英语四级考试写作常用句型【精选20篇】

Most of us look away when we pass strangers. It is the expectional person who stops to help the woman maneuvering her kids and groceries up the staircase. We rarely give up in line or on the subway or bus. Locked into our automobiles, we prefer gridlock to giving way.

当我们与陌生人擦肩而过时，多数人往往把目光移开。要是有人停下来帮妇女哄她的小孩和帮她把食品搬上楼梯，反而会被人看成另类。无论是排队还是乘地铁或公共汽车，我们很少让位于他人。坐在自己的汽车里，我们宁愿堵塞交通也不愿给人让路。

These daily encounters, when they are angry or alien, diminish our lives. When they are pleasant, we feel buoyed. Yet when we sit at home and make resolutions, we think about what we can accomplish in private spaces：home, work. Too many have given up the belief that they control the shared, the public world.

这些日常接触，要是气冲冲的或是使人反感的，那便会减少我们生活的乐趣，要是它们令人愉快，那便会使我们精神振奋。然而，当我们坐在家里做出各种决定的时候，我们考虑的仅是在个人天地--家庭和工作里可以实现的目标。太多的人已经放弃了他们也管理着共享的、公共的世界这一信念。

As individuals we can change the contour of a day, the mood of a moment, the way people feel. The demolition and reconstruction of public life is the result of personal decisions made every day：the decision to give up a seat on the bus;the decision to be patient or pleasant against all odds;the decision to let that jerk take a left-hand turn from a right-hand lane without rolling down the window and calling him a jerk.

作为众人的一员，我们可以改变一天的面貌，一时的情绪，以及人们对某件事的感觉。公共生活的毁坏和重建是人们每日所做的种种个人决定的综合结果。这些决定包括：公共汽车上让座，面对逆境而能容忍或具有乐观精神;让那个笨蛋从右车道往左拐而不摇下车窗骂他蠢货。

Its the resolution to be a civil, social creature. This may be a peak period for the battle against the spread of a waistline and creeping cholesterol. But it is also within our will power to fight the spread of urban rudeness and creeping hostility. Civility doesnt stop nuclear holocaust and doesnt put a roof over the head of the homeless. But it makes a difference in the shape of a community, as surely as lifting weights can make a difference in the shape of a human torso.

这是做一个文明的、社会的人的决定。今天也许是人们为减少腰围和降低胆固醇而斗争的高峰期。然而，反对城市野蛮行为和人际敌对态度的蔓延，也是我们只要愿做就能做到的事。有礼貌不能制止核战争，也不能为无家可归者提供栖身之所，但它的确能改变一个社会群体的面貌，犹如举重定能改变一个人的体形一样。

导语：在英语作文中，运用一些成语或者俗语能够给作文加分哦，下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀英语素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

1. 瞒天过海crossing the sea under camouflage

2. 围魏救赵relieving the state of Zhao by besieging the state of Wei

3. 借刀杀人killing someone with a borrowed knife

4. 以逸待劳waiting at one’s ease for the exhausted enemy

5. 趁火打劫plundering a burning house

6. 声东击西making a feint to the east and attacking in the west

7. 无中生有creating something out of nothing

8. 暗渡陈仓advancing secretly by an unknown path

9. 隔岸观火watching a fire from the other side of the river

10.笑里藏刀covering the dagger with a smile

11.李代桃僵palming off substitute for the real thing

12.顺手牵羊picking up something in passing

13.打草惊蛇beating the grass to frighten the snake

14.借尸还魂resurrecting a dead soul by borrowing a corpse

15.调虎离山luring the tiger out of his den

16.欲擒故纵letting the enemy off in order to catch him

17.抛砖引玉giving the enemy something to induce him to lose more valuable things

18.擒贼擒王capturing the ringleader first in order to capture all the followers

19.釜底抽薪extracting the firewood from under the cauldron

20.混水摸鱼muddling the water to catch the fish; fishing in troubled waters

21.金蝉脱壳slipping away by casting off a cloak; getting away like the cicada sloughing its skin

22.关门捉贼catching the thief by closing / blocking his escape route

23.远交近攻befriending the distant enemy while attacking a nearby enemy

24.假途伐虢attacking the enemy by passing through a common neighbor

25.偷梁换柱stealing the beams and pillars and replacing them with rotten timbers

26.指桑骂槐reviling/ abusing the locust tree while pointing to the mulberry

27.假痴不癫feigning madness without becoming insane

28.上屋抽梯removing the ladder after the enemy has climbed up the roof

29.树上开花putting artificial flowers on trees

30.反客为主turning from the guest into the host

31.美人计using seductive women to corrupt the enemy

32.空城计presenting a bold front to conceal unpreparedness

33.反间计sowing discord among the enemy

34.苦肉计deceiving the enemy by torturing one’s own man

35.连环计coordinating one stratagem with another

36.走为上decamping being the best; running away as the best choice

☆定语和状语（时间、地点等）都属于附加成分，在基本句型中一般都不列出。

☆时态包含于句子中，任何句子都有时态。

1主语＋谓语(不及物动词)：S+V

It will rain tomorrow.

He often runs in the morning.

They cried.

Tom exercises every day.

2主语＋谓语(及物动词)＋宾语：S+V+O

I miss my mother very much.

She wants to go home now.

The English club is going to hold an English party.

They all love her.

3主语＋系动词＋表语：S+V+P

The music sounds wonderful.

The leaves have turned red.

She is a student.

We keep silent about that.

4主语＋谓语(及物动词)＋间接宾语（人）＋直接宾语（物）：S+V+IO+DO

The teacher gave a book to him.=The teacher gave him a book.

They told me an interesting story.

The waitress offered me a bottle of wine.

My father will buy me a bike.=My father will buy a bike for me.

Miss Smith teaches us English.

5主语＋谓语(及物动词)＋宾语＋宾语补足语：                                      S+V+O+C

They call me Xiao Wang.

I saw him swimming in the river.

We elected him monitor of the class.

1. 填鸭式教学 cramming method of teaching

2. 启发式教学 heuristic education

3. 复合型人才 interdisciplinary talent

4. 论文答辩 thesis oral defense

5. 素质教育quality-oriented education

6. 教书育人 impart knowledge and educate people

7. 九年制义务教务教育 nine-year compulsory education

8. 德智体美劳全面发展

all around development of moral, intellectual,physical,aesthetics and labor education

9. 知识产权 intellectual property

10. 因材施教 teach students according to their aptitude

11. 硕博连读

a continuous academic program that involves postgraduate and doctoral study

12. 双学位 double degree

13. 双向选择 two-way selection

14. 人才流失 brain drain

15. 陶冶情操 cultivate one’s taste and temperament

16. 学生减负 alleviate the burden on students

17. 学术交流 academic exchanges

18. 学科带头人 pace-setter in scientific research

19. 德才兼备 have both political integrity and ability

20. 攻读硕士学位 study for a doctoral degree

21. 文科生 students of liberal arts

22. 理科生 students of science

23. 爱国主义教育 education in patriotism

229. 择优录取 enroll the excellent students

24. 毕业论文 graduation thesis

25. 毕业设计 graduation project

26. 义务教育 compulsory education

27. 高等教育 higher education

28. 选修课程 optional courses

29. 主修课程 major courses

30. 重点学科 key disciplinary areas

31. 德智体全面发展的学生

students who are well developed morally, intellectually and physically

32. 教育部 Ministry of Education

33. 博士生导师 doctoral supervisors

34. 世界观﹑人生观﹑价值观 word outlook, outlook on life and values

[考研英语阅读作文常用教育与科技类主题词

一、注意段首句式的变化

图画作文的段首句往往是"如图所示"或"从图画中可以看出"之类，下面为经常采用的一些句型：

As is shown in the picture, 和As can be seen from the picture,是经常能看到的首句话，但是模板迹象过于明显，所以应该稍加升级，比如添加一些结构和修饰语：

It is of considerable interest to see in the bizarre picture that…

当然还可以添加一些引出话题的句子：

No one can skip the issue of…(图画表现出来的意图)。Just as what is illustrated in the above drawing,…

二、适当用被动替换主动，这样能更客观地反映事实。

句子开头不要总是用we / I (比如写结尾时不用we should pay attention to而用Attent

ion should be paid to. ) 举个经典结尾的例子：It is, therefore, high time that some applicable approaches were implemented by the service industry like that. By doing so，its competitive edge will be sharpened effectively。

三、一句话用不同的句式来表达

为了加强同学们对语法知识在写作中的灵活应用，下面给出一句话的14种句式及语言

调整的效果，内容上没有太大差异，但是请同学们仔细辨别每句话所侧重的句式：

1.使用表语从句

The picture shows two people reading the announcement on a billboard, and being shocked at the message. The reason is that the billboard is advertising a "sale of the dead bodies"。

2.使用介词短语

In the picture, two people are reading the announcement and they are being shocked at the message of "a sale of dead bodies" on a billboard。

3.使用疑问句

The picture shows two people reading the announcement on a billboard. Why are they so shocked? The reason is that the billboard is advertising a "sale of the dead bodies"。

4.使用原因状语从句

The picture shows two people reading the announcement on a billboard. As the billboard is advertising a "sale of the dead bodies"， they are shocked at the message。

5.使用结果状语从句

The picture shows two people reading the announcement on a billboard. The billboard is advertising a "sale of the dead bodies" so that they are shocked at the message。

6.使用时间状语从句

In the picture, while the two people are reading the announcement on the billboard about "a sale of the dead bodies"， they are being deeply shocked。

7.使用分词短语

In the picture, reading the message of a ‘sale of the dead bodies" advertised on the billboard, the two people are deeply shocked。

8.使用主动语态

In the picture, the announcement on a billboard advertising a "sale of the dead bodies" shocks the two people reading it。

9.使用There be 结构

In the picture, there is an announcement on a billboard advertising a "sale of the dead bodies" and shocking the two people reading it。

10.使用倒装句

On a billboard is an announcement advertising a "sale of the dead bodies". The two people reading it are being shocked。

11.使用定语从句

In the picture, the announcement on a billboard which advertises a "sale of the dead bodies" shocks the two people reading it。

12.强调句

In the picture, it is the announcement on a billboard advertising a "sale of the dead bodies" that shocks the two people reading it。

13.虚拟语气

In the picture, were it not for the announcement on the billboard advertising a "sale of the dead bodies"， the two people would not be so shocked。

14. 尽量复杂作文中的句式

It is of considerable interest to observe in this bizarre caricature that a couple of citizens, reading an announcement issued on the billboard, are taken aback as a result of the astounding message which informs people of a "sale of dead bodies"。

句中使用的词组包括：be of considerable interest, a couple of, taken aback, as a result of, inform sb. of

长句采用的特殊语法包括：宾语从句+分词结构做插入语+分词作后置定语(issued)+被动语态+原因短语+定语从句。

英语写作中如果运用了相关的名言句子可以为作文带来亮点。下面是语文迷为大家整理的励志唯美句子，希望对你有帮助。

一)Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.千万记住：度量生命的不是呼吸的次数，而是那些最最难忘的时刻。

二)Children in backseats cause accidents. Accidents in backseats cause children. 后排座位上的小孩会生出意外，后排座位上的意外会生出小孩。

三)Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next country, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.别踏上犯罪的道路。你可以去逛街，可以到邻县去，可以出国旅行，但就是别踏上犯罪的道路。

四)Nothing is impossible!没有什么不可能!

五)Success is a relative term. It brings so many relatives. 成功是一个相关名词，他会给你带来很多不相关的亲戚(联系)。

六)The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.有泪就流。在忍耐和伤心过后，要继续前行。陪伴我们度过此生的只有一人--那就是我们自己。让生命鲜活起来。

七)The wise never marry, And when they marry they become otherwise. 聪明人都是未婚的，结婚的人很难再聪明起来。

八)While there is life there is hope.一息若存，希望不灭。

九)Love is photogenic. It needs darkness to develop. 爱情就象照片，需要大量的暗房时间来培养。

十)Never put off the work till tomorrow what you can put off today. 不要等明天交不上差再找借口，今天就要找好。

十一)Never underestimate your power to change yourself!永远不要低估你改变自我的能力!

十二)Nothing for nothing.不费力气，一无所得。

十三)Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.把你的爱告诉你所爱着的人们，把握住每一个表达机会。

十四)Never put off the work till tomorrow what you can put off today. 不要等明天交不上差再找借口，今天就要找好。

十五)Never underestimate your power to change yourself!永远不要低估你改变自我的能力!

十六)The man who has made up his mind to win will never say "impossible ". 凡是决心取得胜利的人是从来不说“不可能的”。

十七)Enjoy the simple things.享受简单事物的乐趣。

十八)I am a slow walker,but I never walk backwards. 我走得很慢，但是我从来不会后退。

十九)很多我们想要的东西都是价格不菲的。但是，真正能让我们感到满足的东西，比如爱、欢笑还有工作中的激情，却都是不需要花钱的。 Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free –love, laughter and working on our passions.

二十)我们无法在这个世界上做什么伟大的事情，可我们可以带着伟大的爱做一些小事。 We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.

二十一)你无法真正忘掉那个打动你内心的人，无论他是那个伤害你的人，还是治愈你的人。 You never really forget the ones who touched your heart; regardless whether its the ones who broke it or the ones who healed it.

二十二)不要祈祷生活的舒适，祈祷自己变得更加坚强。 Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

二十三)所有人都想得到幸福，不愿承担痛苦，但是不下点小雨，哪来的彩虹? Everybody wants happiness, nobody wants pain, but you cant have a rainbow without a little rain.

There are four seasons in a year.My favorite season is summer .Because when the summer is coming .I can change the beautiful skirt and I can go swimming .I like the swimming pool very much.In summer ,all things are bright.I can go to a lot of places that I like.In summer holiday,I also can spend my holiday with my parents and we can go to the Forbidden City.How interesting !

The four seasons accompany us and make our lives interesting.Summer is when everyone has fun under the warm sun,autumn is the time of harvesting,and winter’s white snowflakes decorate the bare earth and trees.But it is spring’s vitality that fascinates me the most.

I remember when I was a small child,my favorite season was winter.But one thing made me change my mind.

I loved playing in the garden and climbing trees when I was small.But I realized one autumn day that golden leaves had started to fall from my favorite tree,and by winter its branches were already bare.I thought that it had died,and would never turn green again.

When my father knew why I was crying,he told me:“The tree hasn’t left you.It’s just resting.I promise in three months,that tree will be prettier than ever.” I believed what my father said and waited for three months.

Sure enough,when the time came,the tree was greener and taller than ever.Sprouts started to stretch their heads out of the melting snow,and creeks and streams started to run again freely.

From then on,spring has become my favorite time of the year because its vitality brings me happiness.

一年有四个季节。我最喜欢的季节是夏天。因为夏季即将来临。我可以改变这个漂亮的裙子,我可以去游泳。我非常喜欢游泳池。在夏天,一切都是光明的。我可以去很多地方,我喜欢。在暑假,我还可以花我的假期和我的父母和我们可以去故宫。多么有趣!

四季陪我们,使我们的生活有趣。夏天是当每个人都有有趣的温暖的阳光下,秋天是收获的时候,冬天的白色雪花装饰裸土和树木。但这是春天的活力,最让我着迷。

我记得当我还是个小孩,我最喜欢的季节是冬天。但有一件事使我改变了主意。

我喜欢在花园里玩,爬树的时候小。但我意识到秋天的一天,金色的树叶已经开始从我最喜欢的树,和冬天的树枝已经光秃秃的。我以为它已经死了,不会再变绿了。

当我父亲知道我为什么哭,他告诉我:“这棵树就没离开过你。只是休息。我保证在三个月内,那棵树将会比以前更漂亮了。“我相信我的父亲说,等待三个月。

果然,的时候,这棵树是绿色的,比以往任何时候都高。豆芽开始伸展头上的雪融化,自由和小溪,小溪又开始运行。

从那以后,每年的春天已经成为我最喜欢的时候,因为它的生命力给我带来了快乐。

1、审题：审题是做到切题的第一步。所谓审题就是要看清题意，确定文章的中心思想、主题，并围绕中心思想组织材料。

2、进行构思，列出简单的提纲，打造文章之骨架：审好题、立好意后，就要写提纲，打造文章的骨架。文章布局要做好几件事：安排好层次段落，铺设好过渡，处理好开头和结尾。

3、扩展成文：根据字数多少扩展成篇。扩展的内容一定要紧扣主题，千万不要写那些与主题不相关的内容。展开的方式包括：顺序法、举例法、比较法、对比法、说明法、因果法、推导法、归纳法和下定义等。可以根据需要任选一种或几种方式。

在这一步骤中还需注意三方面问题：

1、确保提纲中段落结构的思路与各段主题句的一致性。只有这样，才能保证所写段落不偏题、不跑题。

2、要综合考虑各个段落的内容安排，避免段落内容的交叉。

3、用好连接词，注意段落间、句子间的连贯性。要做到所写文章层次分明，思路清晰，文字连贯，就需要在句与句之间、段与段之间架起一座座桥梁，而连接词起的正是桥梁作用。

在扩展的过程中也有些窍门，以下几点可供参考：

1、在整篇文章中，避免只是用一两个句式或重复用同一词语。英语中存在着极为丰富的同义词，准确地使用同义词可以给读者清新的感觉。同时要灵活运用各种句式，如倒装句、强调句、省略句、主从复合句、对比句、分词短语、介词短语等，从而增加文章的可读性。

2、使用不同长度的句子。如果一个意思用一句话写不清楚的话，通过分句和合句或用两句、三句来表达，增强句子的连贯性和表现力。

3、改变句子的开头方式，不要总是以主、谓、宾、状的次序。可以把状语至于句首，或用分词等。

4、学会使用过渡词。递进furthermore，moreover，besides，in addition，then，etc ;转折however，but，nevertheless，afterwards，etc ;总结finally，at last，in brief，to conclude，etc ;强调really，indeed，certainly，surely，above a11，etc ;对比in the same way，just as，on the other hand，etc。

5、确定文章用第几人称写，基本时态是什么。使用人称时人物不能张冠李戴或指代不明。时态要尽量保持一致。

检查修改：要检查复核，不要写完了事。

要留时间通读全文，修改可能出现的错误。检查上下文是否连贯，句子衔接是否自然流畅。检验的标准主要是句子是否通畅，该用连词的地方用了没有，所用的连词是否合适，是否有语法错误，主谓是否一致，动词的时态、语态、语气的使用是否正确，词组的搭配是否合乎习惯，是否有大小写、拼写、标点错误等，还有就是注意卷面整洁。

可归纳为：中心突出，主题明确;层次清楚，条理清晰;表达

12月四级考试快到了，下面是yjbys网小编给考生提供四级作文的最新模板，希望考生能够合理利用时间，在作文上获得最大的收获。那么四级考试的作文基本是主题作文，图画作文及图表作文，下面我们来具体分析其框架：

一、主题作文及图画作文的模板：

These days 现象 often hits the headlines of newspapers and has been brought into focus of the public. Just as the picture shown that… (如果是图画作文可以写出具体的现象或问题，也可以一句话描述图画：As is vividly illustrated above, in the +地方 +动词(be, come, run, walk, jump, sit, stand, lie, crouch, float等)+主题词，非谓语动词/非限制性定语从句，独立主格/非限制性定语从句。) Indeed, it is widely accepted / acknowledged that it has gained increasing popularity among people in all walks of life/ college students.

Those who are in favor of 现象 maintain that 描述观点1. In their view, 阐释观点1. On the contrary, those who are against 现象 hold/ point out that 描述观点2. Besides, 阐释证实观点2 . (第二段可以根据文章来分析原因，影响，优点或缺点等。)

It is high time we put an end to the undesirable phenomenon of… (虚拟语气的句子) 然后再分条来说明措施。On the one hand, … on the other hand, … I believe we humans can overcome this difficulty and we will have a brighter future.

改革之后，图画作文考的比较多，无论是图画作文还是主题作文，上面的结构是可以通用的，考生可以重点记下图画作文与主题作文的句型。

二、图表作文各段的通用模板：

As is seen from the graph/chart, we can draw a conclusion that the number of …….decreased. Of these, the number of …….decreased the most, from …. in 1985 to ….. in 2000(根据图表写年代). On the contrary, the number of …….increased.

There are numerous reasons accounting for the phenomenon and I would like to explore a few of the most important ones here. Above all (To begin with), …….. In addition (What is more), ………

In my personal sense, it is imperative for us to take steps to reverse the disturbing trend illustrated in the charts. First and foremost,…….Last but not least,………Owing to +主题, not only can we accumulate wealth, but also establish our career, fit into society and even attain social status.

对于图表作文，考生也要了解并熟悉其结构和句型。我们在准备时一定要充分，不放弃任何一种题型。

删除诸如"who is”或"that is"类的关系代词，变从句为短语，例：

句：The novel, which is written in three parts, told a story that took place in the Middle Ages.

修改后：The three-part novel told a story set in the Middle Ages.

注：把句中的"three parts"改用形容词来表达，节省了四个不必要的单词"which is written in"。我们经常可以将关系代词如"that"去掉，这只会引起最少的变动。

一、教育类

● And gladly would learn , and gladly teach .( Chaucer , British pot

勤于学习的人才能乐意施教。(英国诗人, 乔叟)

●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)

●Genius without education is like silver in the mine. (Benjamin Franklin , American president )

未受教育的天才，犹如矿中之银。 (美国总统 富兰克. B.)

●The roots of education are bitter , but the fruit is sweet .(Aristotle , Ancient Greek philosopher )

教育的根是苦的，但其果实是甜的。( 古希腊哲学家 亚里士多德)

二、知识类

●Activity is the only road to knowledge .(George Bernard Shaw , British

dramatist)

行动是通往知识的唯一道路。 (英国剧作家 肖伯纳. G.)

●A free man obtains knowledge from many sources besides books .(Thomas Jefferson ,

American president)

一个自由的人除了从书本上获取知识外，还可以从许多别的来源获得知识。(美国总统

杰斐逊 . T.)

●A great part to the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way .(Adams Franklin , American humorist )

我的大部分知识都是这样获得的：在寻找某个资料时意外的发现了另上的资料。(美国幽默作家

富兰克林. A.)

●If a man empties his purse into his head , no man can take it away from him , an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest .(Benjamin Franklin ,

American president )

倾已所有追求知识，没有人能夺走它;向知识投资，收益最佳。(美国总统

富兰克林. B.)

●Imagination is more important than knowledge .(Albert Einstein , American scientist )

想象力比知识更为重要。 (美国科学家 爱因斯坦. A. )

●Knowledge is power . (Francis Bacon , British philosopher )

知识就是力量。 (英国哲学家 培根. F.)

●The empty vessels make the greatest sound . (William Shakespeare , British dramatist )

满瓶不响，半瓶咣当。(英国剧作家 莎士比亚. W.)

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

Time flies. 光阴似箭.

Time is life. 时间就是生命.

Times change. 时代在改变.

Time is money. 时间就是金钱.

Life is sweet. 人生是美好的.

Love is blind. 爱情是盲目的.

Extremes meet. 两极相通，有无相生。

Like knows like 人识其类。

Let well alone. 不要画蛇添足. /事已成功,不必多弄.

Marry thy like. 结婚须找同类人.

One man,no man. 个人是渺小的.

Hsitory is bunk. 历史是一堆废话。

Time marches on. 岁月如流

Murder will out. 恶行终会败露。

Never say "die. 永远不要说" 完了".

Care is no cure. 忧虑治不了病。

Beware beginning. 慎始为上。

Deeds, not words. 行动胜于空谈.

No mill, no meal. 不磨面,没饭吃.

Like begets like. 龙生龙，凤生凤。

Love begets love. 爱爱相生.

In doing we learn. 我们在干中学习.

No cross,no crown. 未经苦难,得不到荣冠.

Care killed a cat. 忧虑能杀人。

Boys will be boys. 男孩子总是男孩子.

No song, no supper. 不出力,不得食.

The truth will out. 真相总会大白.

Time works wonders. 时间能创造奇迹.

To think is to see. 思考就是明白.

Truth will prevail. 真理必胜

A lie begets a lie. 谎言生谎言。

Years bring wisdom. 年岁带来智慧.

In love is no lack. 爱情不会感到缺乏.

Easy come, easy go. 来得容易去得 . /悖入悖出.

Every little helps. 点滴都有用.

Forgive and forget. 恢弘大度，勿念旧恶。

Manners maketh man. 举止造人品.

Laugh and grow fat. 心宽体胖 。

Knowledge is power. 知识就是力量.

Let the world slide. 人世沧桑,听其自然.

Love me,love my dog. 爱屋及乌.

Life means struggle. 生活就是斗争.

Fair plays a jewel. 比赛风格好,胜过珠宝.

Early sow,early mow. 种得早,收得早.

Grasp all, lose all. 贪多必失.

Whats lost is lost. 失者不可复得。

Waste not, want not. 不浪费,不会穷.

Tomorrow never comes. 切莫依赖明天. / 我生待明日,万事成蹉跎.

No man is infallible. 没有人不犯错误。

Alms never make poor. 施舍穷不了人.

Love will find a way. 爱心所至,金石为开.

Manners make the man. 举止见人品。

Patience is a virtue. 忍耐是一种美德.

Pity is akin to love. 怜悯生爱.

Call a spade a spade. 是啥说啥，难听不怕。

Delays are dangerous. 因循出危险.

Diamond cuts diamond. 强中自有强中手.

Counsel is no command. 劝告不是命令.

Poverty tries friends. 贫穷考验朋友.

Once bitten,twice shy. 吃一次亏,学一次乖.

Pain past is pleasure. 痛苦过去即欢乐.

Leal heart lied never. 心诚无谎言。

Hot love is soon cold. 过热的爱情冷得快.

As good lost as found. 有得必有失. /得失同喜.

Every dog has his day. 瓦块也有翻身日，人人都有运来时。

Wise fear begets care. 懂得担心,就会小心.

"Never”is a long word. 不要轻易说“决不”。

After wind comes rain. 风是雨的头。

Nurture passes nature. 教养胜过天性.

Time tries all things. 时间检验一切.

Time cures all things. 时间是最好的医生. /时间能医愈一切创痛.

Truth needs no colour. 真理不需要打扮.

Silence gives consent. 沉默就是赞成。

Still waters run deep. 静水流深。

Study,study,and study. 学习,学习,再学习.

Virtue never grows old. 美德不会衰老.

No sweet without sweat. 幸福来自汗水.

No herb will cure love. 相思病无药医.

A true jest is no jest. 真正的笑语决非笑话。

A man can die but once. 人无二死.

A bargain is a bargain. 成约不能翻悔。

All men cant be first. 不可能人人得冠军。

All roads lead to Rome. 条条大路通罗马.

Every flow has its ebb. 潮有涨落日,人有盛衰时.

History repeats itself. 历史往往重演。

I think,therefore I am. 我思考，所以我存在。

Let bygones be bygones. 既往宜不咎。

Like author, like book. 书如其人。

Pardon all but thyself. 宽恕一切人，只是别宽恕自己。

Pride goes before fall. 骄者必败。

Knowledge is no burden. 知识再多不压身.

Civility costs nothing. 礼貌不费分文.

Charity begins at home. 仁爱先施于亲友.

Better late than never. 迟做总比不做好.

Better leave than lack. 有余胜过不足.

Cheapest is the dearest. 最便宜的也就是最贵的.

Custom is second nature. 习惯是第二天性。/ 习惯成自然。

In valour there is hope. 希望在于勇敢.

Reason rules all things. 理智统治一切.

Learn young, learn fair. 学习趁年少,而且要学好.

Idleness rusts the mind. 懒散使头脑衰退.

Health and money go far. 有了健康和钱财，就能走遍天下。

Hope well and have well. 善寄希望于未来,又善保有现在.

Hope is a lovers staff. 希望是爱者的手扶之杖.

Every Jack has his Jill. 人均有其偶.

If the cap fits,wear it. 帽子合适，你就戴上;如说的符合你的情况，你就接受。

Failure teaches success. 失败乃成功之母.

First think, then speak. 熟思而后言.

Forewarned is forearmed. 凡事预则立。

Barking dogs dont bite. 吠犬不咬人。

Beauty is but skin-deep. 美只是外表, /不能以貌取人.

Beauty will buy no beef. 漂亮不能当饭吃。

Good wine needs no bush. 酒好无需挂幌子。

Great minds think alike. 英雄所见略同。

All his geese are swans. 自己的鹅都是天鹅。

A poet is born,not made. 诗人靠天成。

A snow year,a rich year. 瑞雪兆丰年。

No man is indispensable. 没有一个人是不可缺少的。/少了谁地球也转。

Never hope for too much. 不要期望太多.

Tomorrow is another day. 明天又是一个新的开始.

Time is life for doctors. 对医生来说,时间就是生命.

Time is the great healer. 时间是最好的医治者.

Time works great changes. 时间会产生巨大的变化.

Two can play at the game. 你会耍的花招，别人也会。

Success has many friends. 成功者朋友多.

No pleasure without pain. 乐中必有苦.

Take things as they come. 随遇而安。

Talent is as talent does. 是不是有实才,就看干得来干不来.

All for one, one for all. 人人为我,我为人人.

A little pot is soon hot. 壶小易沸,量小易怒.

A cat may look at a king. 猫也可以看皇帝。/ 地位虽不同，人人应平等。

A good marksman may miss. 好射手也有失手的时候.

Anger is a brief madness. 愤怒是短暂的疯狂。

Wonders will never cease. 奇迹无穷尽。

You never know your luck. 命运好坏不由已.

Youth is half the battle. 年轻是胜利的一半.

As the call, so the echo. 发什么声音，有什么回声。

As the tree,so the fruit. 什么树结什么果。

He who hesitates is lost. 当断不断,反受其乱.

Fortune favours the bold. 天助勇者。

Forbidden fruit is sweet. 禁果分外甜。

From saving comes having. 富有来自节俭.

Fools haste is no speed. 急急忙忙, 欲速反慢.

Fair and softly goes far. 谦和者致远。

Every man has his faults. 人都有缺点.

Hunger is the best sauce. 饥者口中尽佳肴.

Learn even from an enemy. 即使是敌人也可以向他学习.

Little goods little care. 钱财少,不烦恼.

Practise what you preach. 躬行己说,身体力行. /自己怎么说,就得怎么干.

Second thoughts are best. 再思为上.

It is hard to please all. 要使人人满意是件难事。

Business before pleasure. 先工作,后娱乐./干完正事再玩儿.

It is dogged that does it. 有志者事竞成.

Its a day after the fair. 错过良机，为时已晚。

Reading enriches the mind. 开卷有益.

Opportunities do not wait. 机不可失,时不再来.

Other times,other manners. 隔代不同礼。

Love laughs at locksmiths. 爱情嘲笑锁匠. /爱情能克服困难.

Let the sleeping dogs lie. 莫惹是非。

Every medal has two sides. 每个勋章都有两面。/ 每个问题都有正反两面。

Every bean hath its black. 每粒蚕豆都长黑嘴。 / 人都有缺点。

Even Homer sometimes nods. 即使荷马也会打盹. /智者千虑,必有一失.

Facts are stubborn things. 事实都是顽强的. /事实是掩盖不住的.

Every why has a wherefore. 凡事必有因.

Fortune favours the brave. 天佑勇士。

Art is long,life is short. 人生短暂，艺术长存。

Bad times make a good man. 艰难困苦出能人.

Better be sure than sorry. 稳当总比后悔好。

Good counsel does no harm. 忠言有利无害。

Anything for a quiet life. 悠然自在最难求.

Appearances are deceptive. 外表是靠不住的。

Who knows most says least. 知道得最多的人说得最少。

A good deed is never lost. 好心一定有好报。

A lazy youth, a lousy age. 少时懒惰老来苦.

A watched pot never boils. 心急锅不开.

Take time by the forelock. 要把握时机.

Nothing seek,nothing find. 无所求则无所获.

Never do things by halves. 做事不可半途而废.

The wages of sin is death. 为恶者应灭亡。

Sow nothing, reap nothing. 春不播,秋不收. /无功不能受禄.

True love never grows old. 真正的爱永不衰老.

Sharp tools make good work. 工欲善其事,必先利其器.

Sweep before your own door. 正人先正己。

Time is wealth for workers. 对工人来说,时间就是财富.

Time is grain for peasants. 对农民来说,时间就是粮食.

Today is Yesterdays pupil. 今天是昨天的学生.

After a storm comes a calm. 雨过天晴,苦尽甘来.

A mans home is his castle. 一个人的家就是他的城堡.

A bully is always a coward. 恃强欺弱者均是懦夫。

A creaking door hangs long. 旧门久用，病夫命长。

A bow long bent grows weak. 常拉满弓无力。

An artist lives everywhere. 一技在身，走遍天下。

Youth will have its course. 人生谁无少年时,甜苦酸辛各自知.

There are spots in the sun. 太阳也有黑点。

Beggars cannot be choosers. 乞丐不能挑肥拣瘦.

Be still,and have the will. 不动声色,事方有成.

Art lies in concealing art. 艺术在于使人看不见艺术。

Freedom lies in being bold. 自由在于勇敢.

Give losers leave to speak. 要允许失败者讲话。

First thrive and then wive. 先立业,后成家.

East or West, home is best. 无论在何处,家园最美好.

Every oak must be an acorn. 每棵橡树都曾是一粒橡子.

Every man is his own enemy. 人都有与自己为敌的时候. /败事全由已.

Labour created man himself. 劳动创造人.

Leave off with an appetite. 吃得七分饱，就该离餐桌。

Love is the mother of love. 情生情,爱生爱.

Love is the reward of love. 爱是对爱的报答.

Man proposes, God disposes. 谋事在人，戒事在天。

Man is not made for defeat. 创造人不是为了让他遭受失败. /人不是为失败而生的.

Life is too short to waste. 生命短促,不容浪费.

Honesty is the best policy. 诚实为上策.

Honour lies in honest toil. 光荣在于诚恳地劳动.

Hitch your wagon to a star. 把你的马车拴到星星上. /要胸怀大志.

Hold fast when you have it. 在手之物应紧握.

Many hands make light work. 众擎易举. /人多好办事./ 众人拾柴火焰高.

Marriage is a covered dish. 婚姻是一道盖着的菜.

Brevity is the soul of wit. 言以简为贵.

Bread is the staff of life. 民以食为天。

Blushing is virtues color. 脸红是美德的颜色。

Do as you would be done by. 己所不欲，勿施于人。

Drawn wells are seldom dry. 水井常用不枯竭.

Drift is as bad as unthrift. 花钱凭冲动,等于无底洞.

Dont meet trouble half-way. 不要自寻烦恼。

Diligence redeems stupidity. 勤能补拙.

Blood is thicker than water. 血比水浓.

Counsel breaks not the head. 忠告不会打破头.

Clothes do not make the man. 人不在衣装.

Idleness makes the wit rust. 懒惰使脑筋生锈.

Love is stronger than death. 爱的力量大于死亡./ 爱情能战胜死神.

Love me little,love me long. 爱情应细水长流.

Ones sin will find one out. 坏事终归要败露。

One love drives out another. 新的爱情来,旧的爱情去.

Prettiness makes no pottage. 漂亮不能当饭吃.

Pen and ink is wits plough. 笔墨是才智之犁.

Its never too late to mend. 改过不嫌晚。

Rome was not built in a day. 罗马不是一天建成的./ 伟业非一日之功.

In the end things will mend. 船到桥头自然直.

Envy never enriched any man. 嫉妒从未使人得益。

Familiarity breeds contempt. 亲密生侮心。

Friends are thieves of time. 朋友是时间的浪费者. / 浪费朋友的时间,就是谋财害命.

Four eyes see more than two. 两人总比一人看得周到.

Good clothes open all doors. 门不挡衣着华丽的人。

Good advice is beyond price. 忠告是无价之宝.

Youth is the season of hope. 青春是希望的季节.

All rivers run into the sea. 条条江河归大海.

"They say so" is half a lie. 传闻多失实.

A curst cow has short horns. 性子烈的牛角短，脾气暴的人为害有限。

A miss is as good as a mile. 差之毫厘,失之千里.

All is fair in love and war. 情场战场，不择手段。

A stitch in time saves nine. 不洞不补,大洞尺五. /及时处理,事半功倍.

Time is the father of truth. 时间是真理之父.

There is no end to learning. 学无止境.

There is no satiety in study. 学而不厌.

Time is the greatest teacher. 时间就是良师.

Time is speed for scientists. 对科学家来说,时间就是速度.

Variety is the spice of life. 变化是生活的调味品.

We are all slaves of opinoin. 我们都是意见的奴隶。

More than enough is too much. 超过所需就是太多.

The shortest answer is doing. 最简短的回答是干.

Nothing venture,nothing have. 不担风险就无收获.

No living man all things can. 世上没有万能的人.

The insolent have no friends. 目空一切的人无朋友.

A wonder lasts but nine days. 奇闻只存在九天。

A word is enough to the wise. 智者不用多告诫.

A little labour, much health. 适量的劳动有益于健康。

A lean dog shames his master. 狗瘦主人羞。

A hungry man is an angry man. 饿汉易怒。

A green wound is soon healed. 新伤口愈合快。

Whats done cannot be undone. 木已成舟，覆水难收。

What man has done,man can do. 前人能办的事,后人也能做.

Wishes never can fill a sack. 愿望装不满口袋。

He goes far that never turns. 不回头的人走得远.

He that talks much errs much. 语多必失。

He that talks much lies much. 言多必妄。

Before friends all is common. 朋友之间应不分彼此.

Far fowls have fair feathers. 远方的鸟羽毛美。/弄不到手的东西是最好的。

Eyes are as eloquent as lips. 眼睛会和嘴一样说话.

Easy and success are fellows. 从容与成功是伙伴。

Many a little makes a mickle. 积少成多;集腋成裘.

Love and cough cannot be hid. 爱情象咳嗽,压也压不住.

Life is compared to a voyage. 人生好比是一次航程.

Life is real,life is earnest. 人生真实,人生诚挚.

Marriage makes or mars a man. 婚姻可使人成功,也可使人失败.

Money is round.It rolls away. 圆圆钱币,滚走容易.

Hope is life and life is hope 希望就是生活,生活也就是希望.

Comfort is better than pride. 华美不如舒适.

Custom makes all things easy. 凡事成习惯就容易做。/ 熟能生巧。

Diet cures more than doctors. 自己饮食有节，胜过上门求医。

Deliberating is not delaying. 深思熟虑不误事.

Dexterity comes by experience. 换取经验要付出代价.

Doubt is the key of knowledge. 怀疑是知识的钥匙.

Dare and diligence bring luck. 大胆又勤奋,定能交好运.

Blow first and sip afterwards. 喝茶防烫，吃饭防噎。

Human pride is human weakness. 人类的骄傲即是人类的弱点。

Lazy folk take the most pains. 懒人躲懒最费力.

Light not a candle to the sun. 不要对着太阳点蜡烛。/日既出矣，爝火可熄。

Love is the lodestone of life. 爱情是生活的磁石.

It is never too late to learn. 学习从不嫌晚.

Justifying a fault doubles it. 护短是加倍的错误。

Kill two birds with one stone. 一石二鸟. /一箭双雕. / 一举两得.

Pride hurts, modesty benefits. 满招损，谦受益。

One is never too old to learn. 人有老的时候,没有老得不能学的时候.

One cannot put back the clock. 时光不能倒流.

Early start makes easy stages. 早动身,易从容,早开始,早成功.

Every bird likes its own nest. 鸟均爱其巢;人皆爱其家.

Fair words fill not the belly. 甜言蜜语填不饱肚子。

Fine feathers make fine birds. 好的衣装只能打扮出个好外表。

Fine words butter no parsnips. 花言巧语没有用.

First deserve and then desire. 先做到受之无愧，而后再邀功请赏。

For a lost thing care nothing. 物已丢失，勿再烦恼。

Force can never destroy right. 武力决不能摧毁正义。

Glory is the shadow of virtue. 荣誉是美德的影子.

At court,everyone for himself. 在法庭上人人都要为自己。

As man sows, so he shall reap. 善有善报，恶有恶报。

Good ware makes quick markets. 货好销得快。

He is rich that has few wants. 寡欲者富。

He lives long that lives well. 活得好等于活得久.

He that fears death lives not. 害怕死亡的人，活着也没有快乐。

Wisdom is only found in truth. 唯有在真理中才能找到智慧.

Who loseth liberth loseth all. 失掉自由使失掉一切.

All that glitters is not gold. 闪烁者不尽是金。

A great ship asks deep waters. 大船要在深 水行./ 深水浮大船.

A good tree is a good shelter. 枝叶茂盛的大树是躲避风雨的好去处. / 大树底下好乘凉.

A burnt child dreads the fire. 烧伤的孩子最怕火。

A clean hand wants no washing. 手要是干净无须洗。

A bad penny always comes back. 伪币迟早归原主。

A rolling eye, a roving heart. 眼活情不专.

A proud man hath many crosses. 骄傲者挫折多。

A shy cat makes a proud mouse. 猫儿胆小耗子闹。

All is not at hand that helps. 世间没有唾手可得之事.

The exception proves the rule. 例外证明法则的存在。

No man is a hero to his valet. 在最贴身的人眼中，谁也充不了伟人。

The used key is always bright. 常用的钥匙不长锈.

The sun shines upon all alike. 太阳照人，不分贵贱。

We are not born for ourselves. 人之有生,不为一已.

Two heads are better than one. 两人智慧胜一人.

True praise roots and spreads. 诚实的赞美深入人心.

Truth is the daughter of time. 真理是时间的女儿.

True friendship lasts forever. 真正的友谊恒久不变.

Shallow streams make most din. 溪浅声喧。

Slow and steady wins the race. 稳扎稳打;无往不胜.

Time and tide wait for no man. 时光如逝水,岁月不待人.

There is no joy without alloy. 世上没有十全十美的快乐。/ 金无足赤，乐无十全。

Theres no wisdom like silence. 保持沉默最聪明。

Think today and speak tomorrow. 熟思而后言.

Time is money for enterprisers. 对企业家来说,时间就是金钱.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. 厨师太多烧坏汤。

We soon believe what we desire. 心里想什么就会相信什么。

Speech is the image of actions. 语言是行动的图象。

Two wrongs do not make a right. 两个错误,加不出一个正确. /用错误改正不了错误.

名人名言，指为人类发展做出贡献的，富有知识的名人所说的能够让人懂得道理的一句较为出名的话，也是我们常用的写作素材。下面是语文迷整理的有关励志、梦想、坚持的名人名言，希望对你有帮助。

一、励志名人名言

1、All things in their being are good for something.

天生我才必有用。

2、Difficult circumstances serve as a textbook of life for people.

困难坎坷是人们的生活教科书。

3、Failure is the mother of success.——Thomas Paine

失败乃成功之母。

4、For man is man and master of his fate.

人就是人，是自己命运的主人。

5、The unexamined life is not worth living.——Socrates

混混噩噩的生活不值得过。——苏格拉底

6、None is of freedom or of life deserving unless he daily conquers it anew.——Erasmus

只有每天再度战胜生活并夺取自由的人，才配享受生活的自由。

7、Our destiny offers not the cup of despair, but the chalice of opportunity. So let us seize it, not in fear, but in gladness.——R.M. Nixon

命运给予我们的不是失望之酒，而是机会之杯。因此，让我们毫无畏惧，满心愉 悦地把握命运。——尼克松

8、Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.——John Ruskin

生活没有目标，犹如航海没有罗盘。-- 罗斯金

9、What makes life dreary is the want of motive.——George Eliot

没有了目的，生活便郁闷无光。——乔治·埃略特

10、Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.——Lincoln

卓越的天才不屑走旁人走过的路。他寻找迄今未开拓的地区。

11、There is no such thing as a great talent without great will - power.——Balzac

没有伟大的意志力，便没有雄才大略。——巴尔扎克

12、The good seaman is known in bad weather.

惊涛骇浪，方显英雄本色。(励志名言)

13、Fear not that the life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.——J.H. Newman

不要害怕你的生活将要结束，应该担心你的生活永远不会真正开始。——纽曼

14、Gods determine what youre going to be.——Julius Erving

人生的奋斗目标决定你将成为怎样的人。——欧文

15、An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.——Robert Louis Stevenson

生活的目标，是唯一值得寻找的财富。-- 史蒂文森

16、While there is life there is hope.

一息若存，希望不灭。——英国谚语

17、Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.——A. Einstein

不要为成功而努力，要为做一个有价值的人而努力。——爱因斯坦

18、You have to believe in yourself. Thats the secret of success.——Charles Chaplin

人必须有自信，这是成功的秘密。——卓别林

19、Pursue your object, be it what it will, steadily and indefatigably.

不管追求什么目标，都应坚持不懈。

20、We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.——Mattin Luther King

我们必须接受失望，因为它是有限的，但千万不可失去希望，因为它是无穷的。——马丁·路德·金

21、Energy and persistence conquer all things.——Benjamin Franklin

能量加毅力可以征服一切。——富兰克林

22、Nothing seek, nothing find.

无所求则无所获。

23、Cease to struggle and you cease to live.——Thomas Carlyle

生命不止，奋斗不息。——卡莱尔

24、A thousand-li journey is started by taking the first step.

千里之行，始于足下。

25、Strength alone knows conflict, weakness is below even defeat, and is born vanquished.——Swetchine

只有强者才懂得斗争;弱者甚至失败都不够资格，而是生来就是被征服的。——斯威特切尼

26、The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them.——Bernara Shaw

在这个世界上取得成就的人，都努力去寻找他们想要的机会，如果找不到机会， 他们便自己创造机会。——萧伯纳

27、A strong man will struggle with the storms of fate.——Thomas Addison

强者能同命运的风暴抗争。——爱迪生

28、He who seize the right moment, is the right man.——Goethe

谁把握机遇，谁就心想事成。——歌德

29、Victory wont come to me unless I go to it.——M.Moore

胜利是不会向我们走来的，我必须自己走向胜利。——穆尔

30、Man struggles upwards; water flows downwards.

人往高处走，水往低处流。

二、梦想的名言名言

1、every life is a boat, the dream is the boat sail.每个人的生命都是一只小船，梦想是小船的风帆。

2、it is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday, today is the hope, but also can become tomorrow’s reality.很难说什么是办不到的事情，因为昨天的梦想，可以是今天的希望，并且还可以成为明天的现实。

3、to me, they hide in the depths of your soul; be a distant dream, every dream will exceed your goal.努力向上吧，星星就躲藏在你的灵魂深处;做一个悠远的梦吧，每个梦想都会超越你的目标。

4、how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerate of the weak and the strong. because someday in life you will have been all of this.你的生活深度取决于你对年幼者的呵护，对年长者的同情，对奋斗者的怜悯体恤，对弱者及强者的包容。因为生命中总有一天你会发现其中每一个角色你都扮演过。(乔治·华盛顿)

5、most of the time, our rich pocket, but poor head; we have a dream, but the lack of thought.很多时候，我们富了口袋，但穷了脑袋;我们有梦想，但缺少了思想。

6、the ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully 19 have been kindness, beauty and truth.(albert einstein, american scientist)有些理想曾为我们引过道路，并不断给我新的勇气以欣然面对人生，那些理想就是--真、善、美。 (美国科学家 爱因斯坦. a.)

7、dont part with your illusions. when they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. (mark twain, american writer)不要放弃你的幻想。当幻想没有了以后，你还可以生存，但是你虽生犹死。(美国作家 马克·吐温)

8、to accomplish great things, in addition to dream, must act.要想成就伟业，除了梦想，必须行动。

9、when you truly want something, all the universe conspires to help you finish it.当你真心渴望一件东西的时候，整个宇宙都会联合起来帮你完成它。

10、everything is now for the future of dream weaving wings, soar to great heights to dream in reality.现在的一切都是为将来的梦想编织翅膀，让梦想在现实中展翅高飞。

11、human nature is the most pathetic: we always dream of the horizon of a wonderful rose garden, not to enjoy today in our window open rose.人性最可怜的就是：我们总是梦想着天边的一座奇妙的玫瑰园，而不去欣赏今天就开在我们窗口的玫瑰。

12、faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. it is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.当还缺乏产生信仰的足够理由时，要用信念去包涵。模棱两可不足以支持一个信仰。(伏尔泰)

13、the dream is the other shore, the reality is that on this side, action is the bridge connecting.梦想是彼岸，现实是此岸，行动是那座连接的桥。

14、a heart will not be hurt for pursuing a dream, when you truly want something, all the universe conspires to help you complete the.没有一颗心会因为追求梦想而受伤，当你真心想要某样东西时，整个宇宙都会联合起来帮你完成。

15、dreams don’t abandon a painstaking pursuit of the people, as long as you never stop pursuing, you will bathe in the brilliance of the dream.梦想不抛弃苦心追求的人，只要不停止追求，你们会沐浴在梦想的光辉之中。

16、everything i do is just to weave my wings for my dream now so that it can hover in the real world.我所做的一切都是为将来的梦想编织翅膀现在这样可以悬停在现实世界。

17、the man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. (mark twain, american writer)具有新想法的人在其想法实现之前是个怪人。 (美国作家 马克·吐温)

18、youth is to prepare the material, want to build a bridge to the moon, or on the ground and two palaces or temples. middle age, finally decided to put up a shed.青年时准备好材料，想造一座通向月亮的桥，或者在地上造二所宫殿或庙宇。活到中年，终于决定搭一个棚。

19、the important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it. (johan wolfgang von goethe, german poet and dramatist)人生重要的事情就是确定一个伟大的目标，并决心实现它。(德国诗人、戏剧家 歌德. j. m.)

20、the pursuit of a cause of the people, can "dream" doing higher. although at the beginning of a dream, but as long as you keep doing, do not easily give up, dreams can come true.一个有事业追求的人，可以把“梦”做得高些。虽然开始时是梦想，但只要不停地做，不轻易放弃，梦想能成真。

21、the dream is not a dream, the difference between the two usually have a very worth pondering the distance.梦想绝不是梦，两者之间的差别通常都有一段非常值得人们深思的距离。

22、“two gates there are for dreams," said penelope to odysseus after his ten years’ wandering had ended. "one made for horn and one of for ivory. the dreams that pass through the carved ivory delude and bring us tales that turn to naught;those that can come through polished horn accomplish real things whenever seen."“梦想有两扇门，”在奥德修斯结束了十年的漂泊后，潘尼洛对他说，“一扇是号角制成，一扇是象牙制成。通过精雕细缕的象牙门得梦想不过是一场会归于无的海市蜃楼的童话;而那些通过磨砺的号角门的梦想才会成为真实，为人所见。”

23、who has the material to survive, people have a dream only talk about life. you have to understand life and life different animal survival, while others life.人有了物质才能生存，人有了梦想才谈得上生活。你要了解生存与生活的不同吗?动物生存，而人则生活。

24、the dream was always running ahead of me. to catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.梦想总是跑在我前面，追寻它们，乃至仅有一瞬间的与梦想合而为一，也都是动人的生命奇迹。

25、a person rich money is not certain, but if the man is not a dream, the poor people.一个人有钱没钱不一定，但如果这个人没有了梦想，这个人穷定了。

26、if winter comes, can spring be far behind ?( p. b. shelley, british poet )冬天来了，春天还会远吗?( 英国诗人, 雪莱. p. b.)

27、as wishes may inspire dreams, so dreams may inspire wishes.正如心愿能够激发梦想，梦想也能够激发心愿。

28、ideal is the beacon. without ideal, there is no secure direction; without direction, there is no life.( leo tolstoy, russian writer)理想是指路明灯。没有理想，就没有坚定的方向;没有方向，就没有生活。(俄国作家 托尔斯泰. l.)

29、it is at our mothers knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest, but there is seldom any money in them. ( mark twain, american writer )就是在我们母亲的膝上，我们获得了我们的最高尚、最真诚和最远大的理想，但是里面很少有任何金钱。(美国作家 马克·吐温)

30、plain ordinary dream, we used the only adhere to the belief to support the dream.平凡朴实的梦想，我们用那唯一的坚持信念去支撑那梦想。

三、坚持英文名人名言

1、Don’t lose faith, as long as the unremittingly, you will get some fruits. —— Tsien Hsueshen

不要失去信心，只要坚持不懈，就终会有成果。——钱学森

2、With strong will, is equivalent to the feet to a pair of wings.—— Bailey

有了坚定的意志，就等于给双脚添了一对翅膀。——贝利

3、Rome wasn’t built in one day.

伟业非一日建成。

4、Persistence will enable us to succeed, and perseverance of the source is to do not waver in the least, we should take to achieve the necessary means to success.—— Chernyshevsky

只有毅力才会使我们成功，而毅力的来源又在于毫不动摇，坚决采取为达到成功所需要的手段。——车尔尼雪夫斯基

5、Daily good, not afraid of thousands of miles; often do, not do things.

日日行，不怕千万里;常常做，不怕千万事。

6、Once they start they can always continue to cause people is happy.—— Herzen

朝开始便永远能将事业继续下去的人是幸福的。——赫尔岑

7、Although patience and persistence is a painful thing, but it can gradually bring you good.—— Ovid

忍耐和坚持虽是痛苦的事情，但却能渐渐地为你带来好处。——奥维德

8、Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

心之所愿，无事不成。

9、People lack the willpower, rather than strength.—— Hugo

世人缺乏的是毅力，而非气力。——雨果

10、No human can repel a firm hope.—— Kingsley

永远没有人力可以击退一个坚决强毅的希望。——金斯莱

11、Heaven revolves, the gentleman to unremitting self-improvement. —— Wen Tianxiang

天行健，君子以自强不息。——文天祥

12、As long as the continuous efforts, unremitting struggle, there is no things that can not be conquered.—— Seneca

只要持续地努力，不懈地奋斗，就没有征服不了的东西。——塞内加

13、Once you choose your way of life, be brave to stick it out and never return.—— Zola

生活的道路一旦选定，就要勇敢地走到底，决不回头。——左拉

14、No patient who, who has no wisdom.—— he di

谁没有耐心，谁就没有智慧。——萨迪

15、It is dogged does it. The days of easy, but careless people. —— Yuan Mei

天下无难事，只怕有心人。天下天易事，只怕粗心人。——袁枚

16、Poor and stronger, not falling Albatron ambition. —— Wang Bo

穷且益坚，不坠青云之志。——王勃

17、We should have the perseverance, must have the self-confidence especially! We must believe, our talent is used to do something. —— Mrs. Curie

我们应有恒心，尤其要有自信心!我们必须相信，我们的天赋是要用来做某种事情的。——居里夫人

18、Determined to not firm, with nothing.—— Zhu Xi

立志不坚，终不济事。——朱熹

19、One day, the ten day of ten money, money. Little strokes fell great oaks. Dripping water wears through a stone.

一日一钱，十日十钱。绳锯木断，水滴石穿。

20、Pursue your object, be it what it will, steadily and indefatigably.

不管追求什么目标，都应坚持不懈。

Im have many teachers now and I love them all,but my favorate teacher,I think she is my English teacher Miss Gao.

She is tall and thin,in my eyes she is most beautiful teacher woman in the world,I love her sweet smile and attractive.So I always feel free in her class.

I like her class very much,she often tell us interesting stories in her class,and she teaches us to play English games and English songs,too.since she become my English teacher,Im have madel a lot of progess.

I like English,I like my English teacher.

我现在有许多的老师,我爱他们,但是我最喜欢的老师,我认为她是我的英语老师高小姐。

她又瘦又高,在我眼里她是世界上最美丽的乡村女教师的女人,我喜欢她甜美的微笑和有吸引力。所以我总是感觉她班上的自由。

我非常喜欢上她的课,她经常告诉我们有趣的故事在她的课,她教我们玩英语游戏,唱英语歌曲,。自从她成为我的英语老师,我有设计、很多的进步。

我喜欢英语,我喜欢我的英语老师。

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。

Since school comes into being， the test standard has been used to appraise performance of students. So far it is still being used， which may suggest that actually there are some advantages in it. However， it is also highly possible that the test standard is a not ideal way to find out what students have learned and what they haven‘t. Most school is still using it just because there is no better method to replace it.

In my opinion， the following three points are the critical flaws in the test standard.One of the most harmful effects on the test method is that it will force us to study just for passing tests， not for acquiring knowledge especially in China. Obviously the final object of education is making us intellective by learning more knowledge. While the test is only a way to examine the level of students‘ studies， it has been deteriorated to a sifter deciding the fate of students. Why can it be called a terrible sifter? Now in the tests， which decide who can enter a higher school， thousands of poor students， who want a splendid future， must prepare for the tests by finishing a great deal of practices. Those practice tests are heavy-laden to them. So in this case， how can they be expected to study to obtain knowledge? To them that are enough if they can reach the level which tests need. In the end what our nation will get， genuine persons with ability or just test robots?Secondly， tests will bring the examinees great pressure， which can affect their lives. A typical example of this is that most young students have worn glasses even though some of them are still children. For preparing for tests， they must spend a lot of time on doing their homework so that their eyesight becomes worse and worse. And the more time they spend on those， the less time they have for playing and relaxing. Consequently， there is a bad influence on their health.Thirdly， in fact， test system itself can not veraciously estimate who is better than others because there are many factors impacting the results of test. For instance， someone cheated in test so that his score would be higher than others. Or someone who was too nervous to perform well fell in the test.

Only in spare time and no pressure of tests existent， students can study simply for the fun， for obtaining knowledge and for the things that they are really interested in. But now the test system is the only way to select which one is better， who can reach better school and who can get good job. Then what we can do is to improve the test system or hope that something better will be invented and replace the test system.

[关于考试的意见英语作文

What society has thought to be its greatest social, political, and individual achievements have often resulted in the greatest discontent.

I strongly agree that great achievements often lead to great discontent. In fact, I would assert more specifically that great individual achievements can cause discontent for the individual achiever or for the society impacted by the achievement, or both. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that whether a great achievement causes great discontent can depend on one s personal perspective, as well as the perspective of time.

With respect to individual achievements, great achievers are by nature ambitious people and therefore tend to be dissatisfied and discontent with their accomplishments-no matter how great. Great athletes are compelled to try to better their record-breaking performances; great artists and musicians typically claim that their greatest work will be their next one--a sign of personal discontent. And many child prot g s, especially those who achieve some measure of fame early in life, later suffer psychological discontent for having peaked so early. Perhaps the paradigmatic modern example of a great achiever s discontent was Einstein, whose theoretical breakthroughs in physics only raised new theoretical conundrums which Einstein himself recognized and spent the last twenty years of his life struggling unsuccessfully to solve.

[GRE考试写作作文

2005年英语考纲有重大变化，其中之一就是作文考查的变化。新增加一篇小作文，使作文考查由一篇变为两篇，而原来的大作文的字数也由“不少于200字”调整为“150至200字”，满分20分。新增的作文是一篇100字左右的应用性短文，文体包括有信件、便笺、备忘录等，满分10分。既然是新增题型，就不会太难，但不好预测文体，这就要求考生复习时力求面面俱到，掌握写作规律及注意事项，尤其是对常见的应用文体如书信等

大作文的写作一般会给考生写作提纲，或图表，图画，或图文并茂。命题方式虽然多样，但题目涉及面往往是考生比较熟悉的内容，目的是测定考生语言的实际应用能力。要求表达清楚，文字连贯，中心突出，内容丰富，句式多变，句子结构和用词正确。

语言的应用能力不可能一蹴而就，必须厚积薄发，必须经过长期的实践锻炼。在提高英语写作能力方面，我觉得：一是要背大量的优秀范文，整段整篇地背，并转换为自己的语言，写作时自己能随心所欲支配。考试时避免套用以前死记硬背的几个范文，把一些不达意的词堆积在一起，没有统一性，无法很好地表现主题；二是要多动手。包括对背过的文章进行词语替换，句式转换，句子重组等，以及对某一主题展开写作。多动手才能提高笔下功夫，才能保证在考场上顺利写作。可以说背诵范文是培养语感，积累素材，掌握写作方法，动手写作是实践，是最终目的，这两者结合起来，就是“理论联系了实际”。另外，背诵范文应有针对性，写作训练也是一样，在训练中要掌握每一类型作文的写作规律，根据其每一类作文的写作特点——如提纲式作文就要求考生根据提纲提示的思路和规定的要点展开段落——全面训练，但不要带有押题的心理，靠背几篇范文就能应付考试的心态是不可取的。

下面说一下英语写作过程中的注意事项

一、认真审题

作文第一步是仔细审题，考生要仔细阅读试题要求及相关信息，如图表，图画，数字等，准确把握出题者意图。考研作文忌信手掂来，提笔就写，根本不审题，想到哪儿就写到哪儿，或完全凭自己想象编故事，置考试要求于不顾， “下笔千言，离题万里”。比如1998是一幅卡通画，老母鸡申明外加一首打油诗，讽刺一些企业把该尽职之事作为推销产品的承诺。如果考生说老母鸡很可爱，但爱自夸，然后说自己某个同学也爱自夸，这就偏离主题。2000年的作文“A Brief Histiry of World Commercial Fishing ”.它给出了两张图，从1900年的渔船和鱼量之比到1995年的渔船和鱼量之比的变化谈如何保护渔业资源，应从商业性滥捕鱼这一主题展开话题，有的考生却大谈环境污染。这就偏离了主题，因为题中自始自终都没有谈到环境污染问题。

有的同学没有审题习惯，或担心时间不够草草审题，最后发现文不对题，草草收场，这就影响了英语成绩，同时也会影响后两门考试的考试心情。

二、列出提纲

考试规定的时间是很有限的，所以不能花太多时间准备一个详细的提纲，但关键词提纲或粗略提纲还是非常有必要的。对原始材料分析归纳后要形成一个基本的框架。文章打算分几段写，每段大概怎样写，自数控制在多少，开头段落是道破主题，点名要旨，引人入胜还是先给出主题一般的背景情况和对主题进行浓缩的陈述呢，中间段落和结尾有怎样写呢。这些都要心中有数。有的考生习惯用汉语构思文章，逐句翻译提纲，当碰到某个词卡住时就翻译不下去，僵在那里。要注意列提纲是为了更好更全面的表达主题。主题的表达可有多种形式，不一定非要寻找一个特定的词或句子。考试时考生要充分调动大脑，灵活运用以前所学知识。

三、开始写作

一篇文章往往由四部分组成，标题(title)，首段(opening paragraph),主体(body paragraph),结尾段( concluding paragraph)。标题要新颖，能引起读者兴趣，首段的内容根据文章的体裁而变化，比如议论文可以从一种现象，一种观点出发引出作者的观点。记叙文往往交代人物和故事背景。主体是文章的主要部分，通过合适的语篇模式表达一定的观点，考生要围绕中心按一定顺序分层次有重点的展开叙述，描写，议论。结尾段是对全文的总结，论点上要与前面的叙述一致和统一。写作时要注意以下几点。

1、要统一，连贯。

选择那些最能体现中心思想最具代表性的材料，这些材料要共同表达一致的信息。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。

2、用词准确，语法正确

考试时要特别注意语法，此语，语气，标点符号等，为了避免太多单词拼写错误，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。考试时最好选择自己最有把握的词汇，短语，句式。

3、足够字数，卷面整洁

绝对不能字数不够，即使一句话颠来倒去说也要凑够字数。字数不够，即使写的非常精彩，也不能拿高分。

四、修改

英语写作时考生由于仓促，紧张等原因，很容易犯一些简单的，一眼就能发现的错误。所以考生一定要留出几分钟时间用于修改。不要大幅度进行修改，更不要因为修改破坏卷面整洁，影响阅卷老师心情。修改时可以从以下几点进行

1、语法

包括时态是否一致，主谓是否一致，名词单复数是否对应，被动主动语态是否错用等

2、词汇

包括连接上下句或段落的关联词，习惯用语，固定搭配，词类混淆，误用及物不及物动词等。

3、拼写和标点符号

作文一直是考生重点关注的部分，也是考试的重难点，考生可以抓紧时间背诵一些作文万能句型，考试的时候可以帮助自己提高作文水平，分享了四级考试英语作文的常用句型，一起来看看吧！

一.开头

1.Recently the phenomenon has become a heated topic.

2.Recently the problem has been brought into focus.

3. Nowadays there is a growing concern over ...  .

4. What calls for special attention is that...

5. There’s no denying the fact that...

6. what’s far more important is that...

7.It is common knowledge that honesty is the best policy.

8.It is well-known that…

9.Many nations have been faced with the problem of ...

10.According to a recent survey, ...

11. With the rapid development of ..., ...

二.结尾

1.From what has been discussed above, we can draw the conclusion that ...

2.In conclusion, it is imperative that ...

3.In summary, if we continue to ignore the above-mentioned issue, more problems will crop up.

4.With the efforts of all parts concerned, the problem will be solved thoroughly.

5.Taking all these into account, we ...

6. Whether it is good or not /positive or negative, one thing is certain/clear...

7.All things considered, ...

8.It may be safely said that...

9.Therefore, in my opinion, it’s more advisable...

10. It can be concluded from the discussion that...

11. From my point of view, it would be better if...

三.表比较

1.The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

2.The advantages of A are much greater than those of B.

3.A may be preferable to B, but A suffers from the disadvantages that...

5.For all the disadvantages, it has its compensating advantages.

6.Like anything else, it has its faults.

7.A and B has several points in common.

8.However, the same is not applicable to B.

9. A and B differ in several ways.

10. Evidently, it has both negative and positive effects.

四.表原因

1.A number of factors are accountable for this situation.

A number of factors might contribute to (lead to )(account for ) the phenomenon(problem).   2. The answer to this problem involves many factors.

3. The phenomenon mainly stems from the fact that...

4. The factors that contribute to this situation include...

5. The change in ...largely results from the fact that...

6. Part of the explanations for it is that ...

7. One of the most common factors (causes ) is that ...

8. Another contributing factor (cause ) is ...

9. Perhaps the primary factor is that ...

10. But the fundamental cause is that ...

五.表结果

1. It may give rise to a host of problems.

2. The immediate result it produces is ...

3. It will exercise a profound influence upon...

4. Its consequence can be so great that...

六.表反驳

1. It is true that ..., but one vital point is being left out.

2. There is a grain of truth in these statements, but they ignore a more important fact.

3. Many of us have been under the illusion that...

4. It makes no sense to argue for ...

5. Such a statement mainly rests on the assumption that ...

6. Contrary to what is widely accepted, I maintain that ...

七.表证明

1. No one can deny the fact that ...

2. The idea is hardly supported by facts.

3. Unfortunately, none of the available data shows ...

4. Recent studies indicate that ...

5. There is sufficient evidence to show that ...

6. According to statistics proved by ..., it can be seen that ...

[四级考试英语作文常用句型

环保是一个热点话题，下面语文迷网整理提供了关于环保的英语写作素材，希望对你有帮助。

环保的英语名言

1、 Dont litter the floor.不随地扔垃圾。

2、 Governments of many countries have established laws to protect the air, forests and sea resources and to stop environmental pollution.许多国家制定了法律来保护大气、森林和海洋资源，制止环境污染。

3、 Please keep off the grass.不要践踏草坪。

4、 It’s our duty to save water节约水是我们每个人的责任。

5、 Safety First.安全第一。

6、 Earth is our home, you rely on green.地球是我家，绿化靠大家。

7、 Environmental problems directly affect the quality of peoples lives.环境问题直接影响人们的生活质量。

8、 Lets do our best to make it more beautiful.让我们尽力让它更美丽。

9、 If we dont save water, the last drop of water will be a tear-drop of us.如果我们不节约水，那么最后一滴水也许会是我们人类的眼泪。

10、 Handle with Care.小心轻放。

11、 No climbing.禁止攀爬。

12、 Save the earth, Our Only Home.保护地球，我们唯一的家。

13、 As we know , water is very important to man.我们知道，水对人类来说是非常的重要。

14、 Most environmental litigation involves disputes with governmental agencies.许多环保诉讼都涉及与政府机构的争端。

15、 Do not throw rubbish onto the ground. Do not waste water. Use both sides of paper when you write. Stop using plastic bags for shopping. Make classrooms less noisy.不要在地上扔垃圾。不要浪费水。当你写字时要在纸的两面都要写。停止使用塑料袋去购物。减少教室里德吵闹声。

16、 The most important question in the world today is pollution.当今世界最重要的话题就是污染问题。

17、 No one can live without water or air.没有人能离开水和空气生存。

18、 We should stop factories from producing harmful gases.我们应该阻止工厂生产有害气体。

19、 Many rivers and lakes are seriously polluted.很多河流湖泊已经受到严重污染。

20、 Without the shade from trees, Earth would get too hot to live on.没有了树荫，地球将会变得太热而不能生存。

21、 We need to protect Earth because it is our home.我们需要保护地球因为它是我们的家。

22、 Discharge pipes directly take pollutants away from the plant into the river.排泄管道直接将污染物从工厂排入河流。

23、 Please shut the door after you.出入请关门。

24、 We should plant more and more trees in order to live better and more healthy in the future为了将来我们的生活过得更好、更加健康我们应该种更多的树。

环保的词汇

21世纪议程：Agenda 21世界环境日(6月5日)：World Environment Day (June 5th each year)

世界环境日主题：World Environment Day Themes冰川消融，后果堪忧!(2007年)Melting Ice–a Hot Topic!

莫使旱地变荒漠!(2006年)Deserts and Desertification–Dont Desert Drylands!

营造绿色城市，呵护地球家园!(2005年)Green Cities – Plan for the Planet!

海洋存亡，匹夫有责!(2004年)Wanted! Seas and Oceans – Dead or Alive!

水——二十亿人生命之所系!(2003年)Water - Two Billion People are Dying for It!

让地球充满生机!(2002年)Give Earth a Chance!

世间万物，生命之网!(2001年)Connect with the World Wide Web of life!

环境千年-行动起来吧!(2000年)The Environment Millennium - Time to Act!

拯救地球就是拯救未来!(1999年)Our Earth - Our Future - Just Save It!

为了地球上的生命-拯救我们的海洋!(1998年) For Life on Earth - Save Our Seas!

为了地球上的生命!(1997)For Life on Earth我们的地球、居住地、家园：(1996)Our Earth， Our Habitat， Our Home国际生物多样性日(12月29日)：International Biodiversity Day (29 December)

世界水日(3月22日)：World Water Day (22 March)

世界气象日(3月23日)：World Meteorological Day (23 March)

世界海洋日(6月8日)：World Oceans Day (8 June)

植树节(3月12日)：Arbor Day (12 March)