托福写作经典万能模板应用(2)
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.
Posted in independent writing, Princeton | No Comments »
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.
托福写作提升的最好方法是阅读和仿写
不少同学总是抱怨自己写的文章用词不够高大上，想要解决语言单一的问题，平日积累是必不可少的。因为作为输出型考试，前期的输入过程至关重要。积累的最好方法就是阅读和仿写。阅读的材料在体裁上尽量选择essay(散文、评论性文章)。读英文小说，对培养阅读兴趣和语感很好，但对托福写作的帮助不直接。因为这些作品属于文学写作，其语境和议论文有很大差别，即便学到很炫的词句，也很难有用武之地。最后，别忘了一件事情：仿写。只看不写，永远不能将输入语言化成输出语言。就像大家背单词，可是考场上很难使用出来是一样的。尽量仿写整句，保持原句结构，替换内容。作文，尤其独立作文，应该是个人化的。因此，从一开始大家就应该在语言上打造属于自己的风格。
那么，托福考试对于语言的要求到底是如何的呢?也就是说怎样的文章能够获得ETS的青睐?我们来看一下《官方指南》对独立写作评分标准(scoring rubric)对语言的要求，考纲中有这么一段话“Displays consistentfacility in the use of language, demonstrating syntactic variety, appropriateword choice, and idiomaticity, though it may have minor lexical or grammaticalerrors.”通过对比之前介绍的综合写作的语言要求，独立写作对语言的要求显然更高，对词和句都比较具体的要求，而且尤其指出了“灵活多变的句式”和“恰当的词汇”，这里就包含了词汇的变化，不能老是重复使用某个词汇或表达。也就是说托福对语言的要求是“多变”’。
词汇方面，通过分析《官方指南》(p211)上诚信这篇满分范文可以看出，考官(Rater)对其语言的评论用了“fluent, accurate and varied”三个词。在这篇范文中，题干的核心词是“tell the truth”，而作文中用了“honesty”，“dishonesty”，“reliability”，“lie”，“lying”，“hide”和“trust”等替代了核心词。这样不仅让考官领略到你词汇的丰富(lexical resources)，而且还能感觉到你对于核心信息展开和解释的能力。
在句式方面，考官评论中用了“a variety of sentence structure”(句子结构的多样)。包括如下句式：1)各种从句：that引导的定语从句，after引导的时间状语从句，although、however和even though引导的让步状语从句。2)使用wish的虚拟语气句3)用but引导的转折并列句，还有either…or的否定并列句4)现在分词做状语的非谓语现象5)How和What引导的反问句(rhetorical questions)，还有感叹句。6)as…as的同级比较句，还有比较级和最高级的使用。此外，常用语法现象如不定式、动名词等也是比比皆是。这篇文章虽然语言朴素简单，几乎没有任何高大上的词汇，且文章的整体结构也不是传统的五段三体(开头主旨+主题三个分论点段+结尾结论)，但语言上却充满各种变化，所以仅靠这一优势就足已让这位考生的文章脱颖而出，获取考官满分的褒奖，这是值得我们反思，学习和模仿的。
实际上大家身边有很多出色的语言材料可以利用，我个人比较推荐《经济学人》这种学术性较强的杂志。今天带大家来欣赏一篇文章，文章中的语料尤其适合作为数据举例法的框架，大家平时也可以按照这种分析方法进行积累，仿写。
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. (这就是我们常说的：XX话题正在被热议)
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.
这一段就可以用在利用研究做论证来支持论点 ,通常是这样一个结构:研究机构( 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)+比较结构students(跟修饰限定语 )do sth, compared with 另外一群体
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与XX有紧密联系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.
本段中红色字体同样是引用研究做例子支撑的一个模版 ,大家仔细体会。这里附上简化模版 :
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. 这里的地点和人物,以及研究对象都可以根据不同的题目来换。
下面我们用一道机经题目进行仿写吧!
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.
分析这篇文章旨在帮助大家学习如何用研究事例支持自己的观点，以后会和大家分享更多的满分文章或者实用段落，大家平时也要多多积累，勤于练习!
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