托福寫作經(jīng)典萬能模板應(yīng)用(2)
托福寫作經(jīng)典萬能模板應(yīng)用
3. Thesis statement (give your opinion)
Using this format, along with the phrases recommended by Princeton Review, we might have an introduction like this:
The issue at hand is whether dogs make better pets than cats. This issue is important because many people have a hard time choosing a pet. I believe that having a cat is the better option because cats are self-sufficient and less demanding of their owner.
There are a couple problems here. First of all, it is obvious that the introduction is a template. Second, the phrase the issue is important because is not always appropriate,so it can sometimes result in very comical or awkward writing. In the introduction above,for instance, whether people prefer dogs or cats is not an issue. Neither is it important.
Finally, it is not always advisable to make a direct reference to the essay question with phrases such as the issue at hand or the statement above.
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TOEFLIndependent Essay Introduction: Kaplan
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Kaplan (2008-2009 edition) suggests a three-part introduction:
1. Hook (gets the reader’s attention)
2. Background (additional details about topic)
3. Thesis statement (your opinion)
Using this format, we might have an intro like this:
According to a recent survey, five out of six people prefer dogs to cats. This is hardly surprising, as most people consider dogs more loyal than cats. However, there are plenty of advantages to owning a cat. In fact, I believe that cats make much better pets than dogs.
Interestingly, Kaplan also outlines a four-part introduction:
1. Hook (gets the reader’s attention)
2. Background (additional details about topic)
3. Thesis statement (your opinion)
4. Forecasting (how the essay is organized)
This four-part formula might give us an introduction like this:
According to a recent survey, five out of six people prefer dogs to cats. This is hardly surprising, as most people consider dogs more loyal than cats. However, there are plenty of advantages to owning a cat. In fact, I believe that cats make much better pets than dogs. Indeed, cats are not only self-sufficient, but also less demanding of their owner.
Notice how the last sentence tells the reader to expect two paragraphs: one about how cats are self-sufficient, one about how cats are less demanding.
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TOEFLIndependent Essay Introduction: Longman
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Longman suggests a three-part introduction:
1. Interest (something to get the reader interested)
2. Topic (what the essay is about)
3. Organization (how the essay is organized)
Using this format, we might have an intro like this:
According to a recent survey, five out of six people prefer dogs to cats. For better or worse,
I am in the minority of those who would much rather have a cat. Unlike dogs, cats are not only self-sufficient, but also less demanding of their owner.
Posted in independent writing, Longman | No Comments »
TOEFLIntegrated Essay Practice and Correction
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
Many students already use the online TOEFL essay correction service to practice writing
Independent Essays. They write essays online and a native speaker of English corrects it for them. However, not many students know that they can also practice their Integrated Essays. Students use their own materials to read a text and listen to a lecture. Then they write an essay and send it to the teacher by email. When you sign up, just be sure to mention what materials you’re using, so the teacher can give you more accurate feedback.
Posted in integrated writing, independent writing | No Comments »
Bad TOEFLIntroductions in the Independent Essay
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Here’s an introduction that one student recently wrote:
I stongly agree with the statement that money cannot buy happiness. This a very interesting and provoking statement, and I have specific reasons for agreeing with it. I will discuss these reasons in the following paragraphs.
Here are a few potential problems:
1. In this introduction, the thesis statement was the first sentence of the introduction. The thesis statement is usually the last sentence, not the first.
2. In this introduction, the student writes, “I will discuss these reasons in the following paragraphs.” Always avoid a direct reference to the essay or to the reader. For example, don’t use phrases like these: “in this essay,” “this essay will discuss,” “I will give you,” or “I will discuss.” This is not good academic writing. In fact, even the ETS TOEFL guide suggests avoiding this.
3. The introduction was rather short. Most effective introductions are longer than two or three sentences.
For more information about writing an introduction, visit the tutorial on essay introductions.
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Spelling in the TOEFLEssay
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
In an ideal world, you should have no spelling mistakes in your TOELF essays. However, the world is never ideal, and nobody’s writing is ever perfect. Everybody makes mistakes,even native speakers of English. (In fact, you’ll probably be able to find some spelling mistakes in these blog posts!) If you spell reasonably well in English, don’t worry too much about your spelling on the TOEFL essay.
It is possible to get a high score on your TOEFL essay even if you misspell a few words.
However, if you make a mistake, it should be an honest mistake. For example, if you spell the word mistake as mstake, it is obvious that this is a typo, a simple mistake made while typing. However, spelling will affect your score in the following situations:
1. You misspell the same word throughout the essay. In this case, it becomes clear that the problem is more than a simple typo.
2. You misspell a very basic word. For example, you spell read as reed. Such a basic mistake is a clear indication that your level of English may be quite low.
3. You misspell so many words that it becomes distracting when reading the essay. Ths is wat i mean by mispeliign many wrds. In this case, it is obvious that you did not have enough time to proofread your essay.
If there are some words that you often misspell, memorize them and learn to spell them correctly. If you make many mistakes while typing, always leave 5 minutes to proofread your essay before submitting it.
Posted in Uncategorized, integrated writing, tips, independent writing, other stuff | No
Comments »
How Many Paragraphs Should a TOEFLEssay Have?
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
Here are a few recommendations for writing a TOEFL essay:
Independent Essay
The TOEFL Independent Essay can have either four or five paragraphs. For a four-paragraph essay, here is the structure:
PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction
PARAGRAPH 2: Main point/idea 1
PARAGRAPH 3: Main point/idea 2
PARAGRAPH 4: Conclusion
The structure for the five-paragraph essay is almost the same:
PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction
PARAGRAPH 2: Main point/idea 1
PARAGRAPH 3: Main point/idea 2
PARAGRAPH 4: Main point/idea 3
PARAGRAPH 5: Conclusion
Both the four-paragraph essay and the five-paragraph essay are acceptable. However, it is much more difficult to write a five-paragraph essay. With the 30-minute time limit, it is difficult to develop three paragraphs with strong supporting statements containing details and examples.
For more information about how to write an Independent Essay, visit the site’s essay writing tutorial.
Integrated Essay
There are two acceptable structures for the TOEFL Integrated Essay. The first is called block format:
PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction
PARAGRAPH 2: Main points from the reading
PARAGRAPH 3: Main points from the listening
PARAGRAPH 4: Conclusion
The second structure is called the point-by-point:
PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction
PARAGRAPH 2: First main point from the reading + first main point from the listening
PARAGRAPH 3: Second main point from the reading + second main point from the listening
PARAGRAPH 4: Conclusion
Both essay structures are correct. Some TOEFL books only teach block format. Others only teach the point-by-point. Still other TOEFL books teach both! You can use either format,as long as you use it properly.
托福寫作提升的最好方法是閱讀和仿寫
不少同學(xué)總是抱怨自己寫的文章用詞不夠高大上，想要解決語言單一的問題，平日積累是必不可少的。因為作為輸出型考試，前期的輸入過程至關(guān)重要。積累的最好方法就是閱讀和仿寫。閱讀的材料在體裁上盡量選擇essay(散文、評論性文章)。讀英文小說，對培養(yǎng)閱讀興趣和語感很好，但對托福寫作的幫助不直接。因為這些作品屬于文學(xué)寫作，其語境和議論文有很大差別，即便學(xué)到很炫的詞句，也很難有用武之地。最后，別忘了一件事情：仿寫。只看不寫，永遠(yuǎn)不能將輸入語言化成輸出語言。就像大家背單詞，可是考場上很難使用出來是一樣的。盡量仿寫整句，保持原句結(jié)構(gòu)，替換內(nèi)容。作文，尤其獨立作文，應(yīng)該是個人化的。因此，從一開始大家就應(yīng)該在語言上打造屬于自己的風(fēng)格。
那么，托?？荚噷τ谡Z言的要求到底是如何的呢?也就是說怎樣的文章能夠獲得ETS的青睞?我們來看一下《官方指南》對獨立寫作評分標(biāo)準(zhǔn)(scoring rubric)對語言的要求，考綱中有這么一段話“Displays consistentfacility in the use of language, demonstrating syntactic variety, appropriateword choice, and idiomaticity, though it may have minor lexical or grammaticalerrors.”通過對比之前介紹的綜合寫作的語言要求，獨立寫作對語言的要求顯然更高，對詞和句都比較具體的要求，而且尤其指出了“靈活多變的句式”和“恰當(dāng)?shù)脑~匯”，這里就包含了詞匯的變化，不能老是重復(fù)使用某個詞匯或表達。也就是說托福對語言的要求是“多變”’。
詞匯方面，通過分析《官方指南》(p211)上誠信這篇滿分范文可以看出，考官(Rater)對其語言的評論用了“fluent, accurate and varied”三個詞。在這篇范文中，題干的核心詞是“tell the truth”，而作文中用了“honesty”，“dishonesty”，“reliability”，“lie”，“lying”，“hide”和“trust”等替代了核心詞。這樣不僅讓考官領(lǐng)略到你詞匯的豐富(lexical resources)，而且還能感覺到你對于核心信息展開和解釋的能力。
在句式方面，考官評論中用了“a variety of sentence structure”(句子結(jié)構(gòu)的多樣)。包括如下句式：1)各種從句：that引導(dǎo)的定語從句，after引導(dǎo)的時間狀語從句，although、however和even though引導(dǎo)的讓步狀語從句。2)使用wish的虛擬語氣句3)用but引導(dǎo)的轉(zhuǎn)折并列句，還有either…or的否定并列句4)現(xiàn)在分詞做狀語的非謂語現(xiàn)象5)How和What引導(dǎo)的反問句(rhetorical questions)，還有感嘆句。6)as…as的同級比較句，還有比較級和最高級的使用。此外，常用語法現(xiàn)象如不定式、動名詞等也是比比皆是。這篇文章雖然語言樸素簡單，幾乎沒有任何高大上的詞匯，且文章的整體結(jié)構(gòu)也不是傳統(tǒng)的五段三體(開頭主旨+主題三個分論點段+結(jié)尾結(jié)論)，但語言上卻充滿各種變化，所以僅靠這一優(yōu)勢就足已讓這位考生的文章脫穎而出，獲取考官滿分的褒獎，這是值得我們反思，學(xué)習(xí)和模仿的。
實際上大家身邊有很多出色的語言材料可以利用，我個人比較推薦《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》這種學(xué)術(shù)性較強的雜志。今天帶大家來欣賞一篇文章，文章中的語料尤其適合作為數(shù)據(jù)舉例法的框架，大家平時也可以按照這種分析方法進行積累，仿寫。
Sorry, Strivers: TalentMatters
How do people acquire high levels ofskill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been atopic of intense debate in psychology. (這就是我們常說的：XX話題正在被熱議)
Research in recentdecades has shown that abig part of the answer is simply practice — and a lot of it. In a pioneering study, the Florida StateUniversity psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleaguesasked violin students at a music academy to estimate the amount of time they haddevoted to practice since theystarted playing. By age 20, the students whom thefaculty nominated as the “best”players had accumulated an average of over 10,000 hours, compared with just under 8,000 hours for the “good” players and not even 5,000 hours for the leastskilled.
這一段就可以用在利用研究做論證來支持論點 ,通常是這樣一個結(jié)構(gòu):研究機構(gòu)( In a pioneering study, the Florida StateUniversity psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues +研究目的(toestimate the amount of time they had devoted to practice)+比較結(jié)構(gòu)students(跟修飾限定語 )do sth, compared with 另外一群體
Exhibit A is a landmark study of intellectually precocious youthsdirected by the Vanderbilt University researchers David Lubinski andCamilla Benbow. Theyand their colleagues tracked theeducational and occupational accomplishments of more than 2,000 people who aspart of a youth talent search scored in the top 1 percent on the SAT by the ageof 13. (Scores on the SAT correlate so highly with與XX有緊密聯(lián)系I.Q. that the psychologist Howard Gardner described it asa “thinly disguised” intelligence test.) The remarkable finding of their study isthat, compared with the participantswho were “only” in the 99.1 percentile for intellectual ability atage 12, those who were in the 99.9 percentile — the profoundly gifted — were between three and five times morelikely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure apatent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work.A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-worldadvantage.
本段中紅色字體同樣是引用研究做例子支撐的一個模版 ,大家仔細(xì)體會。這里附上簡化模版 :
A survey, conducted by a psychologist and hiscolleagues in Florida State, shows a remarkable finding after tracking 100people who has frustrated experience after doing challenging things. Thefinding indicates that those people tend to be less confident when face a newthing. 這里的地點和人物,以及研究對象都可以根據(jù)不同的題目來換。
下面我們用一道機經(jīng)題目進行仿寫吧!
Do you agree or disagree? It was easier to identify whatjobs or careers were secure and successful in the past than it is now.
A survey, conducted by Career Service Center in China, showsa remarkable finding after tracking two groups of people with the first at theage of 50 and above and the second aged from 20 to 30. The remarkable findingof the study is that, 32.5% of the first group respectively choose the optionof civil servants and teachers, and 72.4% of the second group circled the thirdoption of other occupations such as singers, freelance writers and so on. Thedifference in the two groups of figures lies in the transition of people'sattitude of choosing a job.
分析這篇文章旨在幫助大家學(xué)習(xí)如何用研究事例支持自己的觀點，以后會和大家分享更多的滿分文章或者實用段落，大家平時也要多多積累，勤于練習(xí)!
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