【王老师写给你看】用 GRE 分析写作练逻辑思维、学术写作,留学时台湾
学生别再当美国学生的后援会啦!
除了“时间不够”之外,准备 GRE 分析写作的台湾考生最常碰到的致命伤就是写了半天
“没有切题、讨论到该讨论的东西”。
而这也是不管原本英文程度如何的学生、还是学霸指数多少的学生,都会遇到的状况。
虽说很多考生都听过“主题句”很重要(主题句 = 扣题立场+原因) ,但“实际操作”跟
“头脑里知道”往往有很大的差距,大概 5 个学生里有4 个就会偏题。
除此之外,我们的母语中文表达想法时的 vagueness ,也很常让台湾考生偏题或没掌握
好题目的 scope 。
(e.g. 题目问高等教育对职涯发展的影响,结果学生一直在讨论高等教育或是教育 )
假设今天我们拿到了这个高频题:
To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one
must study its major cities.
某学生在第二段写了这样的主题句:
First of all, the most important characteristics of a society can be defined
in a variety of ways.
写完后,我问了学生:
‧ 你觉得你这样有回答到问题吗?
‧ 你是如何分析这个题干 (prompt) 的呢?
‧ 为什么一开始就把 "understand" 和 "must study" 这两个重要的概念给丢掉了呢?
学生后来又加了一句话,变成 (原文直接呈现,无做调整)
First of all, the most important characteristic of a society can be defined
in a variety of ways. Based on the reason, we may not rule out the
possibility that the most attracting characteristic in one's heart is not
existed in the major city.
‧ 加了第二句话后,我们又看到了至少4个问题:
(1) important characteristics 怎么被过度成 attracting characteristics 了呢?(
一字代换即离题)
(2) 补 in one's heart 的用意是什么呢?
(3) 核心概念的 "of a society" 在第二句话消失了
(4) is not existed 为严重会导致扣分的文法错误(因文章有5处出现一样的错误)。
啊,英文好难啊,你一定这样想。怎么会才写两句话,就那么多问题呢?主因来自于大家
忽略了好的学术写作学习,需要系统性的训练、和练习。很多考生都错以为范文看一看、
点子想一想就可以上场了。
依照着学生的想法,我试写了一段:
I partially agree with the statement, as we can certainly gain a deeper
understanding of some defining features of a society by studying its major
cities, where we can easily observe the socio-cultural events, beliefs, and
phenomena that collectively contribute to the construction of the "identity"
of a society. However, it should be noted that some of these features that
help define a society can ONLY be observed in small towns, as opposed to
major cities. Therefore, if we wish to thoroughly