.

15. Thanks to the good weather，our journey was comfortable.

16. At the news of his death，she went pale with sorrow.

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

对于素材中用黑体字的部分，特别建议你熟读，背诵，因为它们在语言和观点上都值得吸收。学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。

因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！

1.?????? Proverbs

1. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.

2. The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.

3. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

4. The classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

5. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

6. It is the purpose of education to help us become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.

7. You see, real ongoing, lifelong education doesn’t answer questions; it provokes them.

8. People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

9.the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.

10. The essence of our efforts to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each as equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

11. A great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.

12. If you can read and don’, you are an illiterate by choice.

2. Damaging Research

A study by National Parent-Teacher Organization revealed that in the average American school, eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out. The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade, 80 percent of them feel pretty good themselves, but by the time they get to the sixth grade, only 10 percent of them have good self-images.

3. Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating equality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950s, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nations would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.

Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, t is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain. In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different have different expectations. Some feel that children should be taught basic job-related skills; still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity (and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language). On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to improve parents in their children’s education.

Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Corps, Vista, and Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail “the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages” and serve for at least one year. In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.

Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. At this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in the United States, although the concept is steadily gaining support among educators and social critics.

4. The Teacher’s Role

Given the undeniable importance of classroom experience, sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom. Often they start from the premise that, along with the influence of peers, students’ experiences in the classroom are of central importance to their later development. One study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students’ subsequent adult status. The surprising results of this study have important implications. It is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children’s lives, a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching. The reforms carried out by educational leaders like James Comer suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.

Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some way, the teacher-student relationship is an important part of education. Sociologists have pointed out that this relationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced, with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher. In other words, in conventional classrooms there is little opportunity for the students to become actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher’s authority: mentally withdrawing, interrupting, and the like. Hence, much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

5. Education Philosophy

For the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey (1859-1953), an American educator and writer. Dewey believed hat the school’s job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child, rather than to pour information, for which the child had no context, into him or her. In the Dewey system, the child becomes the active agent in his own education, rather than a passive receptacle for facts.

Consequently, American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching “life skills” –logical thinking, analysis, creative problem--solving. The actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process, which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present, including all the unknowns of the future. Students and teachers both regard pure memorization as an uncreative and somewhat vulgar.

In addition to “life skills”, schools are assigned to solve the ever growing stoke of social problems. Racism, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, reckless driving, and are just a few of the modern problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.

This all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

6. Student Life

To the students, the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start “changing classes”. This means that rather than spending the day in one classroom, they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers. This gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways, where a great deal of the important social action of high school traditionally takes place. Students have lockers in these hallways, around which thy congregate.

Society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously. Schoolchildren have a great deal of free time, which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities—sports, clubs, cheerleading, scouts—supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership, sportsmanship, ability to organize, etc. those who don’t become engaged in such activities or have afterschool jobs have plenty of opportunity to “hang out”, listen to teenager music, and watch television.

Compared to other nations, American students do not have much homework. Studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children’s success in school than other nationalities do. (Historically, there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life.) “He’s just not a scholar”, the American parents might say, content that their son is on the swim team and doesn’t take drugs. (Some of the young do choose to study hard, for reason of their own, such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)

What American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method. In innumerable ways children are pitted against each other—whether in classroom discussion, spelling bees, reading groups, or tests. Every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A’s and F’s (teachers often grade A=excellent; B=good; C=average; D=poor; and F=failed). A teacher who gives all A’s looks too soft—so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.

Foreign students sometimes don’t understand that copying from other people’s papers or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously. Here, it is important to show that you have done your own work and are displaying your own knowledge. It is more important than helping your friends to pass, whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers. Group effort goes against the competitive grain, and American students do not study together as many Asians do. Many Asians in this country consider their group study habits a large contributor to their school success.

7. Adult Education

After complaining about many aspects of American life, a 40-year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded, “But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work? Here you can change your whole life, start a new business, do what you really want to do.”

So at least to this person, school requirements weren’t inhibiting. And to millions of others, adult education is the path to a new career, or if not to a new career, to a new outlook. Schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew, and besides regular classes, schedule evening classes in special programs. Today there are so many people of retirement age in college that it is no longer remarkable.

8. Moral Relativism in American

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing (and remembering) some good old things. At the time of our nation’s founding, Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia. In this landmark statement on American education, Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writing, and of reading history, and geography. But he also emphasized the need “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests, and duties, as men and citizens.” Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one’s “morals” and “faculties”. That has been the dominant view of the aims of American education for over two centuries. But a number of changes, most of them unsound, have diverted schools from these great pursuits. And the story of the loss of the school’s original moral mission explains a great deal.

Starting in the early seventies, “values clarification” programs started turning up in schools all over America. According to this philosophy, the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values; rather, they were to allow the child to “clarify” his own values (which adults, including parents, had no “rights” to criticize). The “values clarification” movement didn’t clarify values; it clarified wants and desires. This form of moral relativism said, in effect, that no set of values was right or wrong; everybody had an equal right to his own values; and all values were subjective, relative, and personal. This destructive view took hold with a vengeance.

In 1985 The York Times published an article quoting New York area educators, in slavish devotion to this new view, proclaiming, “They deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong.” The article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors. In the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been foolish to return one thousand dollars she found in a purse at school. According to the article, when the youngsters asked the counselor’s opinion, “He told them he believed the girl had done the right thing, but that, of course, he would not try to force his values on them. ‘If I come from the position of what is wrong,’ he explained, ‘then I’m not their counselor.’”

Once upon a time, a counselor offered counselor, and he knew that an adult does not form character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering “choices” or “options”.

In response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals, one can expect from some quarters indignant objections (I’ve heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years): “Who are you to say what’s important?” or “Whose standards and judgments do we use?”

The correct response, it seems to me, is, is we ready to do away with standards and judgments? Is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swindling is as worthy as a life of honest, hard work? Is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities) going to argue seriously the intellectual corollary, that a Marvel comic book is as good as Macbeth? Unless we are willing to embrace some pretty silly position, we’ve got to admit the need for moral and intellectual standards. The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgment as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded “elitist” trying to impose his view on everybody else.

The truth of the real world is that without standards and judgments, there can be no progress. Unless we are prepared to say irrational things—that nothing can be proven more valuable than anything else or that everything is equally worthless—we must ask the normative question. It may come, as a surprise to those who fell that to be “progressive” is to be value-neutral. But as Matthew Amold said, “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things” and if the world can’t decide what the best things are, at least to some degree, then it follows that progress, and character, is in trouble. We shouldn’t be reluctant to declare that some things, some lives, books, ideas, and values are better than others. It is the responsibility of the schools to teach these better things.

At one time, we weren’t so reluctant to teach them. In the mid-nineteenth century, a diverse, widespread group of crusaders began to work for the public support of what was then called the “common school”, the forerunner of the public school. They were to be charged with the mission of school felt that the nation could fulfill its destiny only if every new generation was taught these values together in a common institution.

The leaders of the common school movement were mainly citizens who were prominent in their communities—businessmen, ministers, local civic and government officials. These people saw the schools as upholders of standards of individual morality and small incubators of civic and personal virtue; the founders of the public schools had faith that public education could teach good moral and civic character from a common ground of American values.

But in the past quarter century or so, some of the so-called experts became experts of value neutrality, and moral education was increasingly left in their hands. The commonsense view of parents and the publicthat schools should reinforce rather than undermine the values of home, family, and country, was increasingly rejected.

There are those today still that claim we are now too diverse a nation, that we consist of too many competing convictions and interests to instill common values. They are wrong. Of course we are a diverse people. We have always been a diverse people. And as Madison wrote in FederalistNo.10, the competing, balancing interests of a diverse people can help ensure the survival of liberty. But there are values that all American citizens share and that we should want all American students to know and to make their own: honesty, fairness, self-discipline, fidelity to task, friends, and family, personal responsibility, love of country, and belief in the principles of liberty, equality, and the freedom to practice one’s faith. The explicit teaching of these values is the legacy of the common schools, and it is a legacy to which we must return.

9. Schools Should Teach Values

People often said, “Yes, we should teach these values, but how do we teach them?” this question deserves a candid response, one that isn’t given often enough. It is by exposing our children to good character and inviting its imitation that we will transmit to them a moral foundation. This happens when teachers and principals, by their words and actions, embody sound convictions. As Oxford’s Mary Warnock has written, “You cannot teach morality without being committed to morality yourself; and you cannot be committed to morality yourself without holding that some things are right and others wrong.” The theologian Martin Buber wrote that the educator is distinguished from all other influences “by his will to take part in the stamping of character and by his consciousness that he represents in the eyes of the growing person a certain selection of what is, the selection of what is ‘right’, of what should be.” It is in this will, Buber says, in this clear standing for something, that the “vocation as an educator finds its fundamental expression.”

There is no escaping the fact that young people need as example principals and teachers who know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and who themselves exemplify high moral purpose.

As Education Secretary, I visited a class at Waterbury Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont, and asked the students, “Is this a good school?” They answered, “Yes, this is a good school.” I asked them, “Why?” Among other things, one eight-year-old said, “The principal Mr. Riegel, makes good rules and everybody obeys them.” So I said, “Give me an example.” And another answered, “You can’t climb on the pipes in the bathroom. We don’t climb on the pipes and the principal doesn’t either.”

This example is probably too simple to please a lot of people who want to make the topic of moral education difficult, but there is something profound in the answer of those children, something education should pay more attention to. You can’t expect children to take messages about rules or morality seriously unless they see adults taking those rules seriously in their day-to-day affairs. Certain must be said, certain limits lay down, and certain examples set. There is no other way.

We should also do a better job at curriculum selection. The research shows that most “values education” exercises and separate courses in “moral reasoning” tend not to affect children’s behavior; if anything, they may leave children morally adrift. Where to turn? I believe our literature and our history are a rich quarry of moral literacy. We should mine that quarry. Children should have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we believe to be right and wrong, good and bad—examples illustrating what are morally right and wrong can indeed be known and that there is a difference.

What kind of stories, historical events, and famous lives am I talking about? If we want our children to know about honesty, we should teach them about Abe Lincoln walking three miles to return six cents and conversely, about Aesop’s shepherd boy who cried wolf if we want them to know about courage, we should teach them about Joan of Arc, Horatius at the bridge, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. If we want them to know about persistence in the face of adversity, they should know about the voyages of Columbus and the character of Washington during the Civil War. And our youngest should be told about the Little Engine That Could. If we want them to know about respect for the law, they should understand why Socrates told Crito: “No, I must submit to the decree of Athens.” If we want our children to respect the rights of others, they should read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham jail.” From the Bible they should know about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Jonathan’s friendship with David, the Good Samaritan’s kindness toward a stranger, and David’s cleverness and courage in facing Goliath.

These are only a few of the hundreds of examples we can call on. And we need not get into issues like nuclear war, abortion, creationism, or euthanasia. This may come as a disappointment to some people, but the fact is that the formation of character in young people is educationally a task different from, and prior to, the discussion of the great, difficult controversies of the day. First things come first. We should teach values the same way we teach other things: one step at a time. We should not use the fact that there are many difficult and controversial moral questions as an argument against basic instruction in the subject.

After all, we do not argue against teaching physics because laser physics is difficult, against teaching American history because there are heated disputes about the Founders’ intent. Every field has its complexities and its controversies. And every field has its basics, its fundamentals. So they are too with forming character and achieving moral literacy. As any parent knows, teaching character is a difficult task. But it is a crucial task, because we want our children to be healthy, happy, and successful but decent, strong, and good. None of this happens automatically; there is no genetic transmission of virtue. It takes the conscious, committed efforts of adults. It takes careful attention.

10. College Pressures

Mainly I try to remind that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don not want to hear such liberating news. They want a map—right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

My wish, of course, is na?ve. One of the national gods venerated in our media—the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive—and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains—to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains: only victims.

“In the late 1960s.” one dean told me. “The typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world’ or ‘how I can make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They are trying to find an edge—the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh. Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000.

It’s all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it’s nice to think that admission officers are ready reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with As that they regard a B as positively shameful.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C.” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses-music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion—that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I do not know if they are getting As or Cs, and I do not care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cannot.

Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now come to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what college receives in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now, the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs—higher every year—of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in American the creation of a brotherhood of paupers—colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debt.

Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years—loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used “he,” incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society has not yet caught up with this fact.

Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know tem in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to medical school?” I asked them.

“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They are paying all this money and …”

Poor students, poor parents, they are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean will; they are trying to steer their sons and draughts toward a secure future. But the sons and daughter want to major in history or classics or philosophy—subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics—an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective—are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward specific profession—courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or, as I sometimes heard it put, “pre-rich.”

But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obliged to fulfill their parents’ expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them.

I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one—she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-round person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a “dumb” thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the “dumb” courses her father wants her to take—at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students—no small achievement in it—and she deserves to follow her muse.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.

“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I could not tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is almost funny—except that it is not. It is symptomatic of all the pressure put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

Probably they won’t. They will get blocked. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out.

Part of the problem is that they are expected to do. A professor will assign five page papers. Several students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic work, psychologically.”

Why cannot the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can, and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He did not sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That’s what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.

To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their figure nails onto a shrinking profession.

If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments—as departmental chairmen or members of committees—that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe.

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing into themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

“Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,” says Carlos Hortas. “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist-that they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slot.”

“They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing.”

I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story; if they were so dreary I wouldn’t so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known.

Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extracurricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it.

This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the ‘60s they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions—as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians—with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies.

They also cannot afford to be the willing slave of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one-hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper—who’s past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.—much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that “newsies” routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I’ve never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet.

If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it’s because that’s where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead—that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell neither them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway products, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians—a mixed bag of achievers.

I asked them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

11. To Err Is Wrong

In the summer of 1979, Boston Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski became the fifteenth player in baseball history to reach the three thousand hit plateaus. This event drew a lot of media attention, and for about a week prior to the attainment of this goal, hundreds of reports covered Yaz’s every more. Finally, one reporter asked, “Hey Yaz, aren’t you afraid all of this attention will go to your head?” Yastrzemski replied, “I look at this way: in my career I’ve been up to bat over ten thousand times. That means I’ve been unsuccessful at the plate over seven thousand times. That fact alone keeps me from getting a swollen head.”?

Most people consider success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process. As Yaz suggest, an activity that produces a hit may also produce a miss. It is the same with creative thinking; the same energy that generates good creative ideas also produces errors.

Many people, however, are not comfortable with errors. Our educational system, based on “the right answer” belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more conservative way. From an early age, we are taught that right answers are good and incorrect answers are bad. This value is deeply embedded in the incentive system used in most schools:

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

Right over 70% of the time = “C~” Right over 60% of the time = “D~” Less than 60% correct, you fail.

From this we learn to be right as often as possible and to keep our mistakes to a minimum. We learn, in other words, that “to err is wrong.

Playing It Safe

With this kind of attitude, you aren’t going to be taking too many chances. If you learn that failing even a litter penalizes you (e.g., being wrong only 15% of the time garners you only a “B” performance), you learn not to make mistakes. And more important, you learn not to put yourself to situation where you might fall. This leads to conservative thought pattern designed to avoid the stigma our society puts on “failure”.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college with a Master’s degree in Journalism. For the last six month, she has been trying to find a job, but to no avail. I talked with her about situation, and realized that her problem is that she doesn’t know how to fail. She went through eighteen years of schooling to try any approaches where she might fail. She has been conditioned to believe that failure is bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping-stone to new ideas.

Look around. How many middle managers, housewives, administrators, teachers, and other people do you see who are to try anything new because of this failure? Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experience except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances.

Different Logic

From a practical point of view, “to err is wrong” makes sense. Our survival in the everyday world requires us to perform thousand of small tasks without failure. Think about it: you wouldn’t last very long if you were to step out in front of traffic or stick your hand a pot of boiling water. In addition, engineers whose bridges collapse, stock brokers who lose money for their clients, and copywriters whose ad campaigns decrease sales won’t keep their jobs very long.

Nevertheless, too great an adherence to the belief “to err is wrong” can greatly undermine your attempts to generate new ideas. If you are more concerned with producing right answers than generating original ideas, you’ll probably make uncritical use of the rules, formulae, and procedures used to obtain these right answers. By doing this, you’ll by-pass the germinal phase of the creative process, and thus spend litter time testing assumptions, challenging the rules, asking what-if questions, or just playing around with the problem. All of these techniques will produce some incorrect answers, but in the germinal phase errors are viewed as a necessary by-product of creative thinking. As Yaz would put it, “if you want the hits, be prepared for the misses.” That’s the way the game of life goes.

Errors as Stepping Stones

Whenever an error pops up, the usual response is “Jeez, another screw up, what went wrong this time?” the creative thinker, on the other hand, will realize the potential value of errors, and perhaps say something like, “Would you look at that! Where can it lead our thinking?” and then he or she will go on to use the error as a stepping stone to a new idea. As a matter of fact, the whole history of discovery is filed with people who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as stepping-stones to new ideas. Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to India. Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of interplanetary gravity because of assumptions that were right for the wrong reasons. And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.

The following story about the automotive genius Charles Kettering exemplifies the spirit of working through erroneous assumptions to good ideas. In 1912, when the automobile industry was just beginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engine efficiency. The problem he faced was“knockthe phenomenon in which gasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder-thereby reducing efficiency.

Kettering began searching for ways to eliminate the “knock.” He thought to him, “How can I get the gasoline to combust in the cylinder at an earlier time?” the key concept here is “early”. Searching for analogous situations, he looked around for models of “things that happen early.” He thought of historical models, physical models, and biological models. Finally, he remembered a particular plant, the trailing arbutus, which “happens early,” i.e., it blooms in the snow (“earlier” than other plants). One of this plant’s chief characteristics is its’ red leaves, which help the plant retain light at certain wavelengths. Kettering figured that it must be the red color, which made the trailing arbutus bloom earlier.

Now came the critical step in Kettering’s chain of thought. He asked himself, “How can I make the gasoline red?” perhaps I’ll put red dye in the gasoline—maybe that’ll make it combust earlier.” He looked around his workshop, and found that he didn’t have any red dye. But he did happen to have some iodine—perhaps that would do. He added the iodine to the gasoline and, lo and behold, the engine didn’t “knock”.

[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分

从历年高考写作题来看, 特别是基础写作, 要点都是一目了然的, 写什么, 对于考生来说不是问题, 问题是不知如何写。

实践证明, 只有写出正确地道的句子, 才有可能把文章写好。磨刀不误砍柴功, 写作需练基本功。你有了扎实的基本功, 不管是基础写作还是读写任务, 也不管考什么作文题, 你都能得高分。因此, 从某种意义上说, 我们不必刻意追求猜题押题, 而应脚踏实地地去练好基本功, 这才是高考高分的备考上策。

【基本句型特训】

这里的基本句型包括简单句的五个基本句型和there be句型。

所谓简单句就是由一个主语 (包括并列主语)和一个谓语 (包括并列谓语) 组成的句子, 即一个主谓关系的句子。

六个基本句型

典型例句

主+谓

He studies very hard.

主+谓+宾

We enjoy sports.

主+谓+间宾+直宾

Sports bring me happiness.

主+谓+宾+宾补

Exercise mades me healthy.

主+系+表

Exercise is very beneficial.

There be句型

There are three reasons why I like it.

特别提醒: 根据历年高考阅卷的情况, 考生写句子最易犯的错是: 不用be时却用了, 或者该用be时却没用。因此, 我们须注意:

1.英语句子通常要有谓语动词, 否则就不完整。如表达 “他很累”, 不能说He very tired.

而要说He is very tired. 因为tired是形容词, 句中无动词。切记: 当句子意思完整, 但句中没有动词时, 一定要加上be。

2. 当句中已有谓语动词时, 若不是进行时态或被动语态, 一定不要再用be。如表达 “他昨天来过这里”, 不能说He was came here yesterday. 而要说He came here yesterday.

[课堂练习]

用基本句型翻译下列各组句子, 然后合并成一篇通顺自然的5句话的短文。

●心中有梦:

单句翻译

1. David 7岁了。 (主系表)

2. 他有一个梦想。 (主谓宾)

3. 他想在天上飞。 (主谓宾)

4. 他做了一架纸飞机。 (主谓双宾)

5. 他完成了作业。 (主谓宾)

6. 他玩纸飞机。 (主谓)

7. 有一天, 天上有一架飞机在飞。 (there be句型)

8. 他的父亲鼓励他努力学习成为飞行员。 (主谓宾宾补)

9. 他非常努力地学习。 (主谓)

10. 十八年后他实现了他的梦想。 (主谓宾)

合并成文

______________________________________________________________________________________________

【标准答案】

1. David was seven years old.

2. He had a dream.

3. He wanted to fly in the sky.

4. He made himself a paper plane.

5. He finished homework.

6. He always played with the paper plane.

7. There was a plane flying in the sky.

8. His father encouraged him to study hard and be a pilot.

9. He worked very hard at his lessons.

10. He made his dream come true 18 years later.

合并成文: When David was seven years old, he dreamed of flying in the sky. Having finished his homework, he made himself a paper plane to play with. One day, there was a plane flying in the sky. His father

encouraged him to be a pilot in the future. It was by working hard that he made his dream come true eighteen years later.