英语写作基础考试【优秀20篇】

1、开头部分

How nice to hear from you again. Let me tell you something about the activity. I’m glad to have received your letter of Apr. 9th. I’m pleased to hear that you’re coming to China for a visit. I’m writing to thank you for your help during my stay in America.

2、结尾部分

With best wishes. I’m looking forward to your reply. I’d appreciate it if you could reply earlier.

导语：应用文是机关团体、单位或个人在日常工作、学习、生活中用以处理事务、沟通关系的具有一定的惯用格式的文体。它强调处理事务、沟通关系方面的直接的实用价值，因而在写作上有其特定的要求。

应用文写作的基本要求，可以概括为“明确、完备、合式、得体”八个字。

一、明确，是说行文的主旨要明确。

“主”是基本、中心;“旨”是主张、宗旨。应用文的主旨，就是一篇应用文在提出问题、分析问题、解决问题的过程中所表达出来的基本内容与中心观点，是作者具体的行文目的的体现。

写一篇应用文，不但自己要明确行文的目的与中心，明确为什么要写这一篇应用文，主要反映什么内容;而且要让读者能迅捷而准确地明了你行文的意图，了解你的观点、要求，了解你提出的主要问题，了解该文所涉及的事务与关系。不能让读者在读了你的来文后仍不明不白，无法了解问题的主次轻重，甚至对发文者的意图、观点产生误解。

例如某校团委为组织登山比赛活动向党委申请活动经费所写的一份《关于组织登山比赛活动的请示》，文中详细地说明了组织该项活动的目的、比赛的时间、地点、活动的具体内容、经费开支情况等，却没有明确提出“请予拨款”的要求，加上标题又没有明确反映出申请经费的意思，这就使收文者看不出发文者是在申请经费、要求拨款，而理解为发文者已有这笔经费，只是行文请求党委批准他们使用这笔经费组织一次登山比赛活动。

像这样的应用文，其主旨就是不明确的。行文要实现主旨明确，首先要求作者对发文的目的、意图有清醒的认识;其次要求作者对行文的中心、，内容的基本方面、问题的主次轻重做到心中有数;再次，要求作者在行文时还要做到“立主脑，去枝蔓”，在确定主旨、中心以后，应紧紧围绕中心、主旨来选择有关的材料，组织有关的内容。

二、完备，是说内容要素要齐全。

所谓内容要素，指的是一篇应用文在处理事务、沟通关系上必不可少的内容因素。

应用文写作总是直接地与具体的事务相联系的，旨在解决工作、学习或生活中的某些具体问题，最讲究现实的效益。内容要素完备这一要求，正是应用文实用性这一特点所决定的。看一篇应用文的内容要素是否齐全完备，关键就看其能否满足处理事务、沟通关系的实际需要。一篇应用文之所以缺乏实用价值，一个很主要的原因就是内容要素不完备。

例如，某单位向当地石油公司请求增拨石油，理由讲了不少，可到底要求增拨多少石油却只字未提，以致石油公司无法作出答复与安排。内容要素不完备，有时还会造成主旨不明，从而影响应用文的实用价值。

如上面谈到的那份“请示”，就是由于缺少了“请予拨款”这一项内容以致收文者对发文者的发文意图作了别解，使该请示失去了实用价值。不同的应用文体有其不同的内容要素。

例如，计划，其内容要素是制定计划的“目的”、“依据”(这两点虽不一定要见诸书面，却是制定计划时不可不加考虑的内容)、“任务要求”、“方法措施”、“进程与时序”;而经验总结的内容要素则为“总的工作成绩”、具体的“做法”、“效果”及“经验、体会”等;经济合同则有“标的”、“数量与质量”、“价款或酬金”、“履行的期限、地点和方式”、“违约责任”等主要条款。即使是同一文体的应用文，因其处理的具体事务不同、写作目的不同等原因，其内容要素也会有所不同。

就拿经济合同来说，其主要条款，除上述五条外，“法律规定的或按合同性质必须具备的条款，以及当事人一方要求必须规定的条款，也是经济合同的主要条款”(见《中华人民共和国经济合同法》第二章第十二条)。可见用于不同事务的经济合同会有不同的条款，甚至因当事人不同，同类合同也会有不同的条款。

这些不同的条款，也就是不同的经济合同各自应具备的内容要素。再拿调查报告来说。即使是反映同一调查对象的调查报告，因报告的目的不同，其内容要素也会有所不同。

例如《上海市街道集体企事业的调查》(载1979年2月8日《文汇报》)。其旨在帮助上海市街道集体企事业排除障碍、健康发展，因此报告的重点就放在这两个方面：

一是上海市街道集体企事业的作用和贡献;

二是上海市街道集体企事业在继续发展方面存在的障碍。

前者写出了该调查对象继续发展的必要性，后者则写出如何扶持其发展。没有前者，看不出调查对象有无继续发展的必要，这就很难激发有关部门对帮助其发展的兴趣和积极性;无后者则看不出该对象在继续发展上还存在哪些障碍，有关部门就难以有的放矢地去解决问题以保证其健康发展。可见这两点都是这篇调查报告的内容要素，缺一不可。

假如这篇调查报告的目的是为了给其他城市的同类企业树立样板以指导它们多作贡献、健康发展，那么该调查报告就应着重反映上海市街道集体企事业如何开展工作、取得成绩，如何健康发展等方面，从而使该调查对象工作上的成绩、做法、效果、经验、体会等项成为这篇调查报告的内容要素。

因此我们写作应用文，一定要从实际出发，考虑该篇应用文有何非写不可、必不可少的内容，努力做到内容要素齐全完备。

三、合式，是要求符合所用应用文体的程式性要求。

程式性是应用文的又一大特点，它主表表现为具有一定的惯用格式。这一点，法定的行政公文与电报表现得极为突出。

拿公文来说，标题、发文字号、主送及抄送抄报机关名称、正文、附件标注、发文时间、秘密等级、缓急程度等项的写法及其书写位置等都有特定的要求，甚至连文字的书写排印、用纸的规格及装订等都有严格的规定。

有些应用文虽无明确规定其书面格式、书写体例，但一般都有其较常用的结构形式。

如调查报告，其写法虽比较灵活，无固定的书写格式，但在写作中却常常采用“三部式”的结构方式：前言部分概述有关的基本情况(反映基本情况的调查报告多写关于调查活动方面的基本情况，如调查的时间、地点、范围方式、基本过程;调查的对象、目的、项目、总的调查结论等。

总结典型经验的调查报告则着重写关于调查对象方面的基本情况，如调查对象的历史、现状、组织结构、基本的工作及成绩、总的经验体会等);主文部分则根据报告的目的写出调查中形成的有关观点及说明这些观点的具体的调查材料;结语部分则对主文部分作必要的概括、总结或补充。

就一般的文章写作而言，格式大致包括以下三个方面的内容(或者说主要反映在三个方面)：

一是行款格式，主要指文字的书写排印的规定;标点符号的书写规定;标题、署名等位置的规定等等。

二是内容表达的书面形式，如分条列项式、篇段合一式、分部切块式、表格式等等。

三是正文的组织结构方式，包括行文顺序、开头结尾的安排等等。再具体到应用文的格式来说，则还有一个重要的方面，即“结构要素”方面。所胃结构要素，指的是构成一种应用文体的各个部分和项目(它不同于内容要素。内容要素是就正文部分的内容来说的，而结构要素则是对于全文的结构来说的。相对于内容要素来说，结构要素具有一定的直观性与外部性。

一篇应用文的内容要素是否完备，往往一眼看不出来，必须结合处理事务的现实需要，深入到文章的内部，通过对正文的内容作认真分析后才能了解。而一篇应用文的结构要素是否完备，则一般可以从文章的外部形式上把握，往往可以一目了然)。

应用文的结构要素，可以分为“一般结构要素”与“特殊结构要素”两类。“一般结构要素”指的是一种应用文体中的所有篇章都必须具备的。

例如公文中的“标题”、“发文字号”、“主送机关名称”、“正文”、“印章”、“发文时间”等等，这是每一篇公文都要具备的部分。至于“特殊结构要素”则不是一种应用文体中的所有篇章都必须具备的，而只是其中某些或某一篇章为了满足某种特殊的需要所特别具备的。仍以公文为例，除了上述那些“一般结构要素”外，秘密公文要标明秘密等级;紧急公文要标明缓急程度;有附件的公文要在正文之后注明附件名称与顺序;上报国务院的公文应注明签发人;会议通过的文件要在标题之下、正文之前注明会议名称与通过日期。这秘密等级、缓急程度、附件标注、签发人姓名、会议名称与通过日期等等，便是公文的“特殊结构要素”。应用文的结构要素，有如一部机器的零部件。少了一个零部件往往会影响机器的组装与正常运转。

一篇应用文的结构要素残缺不全，也会影响到结构的完整，影响到应用文正常的处理，会损害其现实效用。可以说，结构要素乃是应用文格式的主要方面。对应用文的“一定的惯用格式”，应着重从上述这几个方面去了解把握，以便使自己写出的用文达到“合式”的要求。应用文的程式性也是由应用文的实用性所决定的。

应用文作为信息的载体，其程式性掌握利用得好，有利于迅捷、准确地传递、接收与处理信息，有利于稳妥、及时地处理事务、沟通关系。否则容易影响接收者对信息的处理、贮存，甚至贻误大事。例如一大学生去信国外，因不懂该国书写信封的习惯、体例，照我们的习惯去写，结果信给退了回来。因此，我们不能把应用文的程式性理解为纯属形式主义的东西、而无视应用文写作“合式”的要求。

四、得体。所谓得体，就是得当、恰当。

得体对于应用文来说显得十分重要，因其往往直接影响到应用文处理事务、沟通关系的现实效益。得体的要求是多方面的。就应用文写作而言，主要反映在三个方面：

一、文体的选用方面。

不同的应用文体有不同的功用，反映了不同的行文目的和要求，有的还反映了收发双方之间不同的身份关系。这就有一个使用文体是否得当的问题。例如向非上下隶属关系的有关部门请求批准，就应用“函”而不能用“请示”，否则便是“搞错对象”，很不得体。又如向上级汇报工作、反映情况、提出建议就应用“报告”而不是“请示”。又如办学招生可用“启事”、“广告”而不宜用“通告”。

二、行文方面。

这里主要指表达方式的运用与篇章结构的安排。前者指的是要根据文体的特点来正确运用表达方式。例如“会议通知”，具有告知性、规定性。就表达方式而言，主要是运用叙述、说明，而不用或少用抒情、描写。后者指的是篇章结构应适应文体的特点与要求。就拿开头来说，应用文旨在应用，要求“易见事”，其开头一般应开门见山、开宗明义，而不宜搞“曲径通幽”、“烘云托月”之类。其他如层次、段落的安排，结尾的处理等方面，不同的应用文体都各有其习惯的做法。

三、语言的运用方面。

这是应用文写作“得体”的主要方面。我们说应用文写作要得体，主要也就是说其语言的运用要得体。下面就着重谈谈这一方面的问题。

我们认为，应用文语言要得体，主要是要注意以下几点：

1.要符合作者在社会关系中的地位。即叙事论理、遣词造句时要注意一定的身份，要能正确体现出收发双方之间一定的关系。《文心雕龙·书记》称“祢衡代书，亲疏得宜”。这“亲疏得宜”就是指正确体现了收发双方间一定的关系。如公文中的传送用语：“上报”、“呈报”用于上行，“印发”、“颁发”用于下行。倘用错了便不符合作者在社会关系中的特定位置。《文心雕龙》所谓“若夫尊长差序，则肃以节文”不能仅仅视为维护封建等级观念，从处理事务求得实效而言，这还是有必要的。

2.要注意特定的场合与氛围，要做到和谐协调。如贺喜时不说丧气话，严肃的场合不说俏皮话等。又如写请柬，用于商店开张、会议开幕的可以写“敬请光临指导”，而用于结婚宴请的则不宜写“指导”之类字眼。

3.要注意让对方乐于接受、易于接受。要分别对象，采用对方乐于接受、易于接受的言语。为了使对方乐于接受，有必要了解对方的个性、习惯、情绪、忌讳等等。如对比较幽默风趣的人说点俏皮话还可以;对一贯严肃、不苟言笑的人就不要耍噱头、说俏皮话。有的人很讲究忌讳，同这种人说话在这方面就应特别注意。一般人忌讳的话也要尽管少说。有一个储蓄所的营业员，把“要存定期还是存活期”说成“要死的还是要活的”，结果把前来储蓄的一个老人气走了。这就是说话不得体的后果。同一个意思往往可以有不同的说法，其中有的说法人家乐于接受，有的说法则令人感到不堪入耳。这就要求我们在遣词造句以表情达意时要十分慎重，要尽量做到让对方乐于接受(在这方面可以说只有一个例外，那就是你是有意要激怒对方)。此外，还要注意适合对方的文化程度、专业水平等，使对方易于理解、易于接受。例如对文化程度不高的人，就宜尽量多用平易通俗的词语，而不要使用古奥的词语;对不熟悉某一专业的人，就不宜过多的使用该门类的专业术语。否则，“对牛弹琴”，于己于人都毫无益处。

4.语言色彩要符合特定的行文目的及内容性质的要求。如颁布政令的要庄重严肃;通报错误的要说理严正、义正词严;申请要求的要平和委婉;报喜祝捷的要热烈欢快，等等。《文心雕龙·诏策》里说：“故授官选贤，则义柄重离之辉;优文封策，则气含风雨之润;敕戒恒诰，则笔吐星汉之华;治戎燮伐，则声有洊雷之威;眚灾肆赦，则文有春露之滋;明罚敕法，则辞有秋霜之烈，此诏策之大略也。”这说的便是语言色彩与行文目的、内容性质的要求相符合的问题。

5.要符合应用文体的语体要求，体现所用语体的个性。应用文主要使用事务语体，而事务语体最大的特点是“平实”，即通俗易懂，质朴实在。这就要求我们在写作中坚持“辞达而已矣”的古训，要坚决反对堆砌词藻、生造词语、半文不白、古奥难懂、追求含蓄而流于晦涩、肆意夸大其辞、说空话废话等等现象。平实，是对应用文语言的总的要求。在这个总的要求下，不同的应用文体对语言的运用还有其具体的要求。如公文，其语言除了平实这一点以外，就还要求简明、庄重。因此在写作应用文时，语言的运用要注意符合不同文体的要求，也就是要体现出所用语体的个性。写作应用文，说什么、不说什么、怎样说、何时说等等，都要认真考虑。语言得体将有利于处理事务、沟通关系，达到预期的效果。而是否有利于处理事务、沟通关系，达到预期的效果，也是衡量语言运用是否得体的一把尺子。

以上着重从四个方面来提出应用文写作的基本要求——主旨要明确、内容要素要完备、行文要合式、语言要得体，可以说这是基本上符合应用文实用性、程式性这两大特点的客观要求的。

一、写提示议论文应考虑的几点

1、文章开头，能依据提示确立主题句(topic)阐明观点或看法。

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

3、归纳总结，首尾呼应。

二、看图作文应考虑的几点

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

2、确定短文须用的时态和该用的人称。

3、确定体裁(说明文还是记叙文)，接着用简洁的语句描述图片或图表大意。

4、根据图片或图表大意议论。

写人，这个词的含义比较宽泛，望文生义，指的就是对人物进行描写。在文学创作中，它与“叙事”、“抒情”鼎足而三，又常常难解难分。小编收集了写人记事的写作基础，欢迎阅读。

知识要点：

1、写记叙文，会具体地写人记事，有较明确的中心思想。

2、会恰当地选择材料和组织材料。

3、能写清楚事情的起因、经过和结果。

4、能运用具体的事例写出人物的某些特点。

考试说明：

1、记叙文构思六“一”诀

(1)一槌定音的开头

即开篇二三句或点出记叙重点，埋下行文线索，或明确主题思想、奠定感情基调。这样的开头，简洁洗练，直截了当。《回忆我的母亲》一文的开头，堪称一槌定音的典范。首句“得到母亲去世的消息，我很悲痛”交代写作缘由，次句先以“我爱我母亲”定下感情基调，再用“特别是她勤劳一生”点明主旨。短短两句，即成为全篇回忆母亲优秀事迹的十分清晰的总枢纽。

(2)一线穿珠的结构

即全文没有贯穿到底的中心事件，而是以主要人物的活动或品质为主线，组织典型而各有侧重的情节，统一服务于中心。这种结构避免了行文的旁逸斜出，使文章重点突出。魏巍《我的老师》分写七件小事：假发怒、教跳舞、观蜜蜂、教读诗、依恋师、化纠纷、梦寻师，皆由热爱、感激、思念老师这条感情线索贯穿起来，从而使文章具有较强的感染力。

(3)一波三折的情节

“文似看山不喜平”。只有一个中心事件的文章，若能在故事情节的发展上做到张驰结合，起伏变化，则可扣人心弦。《鲁提辖拳打镇关西》中，当鲁达听到金氏父女的哭诉后，怒火中烧，要“打死了那厮再来”时，情节陡起，似乎高潮即将到来，但作者却巧妙地让史进、李忠两个“三次五回劝的他住”。这样有急有缓，掀起波澜;当鲁达送走金氏父女，“径到状员桥来”，惩强除恶的好戏似乎就要上演时，作者却笔锋一转，写鲁达在郑屠肉铺前坐了下来，三戏郑屠。这样一放一收，又掀起波澜。简单的一个鲁提辖拳打镇关西的故事，写得如此精彩，情节的一波三折功不可没。

(4)一字传神的细节

人物性格的塑造、作者感情的抒发，都离不开一字传神或一针见血的细节。鲁迅《社戏》写孩子们归航途中偷豆，阿发“于是往来的摸了一回，直起身来说道：‘偷我们的罢，我们的大得多呢。’”阿发“往来的摸”，有比较鉴别之意，显现出他聪明而无私的童贞，传达出作者对他的敬佩喜悦;鲁迅《孔乙己》写孔乙己“从破衣袋里摸出四文大钱，放在我手里，见他满手是泥，原来他便用这手走来的”。这里的“摸”，表钱数不多之意。特定的动作正是孔乙己生活窘迫、穷困潦倒、遭遇悲惨的写照，传达出作者对他的哀伤同情。同为“摸”字，作者却在不同的地方赋予各异的含义，且凝练传神，可见匠心。

(5)一语反复的扣题

文章以关键语句反复扣题，显得内容紧凑、中心突出。《谁是最可爱的人》由这样三个板块扣题：一是开头，在书写自己在朝鲜的感觉后，以“我们的战士，我感到他们是最可爱的人”扣题;二是主体，在展示了三个典型事例后，分别以“你不觉得我们的战士是最可爱的吗?”“你不觉得我们的战士是最可爱的人吗?”“你们已经可以了解我们的战士是怎样一种人”扣题;三是结尾，在号召人们热爱战士后，以“他们确实是我们最可爱的人”扣题。以上扣题句将“战士”与“谁是最可爱的人”联系起来，反复出现，强化了人们的认识。

(6)一箭双雕的收尾

就是说文章的结尾既自然结束全文，又巧妙引发思考。《驿路梨花》结尾写道：“我望着这群充满朝气的哈尼小姑娘和那洁白的梨花，不由得想起了一句诗：‘驿路梨花处处开’。”这个结尾既实写自然梨花，又虚写雷锋精神，结构上照应题目，内容上深化主题，意蕴丰富。

2、如何使记叙文生动感人

(1)积累动情点

所谓动情点，就是事件中能触动人们思想感情的关键内容。要写出动人的文章，首先要有能打动人们思想感情的材料。材料动人，文章才有可能动人。如果题材寡情，连作者都感动不了，又怎能打动读者的心呢?那么，学生生活中有没有生动感人的素材呢?回答是肯定的。同学们虽然没有“战火分飞”的经历，也少“痛失亲人”的感受，但是像《散步》《这不是一颗流星》中所反映的那样的生活体验，同学们的生活中则是俯拾即是取之不尽的。

积累动情点，就要留意我们身边发生的感人的故事。要留住情感的火花，就应该准备一个记录本，随时摄录一些感情的神貌，主要是描述细微的感受和动情的氛围。如果能随手记录，不断积累，并经常翻阅，那么这些记录便是作文的源头活水，可令文思喷涌永不枯竭。

(2)渲染动情点

人的七情六欲是相通的，能令你动情的内容，往往也能使别人动情。然而令人动情的，不一定是事物或物件的整体或整个过程，往往是事物的某个部位或事件的某一细节。因此作文不能只写事物的轮廓，而应抓住最让人动情的内容渲染之凸现之。

一般来说，在写人的文章中，人物的精神品质、性格特点可以看作动情点。譬如《小橘灯》中小姑娘的镇定、勇敢、乐观的精神便是最能给“我”以鼓舞的动情点。因此，作者对小姑娘打电话的动人事例做了具体描述，来渲染她的“镇定”;对困苦的家庭环境做了具体的描绘，来渲染穷人孩子早当家的“勇敢”;对做灯送客人以及安慰客人等情节做了细致的描写，来表现小姑娘坚信未来的“乐观”。在叙事的文章中，能够展现整个事件的内涵之处便是动情点。如《走一步再走一步》，作者铺陈了“我”冒险攀登悬崖从而陷入困境，并在父亲指点下爬下悬崖摆脱困境的过程。尤其是先细腻地刻画了全身颤抖冷汗直冒地向上爬、心惊肉跳地蹲、头晕目眩地向下望、全身麻木地伏等，而后又细致地描写了因毫无信心而啼哭及信心萌发探踩岩石，最后爬下悬崖的过程。文章卒章显志，自然地归结出：化解困难，从而克服困难。

在写景的文章中，景物的特点往往也是动情点。比如刘鹗的《大明湖》。济南城的特色，历下亭的古老，古水仙祠的荒凉，都是令人动情的。然而最让人动情的则是铁公祠前优美的湖光山色。作者渲染了千佛山的色彩艳丽，大明湖的澄清明净，芦苇花的景象奇绝，用清丽的文字描绘了优美的意境。

(3)交代动情原因

要使文章动人，还得交代令人动情的特殊原因。为什么同样的事情，别人没动情你会动情?又为什么相似的事情，昨天没动情而今天会动情?交代了动情的原因，也等于营造了动情的氛围。例如《蛛网》：清晨，薄暮的晨雾像一层轻纱裹着树林，新鲜的空气中夹杂着树脂的清香，叫人感到清新、愉快。这个特殊环境，既是蛛网成为精美绝伦的头巾的客观条件，又是激起“我”美好想象的外在因素。同样的道理，越是战火纷飞，越能体现白求恩的精神品质;对儿子越爱，越能表现[***被屏蔽词语]的无产阶级革命家的宽阔胸怀和崇高的国际主义精神。可见，看似与中心无关的内容，其实恰恰是营造情感氛围所必须的。

总之，积累动情的素材，渲染动情的内容，交代动情的原因，让感情充满作文的全过程，是情感贯穿文章的始终，这是使记叙文动人的有效方法。让我们从范文的研读中获得借鉴，从作文的实践中得到验证吧。

[11—1]我的启蒙老师

导思：这是一篇命题作文。

1、从题目来看，显然是一篇写人的记叙文。“老师”前面有两个定语：“我的”、“启蒙”，不要随意掉了一个定语。

2、可写文化课的老师，也可写科技小制作的启蒙老师，唱歌跳舞的启蒙老师，体育运动的启蒙老师……凡是初学某一门知识，使你得到基本的入门知识的人，就是启蒙老师。

3、通过语言、动作、肖像描写刻画启蒙老师，把记忆中启蒙老师那些最使你感动的事写出来，以说明是启蒙老师的循循善诱、诲人不倦，才将你领进门的。

[11—2]真没想到……

要求：(1)或选一事，或选一物、或选一景，写一篇600字左右的记叙文。(2)要有适当的抒情和议论。(3)如写到学校、教师、同学，一律用假名代替;否则扣分。

导思：我们日常生活中，常常在不经意间被某件小事打动，从中受到启发和教育，从中悟出了某种道理。《真没想到……》这一命题就是针对这一现象设计的。命题要求以此为题目写一篇记叙文。一般来说，中学生写记叙文是比较拿手的。如何写好这篇文章呢?

1、要把好选材关，日常生活中耳闻目睹、亲身经历的事情很多，其中不可预见的突发事件也不乏其例，如何选择恰当的材料呢?一定要注意比较权衡，理出一些既新颖，蕴涵主题又很大的事情来写。

2、文章要尽可能以情动人，有叙有议，怎样能作到这一点呢?“言为心声”，凡是发自肺腑的声音，字里行间自然会真情流露，具体到表达技巧上，一定要会用词，注意词语的感情色彩，注意语言的具体生动，这样才能吸引读者，打动读者。

在今日全球化的经济环境下，有效地用英语(精品课)交流已经变得至关重要。

然而如何清晰地表达你的想法却是门大学问。太多时候人们只是简单地照抄他们眼中同事，尤其是上级写出来的“漂亮英语”。你每天都能在收件箱里看到很多例子——那些难懂的需要你读好多遍才能理解的邮件。

一个巨大的错误就是用一些不必要的单词和词组让你的文章变得冗长。你要牢记你写作的目的是为了更清晰地交流你的想法。

总是尽可能减少你句子中使用的字数，避免使用可以用更短的词代替的长词。以下是一些例子：

Instead of "prior to" use *before*

用“before”代替“prior to”

Instead of "subsequent" use *after*

用“after”代替“subsequent”

Instead of "in order to" use *to*

用“to”代替“in order to”

Instead of "in the event that" use *if*

用“if”代替“in the event that”

Instead of "with reference to" use *about*

用“about”代替“with the reference to”

Instead of "state of the art" use *latest*

用“latest”代替“state of the art”

Instead of "due to the fact that" use *since*

用“since”代替“due to the fact that”

Instead of "not later than 2pm" use *by 2pm*

用“by 2pm”代替“not later than 2pm”

Instead of "at the present time" use *now*

用“now”代替“at the present time”

同时也要记得文章有组织性。第一句话就要开门见山地点出你每一段要讲什么。除此之外，要控制你邮件的长度。没人想读一条长达10段的邮件。

通过使用简单的单词和易懂的词组，你就能最终提高你信息的清晰度。

以下是短文写作中使用率最高、覆盖面最广的基本句式，每组句式的功能相同或相似，考可根据自己的情况选择其中的个，做到能够熟练正确地仿写或套用。

1．表示原因

1）There are three reasons for this

2）The reasons for this are as follows

3）The reason for this is obvious

4）The reason for this is not far to seek

5）The reason for this is that

6）We have good reason to believe that

例如：

There are three reasons for the changes that have taken place in our life

．Firstly，people’s living standard has been greatly improved．Secondly，most people are well paid，and they can afford what they need or like．Last but not least，more and more people prefer to enjoy modern life．

注：

如考生写第一个句子没有把握，

可将其改写成两个句子。

如：

Great changes have taken place in our life．

There are three reasons for this．这样写可以避免套用中的表达失误。

2．表示好处

1）It has the following advantages

2）It does us a lot of good

3）It benefits us quite a lot

4）It is beneficial to us

5）It is of great benefit to us

例如：

Books are like friends．

They can help us know the world better，and they can open our minds

and widen our horizons．Therefore reading extensively is of great benefit to us

3．表示坏处

1）It has more disadvantages than advantages

2）It does us much harm

3）It is harmful to us

例如：

However，everything divides into two．

Television can also be harmful to us．It can do harm to our health and make us lazy if we spend too much time watching television.

4．表示重要、必要、困难、方便、可能

1）It is important（necessary，difficult，convenient, possible）for sb．to do sth．

2）We think it necessary to do sth．

3）It plays an important role in our life．

例如：

Computers are now being used everywhere，whether in the government，in schools or in business．

Soon, computers will be found in every home，too．

We have good reason to say that computers are playing an increasingly important role in our life and we have stepped into the Computer Age．

5．表示措施

1)We should take some effective measures．

2）We should try our best to overcome（conquer）the difficulties．

3）We should do our utmost in doing sth．

4）We should solve the problems that we are confronted（faced）with．

例如：

The housing problem that we are confronted with Is becoming more and more serious．Therefore，we must take some effective measures to solve it．

6 ．表示变化

1）Some changes have taken place in the past five years．

2)A great change will certainly be produced in the world’s communications．

3）The computer has brought about many changes in education．

例如：

Some changes have taken place in people’s diet in the past five years．The major reasons for these changes are not far to seek．Nowadays，more and more people are switching from grain to

meat for protein，and from fruit and vegetable to milk for vitamins．

7．表示事实、现状

1）We cannot ignore the fact that．．．

2）No one can deny the fact that．．．

3）There is no denying the fact that．．．

4）This is a phenomenon that many people are interested in．

5）However，that’s not the case．

例如：

We cannot ignore the fact that industrialization brings with it the problems of pollution．To solve these problems，

we can start by educating the public about the hazards of pollution．

The government on its part should also design stricter laws to promote a cleaner environment．

8．表示比较

1）Compared with A，B．．．

2）I prefer to read rather than watch TV．

3）There is a striking contrast between them．

例如：

Compared with cars ,bicycles have several advantages besides being affordable．Firstly，they do not consume natural resources of petroleum．Secondly，they do not cause the pollution problem．Last but not least，they contribute to people’s health by giving them due physical exercise．

9．表示数量

1）It has increased（decreased）from．．．to．．．

2）The population in this city has now increased （decreased）to 800，000．

3）The output of July in this factory increased by 15％compared with that of January．

例如：

With the improvement of the living standard,the proportion of people’s in some spent on food has decreased while that spent on education has increased．

再如：From the graph listed above,it can be seen that student use of computers has increased from an average of less than two hours per week in 1990 to 20 hours in 2000．

10．表示看法

1）People have（take，adopt，assume)different attitudes towards sth．

2）People have different opinions on this problem．

3）People take different views of（on）the question．

4）Some people believe that．．．

Others argue that．．．

例如：

People have different attitudes towards failure．Some believe that failure leads to success．

Every failure they experience translates into a greater chance of success at their renewed endeavor．However ,others are easily discouraged by failures and put themselves into the category of losers．

再如：

Do“lucky numbers really bring good luck？

Different people have different views on it（注：

一个段落有时很适宜以问句开始，考生应掌握这一写作方法。）

11．表示结论

1）In short，it can be said that ．．．

2）It may be briefly summed up as follows．

3）From what has been mentioned above,we can come to the conclusion that ．．

例如：

From what has been mentioned above，we can come to the conclusion that examination is necessary，however，its method should be improved．

12．套语

1）It’s well known to us that ．．．

2）As is known to us．．．

3）This is a topic that is being widely talked about．

4）From the graph

（table，chart）listed above，it can be seen that ．．．

5）As a proverb says，“Where there is a will，there is a way．

例如：

As is well known to us，it is important for the students to know the world outside campus．

The reason for this is obvious．Nowadays,the society is changing and developing rapidly，and

the campus is no longer an“ivory tower.As college students，

we must get in touch with the world outside the campus．

Only in this way can we adapt ourselves to the society quickly after

we graduate.

应用文作文是作文写作第一种类型，下面梳理了应用文作文写作基础，供大家参考借鉴。

一、结构的含义和作用

1.掌握结构的含义应用文的结构，是运用材料以表现主题的有序安排，是客观事物条理性在文章中的反映，为文章的组织形式和内部构造。文章的结构具有两重含义：一是宏观结构，即文章的总体构思、大体框架；二是微观结构，即对文章的层次、段落、开头、结尾、过渡、照应和主次的具体设计。

2.了解结构的作用结构好比文章的骨架，是安排文章的具体形式，是将材料化为文章的手段之二。结构是表现主题的手段，是准确表达主题的必由之路，也是引导读者领会文章思想内容的向导。写文章只有找到恰当完美的结构形式，才能把主题和材料组合在一起，形成一个完美有机的整体。其作用具体表现在：

（１）使文章言之有体。应用文大多有较固定的结构形态，它是人们在长期写作实践中经过选择，逐步找到的最适合表现某种内容的最佳形式，也称之为“程式”。如简报、书信和行政公文类文书，具有相当固定的惯用格式。

（２）使文章言之有序。合理安排文章结构，就是根据一定的思路，将零散的材料组织起来，使之眉目清楚地成为一个有机的整体。

（３）使文章言之有文。精心安排文章结构，可以增加文章的文采，从而增强其可读性。

二、安排结构的条件

1.了解思路的含义及思路与结构的关系

在文章结构的两重含义中，总体构思是具体设计的前提和基础。总体构思也就是人们常说的“言有序”，是指对材料的安排要有次序，这体现了作者的思路。思路是安排结构的条件。

1、思路的含义

思路是作者思维活动的路线，是作者在头脑中梳理、组织内容材料的过程和结果。它是作者对客观事物自身条理性的观察、理解。

作者思路清晰，结构必然有条不紊；作者思路不清晰，结构必然紊乱。经过选择的材料，只有经过合理的组织安排，使之条理化、系统化，组成一个有机的整体，才能准确鲜明地表现既定的主题。

2、思路与结构的关系

在写作构思阶段，作者的思维活动异常活跃。确立主题，选择好材料，并进而考虑如何表达主题和如何安排材料，由此逐渐形成一条清晰、连贯、独到的思维活动路线——思路。此时，文章的大体框架已在作者的头脑中“闪现”出来。等到作者用书面语言把思路表达出来时，文章的结构也就具体安排好了。因此，作者思路与文章结构的关系极为密切。具体表现为以下三点：

（１）思路是形成结构的基础和内核。结构是文章最主要的表现形式。要使结构完整、严谨、匀称，动笔前，就需要作者匠心独运，形成清晰、连贯并具独创性的思路，进而“外化”成纲目清晰、严谨周密的结构。但是，文章反映客观事物，决不是对其原始形态的简单搬抄和复制，而是在符合客观事物发展规律基础上的主观创造。因此，不同的作者。不同的文体有不同的思路。思路开阔而有创见，文章的结构就新颖独特；思路狭窄而落俗，会使文章的结构板滞僵死；思路紊乱，文章的条理就必然不清；思路松散，文章的结构就不可能严密紧凑。（２）结构是思路的体现和反映。结构是思路的外显形式和文字载体。思路严密清晰，文章结构才能完整、严谨、清晰，主题才能得以准确地表达；思路紊乱、疏漏和闭塞，文章则会逻辑混乱、言而无序、首尾不能圆合。

2.了解锻炼思路的基本要求及锻炼思路的方法

（１）注意思路的条理性和逻辑性，使之清晰、周密、连贯。清晰，指展开思路要有顺序、有层次，同时对材料要加以区分和归类。周密，指思路要周到、严密，没有疏漏和缺损，不要顾此失彼，自相矛盾。连贯，指思维活动过程及其表达不仅要注意外在的次序，而且要处理好各个意思之间存在的衔接、并列、转折、因果、总分等内在联系，做到气脉贯通、流畅。

（２）注意思路的灵活性、独创性，使之活跃、开阔、敏捷。活跃与开阔，是指思路的开展要打破思维定势，进行多向探索，使之灵活、新颖而富有个性。敏捷是指思路的展开、梳理直至成型这一过程应该灵敏、迅速，使文章结构紧凑、气势流转而顺畅。

（３）养成良好的思维习惯。一是养成有序思考问题的习惯，由浅入深、由表及里、由此及彼。二是加强逻辑思维能力的训练。应用写作主要靠逻辑思维，要遵循“提出问题——分析问题——解决问题”这一认识规律。

（４）写作前要通盘思考，立足于写作意图、目的和所用文体特点，确定如何起笔，主体分几个部分展开，怎样收尾。

在考公共基础知识时需要进行写作，那么应该如何写作呢？下面是小编分享给大家的范文，希望对大家有帮助。

一、请仔细阅读下面的材料，并根据作答要求作文;

曾有人做过实验，将一只最凶猛的鲨鱼和一群热带鱼放在同一个池子，然后用强化玻璃隔开。最初，鲨鱼每天不断冲撞那块看不到的玻璃，奈何这只是徒劳，它始终不能过到对面去，而实验人员每天都有放一些鲫鱼在池子里，所以鲨鱼也没缺少猎物，只是它仍想到对面去，每天仍是不断地冲撞那块玻璃，它试了每个角落，每次都是用尽全力，但每次也总是弄得伤痕累累，有好几次都浑身破裂出血，持续了好一些日子，每当玻璃一出现裂痕，实验人员马上加上一块更厚的玻璃。

后来，鲨鱼不再冲撞那块玻璃了，对那些斑斓的热带鱼也不再在意，好像他们只是墙上会动的壁画，它开始等着每天固定会出现的鲫鱼，然后用它敏捷的本能进行狩猎，好像回到海中不可一世的凶狠霸气，但这一切只不过是假像罢了。

实验到了最后的阶段，实验人员将玻璃取走，但鲨鱼却没有反应，每天仍是在固定的区域游着，它不但对那些热带鱼视若无睹，甚至于当那些鲫鱼逃到那边去，他就立刻放弃追逐，说什么也不愿再过去。

实验结束了，实验人员讥笑它是海里最懦弱的鱼，可是失恋过的人都知道为什么，它怕痛。

要求：(1)自选角度，自拟题目

(2)联系实际

(3)写一篇不少于800字的议论文

(4)请在主观题答题卡上作答

二、【写作参考答案】

【解析】这属于寓言故事的出题方式，主要是围绕鲨鱼，面对强化玻璃在历经失败过后，产生相对安逸的思维，等到危机困难真正解除，却不能迎接之前的目标，想告诉我们，面对失败挫折，应该积极面对，不能退而求其次，因此，这篇文章立意是应对挫折，获得辉煌。

结合日常生活中的生活经验，可以从良好心态、激发个人潜能、调整人生目标方面进行论述。

历经挫折 迎接辉煌

贝多芬曾说过：“苦难是人生的老师，通过苦难，走向欢乐。”人的一生不能没有老师，就如同不能没有挫折一样。遭遇挫折，是人生常态，就像四季轮回、秋去冬来一样，是事物发展的客观规律，非人力所能避免。挫折是一个火药桶，点燃它会给人们带来苦难，带来不幸，带来失利;同时坐车又是一把金钥匙，拿着它会打开成功的大门，踏上人生的巅峰，通往幸福的天堂。因此，正确面对挫折，才能迎来新的篇章。

笑对挫折，能够培育良好心态，享受生活。人生之路不是一马平川，有坦途就有坎坷，有甜蜜就有苦涩。人生之路，从来都与挫折相伴而行。然而，挫折对于强者来说是一块块垫脚石，是通向成功的一级级阶梯;对于弱者则是一道道绊脚石，会把弱者跌得鼻青脸肿。

挫折，有时候也会像一座沙漠，试图使人迷失方向。然自信者手中始终会握着一枚“指南针”，他永远不会迷失方向，勇往直前地向着目标进发;而失意者整天却像一个无头苍蝇，撞到哪儿算哪儿，一辈子也走不出“沙漠”。要想享受生活，就要正确对待挫折，时时怀着得意淡然、失意坦然的乐观态度，笑对自己的挫折和苦难，去做，去努力，去争取!

笑对挫折，能够激发个人潜能，助力成长。挫折是积累经验的必修课，是走向成熟的催化剂，是收获果实的剪刀手。数风流人物，都是历经挫折方成宏图伟业。勾践卧薪尝胆终成一代枭雄;马云买保险的失败，造就阿里巴巴;刘伟电断双臂与白血病的次次打击，但终成“双脚弹琴小王子”。然而，生活中小学生因暑假作业未完成而崩溃跳楼的例子引人深思。究其原因在生活过于一帆风顺，没有遭受过挫折。因此，有意无意遭受点滴挫折，可以使我们告别安逸，在风雨中接受洗礼，从而拥有自己的一片新天地。

笑对挫折，能够调整人生目标，实现梦想。歌德用尽半生学画无成，面对人生不断碰壁，及时调整了人生目标，在文学道路上做出一番成就。孙中山青年时悬壶济世，最后发现治一人不能拯救全社会，于是转而投身革命，终于成就了令世人敬佩的事业。老子云：“知人者智，自知者明;胜人者有力，自胜者强。”古人在千百年前就告诉我们要正确地认识自己，才能变得智慧和强大。但是，每个人都无法直接预料到适合干什么，只有在不断的遭遇挫折不断进行调整，找到最适合自己的路，最适合穿的鞋。

“不经一番寒彻骨，哪的梅花扑鼻香”启示大家梅花妖娆美丽的获得是经过冰冷的寒冬。

同样，个人的成才也需要勉面临不断的碰壁，需要展现乐观态度与艰难选择的切合之魅，最后在挫折中使自己不断成熟。

[公共基础知识作文写作

It is generally believed that a high diploma guarantees a promising future. Some people identify high diplomas with profound knowledge and exceptional competence. Companies also tend to emphasize the academic achievement of a job candidate. Like it or not, there does exist a social reality – the higher diplomas one gets, the more popular he becomes。

On the contrary, other people claim that a high diploma doesn’t automatically translate into knowledge. A diploma, in their eyes, is only the acknowledgment of one’s educational experience rather than a guarantee of one’s ability. Therefore, we can never measure the depth of one’s knowledge by the grade of one’s diploma. Besides, many knowledgeable people don’t have a high diploma. Take Bill Gates for example. His dropping out of college cannot deny the fact that he is one of the world’s most learned men。

So I must say no one should ever equate a diploma with knowledge, because a diploma is nothing but a proof of a short-term study while genuine knowledge needs one’s lifelong devotion。

一、记叙文的特点与结构模式

1.记叙文的特点

记叙文是以叙述、描写为主要表达方式,以记人、叙事、写景、状物为基本职能,对社会生活中的人、事、景物的状态及其变化发展进行叙述和描写的文章样式。常见的散文、报告文学、消息、海报、通讯、特写、游记、人物传记、回忆录,以及一部分书信、日记、情况报告、调查报告、人物事迹材料等都可归入记叙文之列。

其特点有四个:(1)全面真实,没有虚构。(2)要素全面,选材典型。(3)以叙述、描写为主要表达方式。(4)语言生动活泼,富于表现力。

2.记叙文的结构模式

记叙文一般都是由开头、主体、结尾三部分组成。

(1)开头——事件或行为、情感的发端。

(2)主体——事件或行为、情感的发展。

(3)结尾——事件或行为、情感的结果与启迪。

二、议论文的特点与结构模式

1.议论文的特点

议论文是以议论为主要表达方式,通过摆事实、讲道理、辨是非确定某种观点的正确与谬误,树立或否定某种主张的文章样式。常见的科学论文、杂文、文艺评论、政论文(有关政治问题的讲话、会议报告、发言、宣言、声明、社论、演讲词〉等都属于议论文体。其特点是:(1)直接表达作者的思想观点。(2)以议论为主要表达方式,辅以说明、叙述等。(3)内容重在说理,坚持摆事实,讲道理,以理服人。(4)其构成要素包括论点、论据和论证过程三个方面。(5)语言要讲求准确、简练、逻辑性强。

2.议论文的结构模式

议论文以确定或反驳一种论点的方式实现其写作目的,它所表现的是一个合乎逻辑的推理过程,其篇章结构模式一般为:

(1)开头——引论

这部分内容用于提出一个令人关注的问题或指明形成这一问题的情境,具体内容可以是其中的一项或几项。

①直接提出问题或阐述观点;

②指明讨论问题的目的、意义、原因;

③从对有关背景材料的介绍说明中引出论题;④概述全文轮廓,提出中心论点等。

SCI论文，即为被SCI索引收录的期刊所刊登的论文，小编收集了SCI论文写作基础结构，欢迎阅读

标题：SCI论文写作的标题必须符合文章内容而简明、准确表达论文的性质和目的。文题要相扣、标题通常由名词性短语构成，如果出现动词，多为分词或动名词形式。标题不能太长，一般希望一篇论文标题不要超过100个英文字符。

摘要：SCI论文写作的的摘要重在说明全文通过什么样的方法取得什么样的结果，资料数据，提出有意义的结论(包括阳性及阴性)。具体按四要素来书写中、英文摘要：目的、方法、结果、结论。结论中、英文内容要一致。摘要以200-300字为宜。关键词5条。英文摘要也应包括文题、作者姓名(汉语拼音)、单位名称、所在城市名等。作者应列出前3位，3位以上加序言：过去研究的情况、方法、目的和所获得的主要成果或特点。此处不宜超过100～200字。

引言：SCI论文写作的引言部分提出课题背景，总结前人研究成果、现实情况及存在问题，采取适当的方式强调本人在本次研究中最重要的发现或贡献。

材料和方法：这是SCI论文写作的执行科研的关键之处，对于要进行的研究工作，必须按照实际情况，在事先选择好适合一定条件、数量的研究对象采用的特定实验、诊断或治疗方法(包括实验步骤、方法、器材试剂、药品)，经过一定时期的观察，相同条件下的对照组，与他人结果比较并综合分析。如果审稿者认为实验材料和方法有缺陷，则该论文的设计也有缺陷。其结果是该论文被拒绝，其重点在于完整的描述。

结论：将原始资料全部集中起来，随机、客观地加以分析，不用特意地加以挑选。对于一些阴性结果，不必全部列出。尽量组织严密，符合逻辑、进行对比观察，在检验过程中不一样地方加以修正、补充。SCI论文写作在结论的问题中避免以假设来证明假设，以未知来说明未知，并依次循环推论。

讨论：SCI论文写作的精髓，主要是研究结果的解释和推断。概述实验条件的优缺点，本人结果与其他学者结果的异同，突出新发现、新发明;解释因果关系，说明偶然性与必然性;急需研究的方向和存在的主要问题。说明研究局限性对结果的影响。

致谢：SCI论文写作的致谢部分主要表明该研究是什么资金或基金资助的情况下完成的并对参与人员和单位表示感谢即可。

参考文献：所列参考文献的目的，在于引证资料(观点、方法等)的来源，不可随意转抄。一般要求引用文献者必须用阅读过的重要的、近年的文献为准。论著10条左右，论著摘要5条，综述20条左右，参考文献的引用要根据收录参考文献的原则。

SCI论文写作基础结构内容由“辑文编译”整理，转载请请注明出处!

广州辑文汇聚了来自全球著名100多所顶尖高等教育学府的600多名各专业博士团队的雄厚学术力量，主要为非英语国家科研工作者提供SCI论文写作发表﹑医学论文润色编辑和各类科研设计相关服务。

SCI journal editors to teach you how to write SCI thesis

SCI paper, how to write? General can be divided into the title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, references eight parts.

Title: the nature and purpose of SCI writing title must conform to article content and concise, accurate expression of the. The title of the paper to buckle, the title is usually composed of noun phrases, if the verb, participle or a gerund form for. The title can not be too long, generally want a paper title not more than 100 English character.

Abstract: the abstract is writing SCI papers by what kind of method to obtain what kind of result, data, put forward meaningful conclusion (including positive and negative). According to four to have written, English Abstract: objective, method, result, conclusion. The conclusion, English content should be consistent. Abstract of 200-300 words. Keywords 5. English abstract should also include the title, author name (Pinyin), unit name, city name. The author lists the top 3, 3 plus Preface: main achievements or past research situation, method, purpose and the. Here is more than 100 ~ 200 words.

Introduction: SCI the introduction of writing this topic background, summing up the results of previous studies, the reality of the situation and the existing problems, take appropriate means to emphasize my most important in this research discovery or contribution.

Materials and methods: This is a key point to SCI thesis writing research, for to carry out the research work, must be in accordance with the actual situation, in a good choice for certain conditions, the number of subjects with specific experimental, diagnostic or therapeutic methods (including pre experiment steps, methods, equipment, reagents, drugs), after observation of a certain period of time, the control group under the same conditions, and other results and analysis. If reviewers that the experimental materials and methods have drawbacks, then design the defective. The result is the thesis is rejected, the focus is to complete description.

Conclusion: will concentrate all the original data, random, objective analysis, dont have to choose. For some negative results, not all. As organized, logical, were observed and compared, in the inspection process is not the same place revision, supplement. SCI thesis writing in order to avoid the assumption that assumption in the conclusion of the unknown, to illustrate the unknown, and in turn circular reasoning.

Discussion: SCI thesis writing essence, is to interpret and infer the results. The advantages and disadvantages of the experimental conditions, the similarities and differences of himself with other scholars results, highlighting the new discovery, new invention; explain the causal relationship, the contingency and inevitability; urgent research direction and the main problems. The effect of limitations on the results.

Acknowledgements: SCI thesis writing acknowledgements part mainly shows the research is funded what funds or funds under the condition of complete and expressed thanks to the participation of personnel and units.

Reference: the column reference purposes, in the citation data (point, etc.) sources, can not be copied. General requirements cited references must be used to read important, recent documents shall prevail. On the 10 or so, on the 5, in about 20, for reference according to the included reference principle.

The above content by text compiled finishing, reprint please indicate the source! Series Guangzhou Wenhui together strong academic strength from the world famous more than 100 top institution of higher education, more than 600 professional doctoral team, mainly for non English speaking countries, scientific research workers to provide SCI thesis writing medical papers published, Polish editing and all kinds of scientific research design service.

【提要】英语四六级四级信息 : 20176月英语四级写作高分黄金句式【1】

▌列举法

列举法是四级写作中常用的方法，一般用first, second等一系列标志词引出原因或者可能的影响等。列举法常用的素材有：

引出列举

1. There may be a combination of factors which contribute to/are responsible for/can explain ______. 也许有一些因素造成/可以解释______。

2. There are probably three/many/several/a variety of reasons for this dramatic/significant increase/decline in ______.引起______显著增长/下降的原因有三个/许多/几个/很多。

3. Some reasons can explain this trend. 一些原因可以解释这一趋势。

4. Why ______ ?为什么______?

5. The causes of ______ are varied. They include______ , perhaps the main cause is ______. 造成______的原因有很多，包括______,主要原因可能是______。

6. The reason for this is not far to seek. 这一问题的原因不难发现。

7. It is no easy task to identify the reasons for this phenomenon which involves several complicated factors. 要找出这一现象的原因并非易事，因为它涉及若干复杂的因素。

8. There are numerous reasons why ______, and I would explore only a few of the most important ones here. ______的原因有很多，这里我只想探讨其中几个最重要的原因。

9. There are many reasons responsible for this phenomenon, and the following are the typical ones. 导致这种现象的原因有很多，以下是其中比较有代表性的。

10. There are many reasons explaining this case. As for me, I regard the following as the typical ones. 有很多原因可以解释该问题。就我而言，我认为以下原因比较典型。

11. A number of factors could account for/contribute to/lead to/result in the change of ______. 引起______变化的因素有很多。

分条列举

1. In the first place, ______. In the second place______ .首先，______。其次，______。

2. First,______ . Second, ______ . 首先，______。其次，______。

3. To begin with, ______. Secondly, ______. Last but not least, ______.首先，______。其次，______。最后但并不是最不重要的，______。

4. The first reason is that ______. The second one is ______. The third is ______. 第一个原因是______。第二个原因是______。第三个原因是______。

5. First of all, ______. Secondly,______ . Furthermore,______ .首先，______。其次，______。另外，______。

6. For one thing, ______. For another, ______.一方面,______。另一方面，______。

7. Firstly, ______. Secondly, ______. Thirdly, ______.首先，______。其次，______。再次，______。

8. Another reason why I disagree with the above statements is that I believe______.我不同意上述观点的另一个原因是我认为______。

▌对比法

对比法是指通过对比两种截然不同的观点来陈述其中的利弊，从而得出自己的结论。对比法常用的素材有：

1. The advantages gained in ______ outweigh/are much g

一、写作常用谚语

1.A friend in need is a friend indeed.患难见真情。

2.Easier said than done.说来容易做时难。

3.Honesty is the best policy.诚实为上策。

4.One swallow does not make a summer.一燕不成夏。

5.To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.学而不思，犹如食而未化。

6.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.只工作不玩耍，聪明的孩子也变傻。

7.Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.早睡早起使人健康、富裕、聪明。

二、写作常用词组(政治类)

1.review the course of struggle回顾奋斗历程

2.integrate theory with practice把理论和实际结合起来

3.practice new policies实行新政策

4.urge governments of all countries to take action主张各国政府采取行动

5.enhance the rally power增强凝聚力

三、写作常用词组(经济类)

1.handicap( hamper ) the economic development阻碍经济发展

2.speed up efforts to加快努力

3.prepare oneself against possible risks加强风险防范

4.form/ pose a threat to…对……造成/构成威胁

5.deepen the reform深化改革

6.be accused of accepting bribes被指控接受贿赂

7.cause a loss to造成损失

8.accelerate the competition加快竞争步伐

9.occupy( take/ account for ) 10 percent of the market占领市场10%

10.list…as fundamental national policies把……列为基本国策

四、写作常用词组(文化类)

1.carry out mass activities on culture开展群众性文化活动

2.push forward human civilization推动人类文明进步

3.enter the new century with a brand-new colorful look以全新面貌进入新世纪

4.exchange visiting scholars互派访问学者

5.give a big push to the development of education有力地推动教育发展

6.hold an annual academic meeting举行每年一次学术会议

7.improve teaching and learning改进教学

五、写作常用词组(生态环保类)

1.prevent and control pollution防治污染

2.advocate green activities开展绿色活动

3.perfect the construction of urban infrastructure完善城市基础设施建设

4.implement strict vehicle emission standards实行严格机动车排放标准

5.participate in the reconstruction of the city参加城市重建

6.enjoy first-class protection of the State享受国家一级保护

7.result in a series of problems引发一系列问题

六、写作常用词组(人口类)

1.reflect people’s private lives反映人们私生活

2.undermine the authority of the older generation逐渐削弱长辈权威

3.damage the morality of human society损害人类社会道德观

4.respect and guarantee human rights尊重和保障人权

5.the population of urban residents rise by…城市人口比例上升

5.encourage the idea of “ civilized families”鼓励创建文明家庭

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.

作为一位语文教师的我们常常会遇到让人头疼不以的问题，那就是作文教学是小学语文教学中的重点、难点，大家都迫切希望孩子们个个能妙笔生花,可偏偏学生交上来的作文语句空洞，缺乏美感，甚至于连语句的组织都有很大的问题。面对着一大段疙疙瘩瘩，辞不答意的句子，着实让我们语文老师无从入手，只能做一个深呼吸，耐着性子帮助学生先把句子整理通顺。而学生们也把写作视作最令人头疼的问题，常常看见他们咬着铅笔头，捧着脑袋想个半天也写不了几行字。

如何解决这一难题呢？

S版的语文教材以及现行的新教材都采用了许多措辞优美，深得小朋友喜爱的文章。如果学生能将先这些语言化为自己的，那将为他们的说话甚至于写作添上深动的一笔。我主张让学生多背诵课文，将课文中优美的词句画为自己的语言。

本学期语文教材中第一、第二单元有两篇文字特别优美的课文《啊！故乡那轮明月》、《我爱三峡》。两篇文章的共同点就是运用了大量的比喻句将故乡的那轮明月，将雄伟壮观的瞿塘峡、幽深秀美的巫峡、急流险滩的西岭峡描写的美仑美涣。在这两节课的教学中，我尝试了重视朗读指导，由读到背，从而达到积累的目的。

一、营造美的意境，加强朗读指导

要使学生背出课文首先要让学生喜欢课文。于是，课前，我搜取了一些图片，让学生边听课文，边欣赏有关图片，给学生留下感性认识。

其次，我在出示了课文中优美句子后，和学生们一起配合朗读句子。我在朗读时，有意地加重了语气，给学生一个明显的提示，为学生处理句子的感情提供了示范。

然后我引导学生从一个分句到一句话再到一小节逐一体会句子的感情色彩，从而有感情地进行朗读。这样一来，便有助于学生在理解的基础上积累语言。

二、由读到背，熟读成颂

在学生有感情地朗读之后，我便设计了一个环节由老师有感情地背诵课文。为了给学生一个良好的示范，让他们主动地想背课文，我花一些工夫，逐字逐句地分析，处理感情使学生陶醉在老师的朗读中，并对背诵课文跃跃欲试。

背诵的形式也要多种多样，这样才能吸引学生的注意力。我采用了个别背，男女生比赛，小组合作等多种形式，不仅调动了学生的积极性，而且参与面也大大提高。

当然，无论是朗读课文还是背诵课文，背景音乐是少不了的，优美的音乐不仅能使学生放松心情，而且，最重要的是能让学生受到感染，自然地发挥感情，比就让学生干巴巴地背诵课文效果要好得多。

我真诚地希望通过课堂中的积累，能为学生们打下扎实的写作基础，让她们不用在为写作而烦恼。

初中生活转眼间已经过去近两个月的时间，学得不亦乐乎的我们，迎来了第三次英语考试。经历了几次失败的我，仍以满怀信心的态度迎接了这次考试。

“叮铃铃……”，一声清脆的上课铃声响起。等了许久，不见老师走进教室，于是音乐委员孙雅欣起了一首《小情歌》，我们在一片歌声中等待着老师的到来。随着一句“写下，我时间和轻琴声交错的城堡。”，这一首歌就算唱完了，老师也出现在了教室门口。只见$2老师手握一沓卷子，神情庄重地走上了讲台，双手撑在桌子上，宣布：“这节课考英语。”说罢，她粉红的脸上露出一丝微笑，我们知道那是对我们的鼓励，可仅仅是简单的鼓励吗?不，我想不是的，那更是对我们必胜的信心。

时间很紧，仅有一节课，听力又要浪费不少的时间，我和熊瑞林这些急性子自然不会放松。握起笔杆，本来悠闲的心在这时突然紧张起来。环视四周：有的人怕时间不够而奋笔疾书，有的人怕书写不好而轻描慢写;有的人因题目简单而早早做完，有的人因不会做题而乱抓纸团;有的人紧握笔杆从容地答题，有的人东借尺子西借橡皮。$2老师没有为此苦恼，而是欣慰的笑了笑，因为她知道，让有人作弊和人很乱比起来，当然是后者更让人人心舒畅。我从容地握起了笔杆，猛然开始飞速答题，与三分钟前的闲谈形成了鲜明的对比，钟上秒针的抖动还不及我笔尖的一小半儿速度快，填上了几个“A”、“B”、“C”，写上了几个“That”和“This”,一张英语试卷就完成了。匆匆扫视了几眼，无聊至极的我便

翻开数学书，打开作业本，开始悠闲地做起数学作业，猛啃那绝对值·····数学还剩一点儿，听力又开始了。该快不快，该慢不慢的不说，报之前还按门铃。我拜托，磁带大哥，这是让你报听力，可没有让你挨家挨户拜年啊!况且，离新年还远呢!我不耐烦的听着磁带，做着听力，就在最后一道题时，慢吞吞的它一反常态，像吃了火药一样，我们还没反应过来就报完了，第二遍也一样，它以迅雷不及掩耳之势完成了自己的使命，可我们班内呢?一片鬼哭狼嚎，想时光倒转，再听几遍，可现实就是这么残酷，就在这时，该死的下课铃响了起来，顿时一片哀求。

考罢，我问到了自己的分数：118!全班最高!结果老师又加一句：别的班有120的，我想唱的“我得意的笑”，却变成了“只要你考得比我好，我就受不了”，带着一点哀叹，这场考试算是过去了。

什么是互文，今天小编告诉你。

互文是一种修辞手法，又叫互辞，互参。

在古代汉语中，上下两句或一句话中的两个部分，看似各说一件事，实则是互相呼应，互相阐发，互相补充，说的是一件事。解释时要把上下句的意思互相补足，否则就会理解出错。

比如：

“将军百战死，壮士十年归”。——《木兰诗》

如果翻译成“将军经过百战之后都战死了，回来的都是久经战场的壮士”，我们明显可以感觉到逻辑上讲不通，就是因为它用了互文的修辞手法。这一句是说：“将军和壮士经历了很多年征战，有的战死，有的归来”

应该翻译成“将军和壮士们经过多年征战，有的光荣殉国，有的载誉而归”

互文的表现形式：

同句互文。即在同一个句子里出现的互文。

比如：

1.朝晖夕阴。 ——《岳阳楼记》

意思是“朝晖夕阴”和“朝阴夕晖”。“朝”和“夕”、“晖”和“阴”是互文。

以下句子也都一样。

2.“秦时明月汉时关” 。“秦”和“汉”是互相补充。

3.“主人下马客在船”

4.“东船西舫悄无言”

5.“东犬西吠”

二、邻句互文。即在相邻的句子里出现互文!

比如：

1.不以物喜，不以己悲。——《岳阳楼记》

意思是 不因“物”﹝所处的环境﹞或“己”﹝个人的遭遇﹞而喜，也不因“物”或“己”而悲。)

2.将军百战死，壮士十年归

补充材料。

古代汉语中对互文修辞的解释是：“参互成文，含而见文。”具体地说，互文的特征是“文省而意存”，主要表现在两个方面：

一、结构特征：互省。比如上面例子。

二、语义特征：互补。比如“当窗理云鬓，对镜贴花黄”——《木兰诗》。

The winter solstice, the winter solstice as the "holiday" in han dynasty, the rulers to congratulate ceremony known as "He Dong", official holidays, routine officialdom popular each "winter" worship custom. "Were" has such records: "before and after the winter solstice, the gentleman place static body, baiguan, scenes, and then pick an auspicious day Chen save trouble." So on the court and off to rest, to the army on standby, frontier retreat, business travel out of business, family and all distinctions to food, visit each other, a joyous festival "place static body". When in the six dynasties, the winter solstice is called "the age", people to elders to extend holiday greetings to your parents; After the song dynasty, the winter solstice festival gradually become the sacrifice to ancestors and gods.

Tang and song period, the winter solstice is to worship the day of worship ancestors, the emperor held outside the day to worship, the people in this day to the parents or elders worship. Ming and qing dynasties, the emperor have to worship, of "winter solstice jiao days". There has to be given to a emperor, table officials ritual, but also to each other for congratulations, like New Years day.

Winter festival also called yesterday, hand in winter. It is one of the 24 solar terms, is a traditional festival of China, have "the winter solstice as big as a year". Winter solstice supplements, is Chinas traditional customs, folksay: fill a lump-sum winter, in the coming year without pain. Summer volts, winter lump-sum. The winter solstice mend, nutrients.

冬至到了，汉代以冬至为“冬节”，官府要举行祝贺仪式称为“贺冬”，官方例行放假，官场流行互贺的“拜冬”礼俗。《后汉书》中有这样的记载：“冬至前后，君子安身静体，百官绝事，不听政，择吉辰而后省事。”所以这天朝廷上下要放假休息，军队待命，边塞闭关，商旅停业，亲朋各以美食相赠，相互拜访，欢乐地过一个“安身静体”的节日。魏晋六朝时，冬至称为“亚岁”，民众要向父母长辈拜节;宋朝以后，冬至逐渐成为祭祀祖先和神灵的节庆活动。

唐、宋时期，冬至是祭天祀祖的日子，皇帝在这天要到郊外举行祭天大典，百姓在这一天要向父母尊长祭拜。明、清两代，皇帝均有祭天大典，谓之“冬至郊天”。宫内有百官向皇帝呈递贺表的仪式，而且还要互相投刺祝贺，就像元旦一样。

冬至节亦称冬节、交冬。它既是二十四节气之一，是中国的一个传统节日，曾有“冬至大如年”的说法。冬至进补，是我国传统风俗，俗语云：三九补一冬，来年无病痛。夏养三伏，冬补三九。冬至补一补,一年精气足。

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

日前，全国大学英语四、六级考试网站发布消息称，为进一步提高听力测试的效度，2016年6月考试起将对四、六级考试的听力试题作局部调整：已经使用多年的的短对话和短文听写题型将退出历史舞台。取而代之的是：新增3段短篇新闻，与英语专业四级新闻听力题型一致;新增3篇讲座文章，与托福听力题型完全一致，听力难度或将大大增加。

解读：

四六级听力将调整是为了进一步提高听力测试的效度。2016年6月考试起四六级听力将调整：已经使用多年的的短对话和短文听写题型将退出历史舞台，取而代之的是新闻听力和学术讲座。

四六级听力将调整：四级听力新增3段短篇新闻

四六级听力将调整：六级听力取消短对话和短文听写

从每年的考试情况来看，很多同学能完整地按照要求把文章写出来，但得分却较低。实际上，高考英语书面表达是一个分值颇高且易得分的题型，只是很多同学没有掌握得分技巧。下面我们一起看看怎样才能让高考作文拽起来。

一、几点重要原则

1.智者利用押题，傻子依赖押题!

2.书面表达整篇背诵绝无必要，可以以看读为主，关键是从中汲取一些常用的词汇和表达，并能得体熟练地运用。考场上应变能力很重要!

3.英文写作模仿很重要。有时也很有效。但不能过于牵强，尤其是对一些长难句的刻意模仿使用。

4.文似看山不喜平，起承转合一定要有!

5.见微知著，一叶知秋，几个亮点足矣：有道是：浓妆淡抹总相宜，作文写得简洁到位要比长篇大论更显功力。

6.心不为形役。不要身陷逐字逐句英汉对号式的字面翻译，要把表达的主动权始终握在自己手里。

二、善用万能句以不变应万变

历届高考，书面表达考得最多是提示作文，即提供一定的情景内容，要求考生完成100词左右的短文。

从命题方式看，有短文提示、要点提示、图画提示、情景提示以及图表提示等；体裁以应用文为主，记叙文为辅：题材为广大中学生所熟悉的日常生活。从提供要点的情景方面看，历届高考书面表达题均属供料小作文，采用文字供料或文字说明加图画(图表)的方式供料。

备考时，同学们要利用有限的时间把以前背的范文整理一下，从中选出不同体裁、不同题材的范文各一篇(范文以高考真题的高分作文为佳)，把它们重新记忆，一定记牢。这样，高考时不管什么样的文章都可套用背诵好的格式。避免考场上因紧张而无章可循。

最后阶段，还要总结一下写作时常用且能出彩的固定句型、句式，比如强调句型、定语从句、名诃性从句等，牢记英语的五个基本句式，背诵平时老师总结的万能句。以不变应万变。

考场答题前，应仔细审题，研究所提供的文字和图画(图表)材料和作文要求。分析、提炼要点，理顺要点，确立基本的写作思路，不要忽略任何一个词。关键的词更不能遗漏，构思好写几个方面，缺一不可。

写作时，尽量用学过的英语句型和词组。少写长句和复杂句以免弄巧成拙、漏洞百出。但目前高考有关书面表达的评分标准要求作文中应有较多的语法结构和词汇，因此同学们在书面表达中不能都写小句、短句和单句，还要正确运用高级词汇和复杂结构。恰当运用过渡词，使写出来的文章含金量更高，更具可读性。

三、高分作文六大特性

1.条理性。指的是合理安排文章结构。首先，在文章思路、组织材料、叙述顺序等方面要有一定的条理性。其次。根据需要，安排好段落，各段之间要层次分明，也要重视每一段的开头和结尾，开头语往往是总起句，结尾语往往是总结句。

2.准确性。指要求写出语法正确的句子，包括时态、语态、用词和句法等，要准确、地道地表达。必须要牢牢掌握一些常用句型或习惯表达，避免中式英语，在实践中不断总结中英用法的差异，养成用英语思维写作的习惯。

3.流畅性。指根据整篇文章思想的需要，有效采用不同的连接手段，使文章层次清楚、行文连贯。

4.简洁多样性。简洁性就是语言简洁，不重复。多样性就是能随情景内容的变化写出句式多样的语句。这也是新课程标准对写作的评价标准。

5.思想性。新标准对写作的要求，增加了情感因素，在准确流畅表达写作要点的同时，适当增加句子的感情色彩，增加一些人情味，使文章读起来更亲切，完全达到与读者进行交流的目的。

6.美观性。指的是卷面书写规范、清楚、干净、整洁。

四、怎样才能有拽的感觉

1.高考写作的实质变相考查句型与词汇的灵活应用

英语写作不同于语文作文的写作，如果说语文作文是一个自由发挥的舞蹈，那么高考英语写作就是带着枷锁在跳舞。我之所以这样来形容，是因为高考英语写作的内容都已经通过文字、表格、图片这三种形式给定，内容方面，不需要学生进行发挥，大家所需要发挥的就是不要老去给这个不变的内容穿毫无变化的校服(简单句)，而要去穿一些不一样的衣服，让它显得不那么单调，让阅卷老师能看到不同，而那些所谓的衣服也就是多变句型与词汇。

2.写作的评分标准怎么去迎合评卷老师的胃口

我了解到目前很大一部分学生的作文都处在15分左右，写作满分25分，15分也就是个及格分，那么15分和20多分的作文到底差在哪里?这个问题很容易回答。15分的作文中规中矩，该对的都对，包括内容要点的完整，语法与词形的正确，但是全都是简单句子的堆砌，没有任何亮点。而20多分的作文在句型词汇方面就做了很好的包装，它的句子穿的衣服已经不是校服，而是李宁、耐克，或者是阿迪，所以让人觉得很拽，而高考英语写作要的就是这种很拽的感觉。

3.写作提分的三要素句型。连词。高级词汇

句子是我们写作文最大的单位。有了漂亮的句子。用好的连词将其连句成段，再加上一些如星星般亮点词汇的点缀，一篇好的高考英语作文就诞生了。而这三个因素中最容易把握的是句子，最难的是高级词汇，限于大家的词汇还比较有限。一篇文章中出现那么一两个就够了。我们应该把重心放在句型上，因为这个最容易把握。

但是大家又有这样的困惑，学校里老师也给了我们很多的句型啊，动辄成五十上百句的，大家背得挺多，但是面对考试的时候，发现背的那些怎么也用不上。其实不是那些东西没有用，而是它们太干了，就好比一根干骨头，大家嚼起来很没有味。也不知道该把它们往哪里放。

在这里我给大家提供一种比较切实可行、迅速提高的练习方法，在接下来的时间里只要大家按照这个方法来，就一定会有收获。

找出历年真题，一周只需要写两篇。但是要这么来写。

1.把你要写的内容要点用九到十句的汉语表达出来。

2.逐一地进行翻译，不是用简单句。而是要刻意地去想：

(1)可以用什么样的复杂句；

(2)怎样去避开不会的表达，转义。

例如：

这本书是如此的有趣，以至于我读了一遍又一遍。

1.This book was so interest，ing that l read it again and again，

2.This was such an interest，ing book that l read it again andagain，

3.This was s0 jnteresting abook that l read it again and again

4.So interesting was thisbook that l read it again and again

这四句译文当中无疑评卷老师最欣赏的是第四句，因为它用了倒装。

4.如何备考

其实这种思维大家都有。但是没有成为一种思路，让它能在考试中起到作用，那是因为大家练得少。英语写作处在一种很尴尬的境地，一方面大家要分数。但另外一方面大家一个学期里写的作文也就是期中期末的两篇。毫不夸张地说，有的学生上了三年的高中可能只写了六篇作文，所以练习是很重要的，要是现在不练而把高考当练习。那么作文只拿14、15分也合情合理了，到那时你不要骂评卷老师不公平，而应该问问自己备考的时候为什么不多练几篇。时间都是挤出来的，希望大家可以挤出时间来练写作。