高考英语写作高频词汇(经典20篇)

导语：写英语作文最重要的是要有词汇，春节就要到了，你是不是要写春节英语作文了呢?下面是yjbs作文网小编为您收集整理的英语词汇，希望对您有所帮助。

春节 Spring festival n.

农历 Lunar calendar n.

传统 Traditional adj.

节日 Festival n.

饺子 Dumpling n.

年糕 Rice cake n.

象征 Symbolize v.

放松 Relax v.

打扫 Sweep v.

对联 Couplet n.

鞭炮 Firecraker n.

传说 Story n.

驱赶 Drive v.

魔鬼 Devil n.

除夕 The New Years Eve n.

会餐 Dine together v.

主食 Staple food n.

好运 Good luck n.

吉祥 Auspicious adj.

走亲访友 Visit relatives and friends Phrase.

鞠躬 Take a bow v.

祝福 Bless v.

stereotyped concept/opinion (传统观念)

shopping rush (购物热)

tourism-oriented trend (春节旅游化趋势)

spring outing (春游)

the spring festival eve dinner (年夜饭)

spring festival couplets(pasted on gatepost or door panels) (春联)

Variety Show on CCTV-1 (春节联欢晚会)

migrant workers (民工)

home-returning (返乡)

over-loaded transportation during the spring festival (春运)

pay a New Year call (拜年)

the thorough house -cleaning (年前大扫除)

exchange gifts (互换礼物)

traditional entertainment (playing cards， mahjong) (传统娱乐节目，如打扑克，玩麻将)

【Customs】：

过年 Guo-nian; have the Spring Festival

对联 poetic couplet: two successive rhyming lines in poetry

春联 Spring Festival couplets 剪纸 paper-cuts

买年货 special purchases for the Spring Festival ; do Spring Festival shopping

年画 New Year paintings 敬酒 propose a toast

灯笼 lantern: a portable light 烟花 fireworks

爆竹 firecrackers (People scare off evil spirits and ghosts with the loud pop.)

红包 red packets (cash wrapped up in red paper, symbolize fortune and wealth in the coming year.)

舞狮 lion dance (The lion is believed to be able to dispel evil and bring good luck.)

舞龙 dragon dance (to expect good weather and good harvests)

戏曲 traditional opera 杂耍 variety show; vaudeville

灯谜 riddles written on lanterns 灯会 exhibit of lanterns

守岁 staying-up 禁忌 taboo

拜年 pay New Year‘s call; give New Year‘s greetings; New Year‘s visit

去晦气 get rid of the ill- fortune

祭祖宗 offer sacrifices to one‘s ancestors

压岁钱 gift money; money given to children as a lunar New Year gift

【Food names】：

年糕 Nian-gao; rise cake; New Year cake

团圆饭 family reunion dinner 年夜饭 the dinner on New Year‘s Eve

饺子 Jiao-zi; Chinese meat ravioli 八宝饭 eight treasures rice pudding

汤圆 Tang-yuan; dumplings made of sweet rice, rolled into balls and stuffed with either sweet or spicy fillings

糖果盘 candy tray: 什锦糖 assorted candies - sweet and fortune

蜜冬瓜 candied winter melon - growth and good health

西瓜子 red melon seed - joy, happiness, truth and sincerity

金桔 cumquat - prosperity 红枣 red dates - prosperity

糖莲子 candied lotus seed - many descendents to come

糖藕 candied lotus root - fulfilling love relationship

花生糖 peanut candy - sweet

作文不仅仅是语文科目的重头戏也是英语科目的重头戏，就为考生朋友们整理了高考英语作文万能句，希望对大家有帮助!

Recently, the problem of … has aroused people’s concern.

最近，……问题已引起人们的关注.

The Internet has been playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day life. It has brought a lot of benefits but has created some serious problems as well. 互联网已在我们的生活中扮演着越来越重要的角色。它给我们带来了许多好处,但也产生了一些严重的问题。

Nowadays, (overpopulation) has become a problem we have to face.

如今，(人口过剩)已成为我们不得不面对的问题了。

It is commonly believed that … / It is a common belief that …

人们一般认为……

Many people insist that …

很多人坚持认为……

With the development of science and technology, more and more people believe that…

随着科技的发展，越来越多的人认为……

A lot of people seem to think that …

很多人似乎认为……

导语：《绿化树》是张贤亮的《感情的历程――唯物论者启示录》系列小说中的第二部，它是是中国当代文学史上最优秀的作品之一。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的作文素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

“在清水里泡三次，在血水里浴三次，在碱水里煮三次。”阿·托尔斯泰在《苦难的历程》第二部《一九一八年》的题记中，曾用这样的话，形象地说明旧知识分子思想改造的艰巨性。当然，他指的是从沙俄时代过来的资产阶级知识分子。

然而，这话对于曾经生吞活剥地接受过封建文化和资产阶级文化的我和我的同辈人来说，应该承认也是有启迪的。于是，我萌生出一个念头：我要写一部书。这“一部书”将描写一个出身于资产阶级家庭，甚至曾经有过朦胧的资产阶级人道主义和民主主义思想的青年，经过“苦难的历程”，最终变成了一个马克思主义的信仰者。

这“一部书”，总标题为《唯物论者的启示录》。确切地说，它不是“一部”，而是在这总标题下的九部“系列中篇”。现在呈献给读者的这部《绿化树》，就是其中的一部。

大车艰难地翻过嘎嘎作响的拱形木桥，就到了我们前来就业的农场了。木桥下是一条冬日干涸了的渠道。渠坝两旁挺立着枯黄的冰草，纹丝不动，有几只被大车惊起的蜥蜴在草丛中簌簌地乱爬。木桥简陋不堪，桥面铺的黄土，已经被来往的车辆碾成了细细的粉末。黄土下，作为衬底的芦苇把子，龇出的两端参差不齐，几乎耷拉到结着一层泥皮的渠底，以致看起来桥面要比实际的宽度宽得多。然而，车把式仍不下车，尽管三匹马呼哧呼哧地东倒西歪，翻着乞怜的白眼，粗大的鼻孔里喷出一团团混浊的白气，他还是端端正正地坐在车辕上，用磕膝弯紧夹着车底盘，熟练地、稳稳当当地把车赶过像陷阱似的桥面。牲口并不比我强壮。我已经瘦得够瞧的了，一米七八的个子，只有四十四公斤重，可以说是皮包骨头。劳改队的医生在我走下磅秤时咂咂嘴，这样夸奖我：“不错!你还是活过来了。”他认为我能够活下来简直是个奇迹;他有权分享我的骄傲。可是这几匹牲口却没人关心它们。瘦骨嶙峋的大脑袋安在木棍一般的脖子上，眼睛上面都有深窝。它们使劲时，从咧着的嘴里都可以看到被磨损得残缺不全的黄色牙齿。有一匹枣红马的嘴唇还被笼头勒出了裂口，一缕鲜红的血从伤口涔涔流下，滴在车路的沿途，在一片黄色的尘土上分外显眼。

但车把式还是端坐在车辕上，用一种冷漠而略带悒郁的目光望着看不见尽头的远方。有时，有机械地晃动一下手中的鞭子。他每晃动一下，那几匹瘦马就要紧张地抖动抖动耳朵。尤其是那匹嘴唇破裂了的枣红马更为神经质，尽管车把式并不想抽打它。我理解车把式的冷漠与无动于衷：你饿吗?饿着哩!饿死了没有?嗯，那还没有。没有，好，那你就得干活!饥饿，远远比他手中的鞭子厉害，早已把怜悯与同情从人们心中驱赶得一干二净。可是，我终于忍不住了，一边瞧着几匹比我还瘦的牲口，一边用饥荒年代的人能表现出来的最大的和善语气问他：

“海师傅，场部还远么?”

他分明听见了，却不答理我，甚至脸上连一点轻蔑的表情也没有，而这又表示了最大的轻蔑。他穿着半新的黑布棉裤褂，衣裳的袢纽很密，大约有十几个，从上到下齐整的一排，很像十八世纪欧洲贵族服装上的胸饰。虽然拉着他的不过是三匹可怜的瘦马，但他还是有一种雄豪的、威武的神气。

我当然自惭形秽了。轻蔑，我也忍受惯了，已经感觉不到人对我的轻蔑了。我仍然兴致勃勃。今天，是我出劳改队走上新的生活的第一天，按管教干部的说法是，我已经成了“自食其力的劳动者”了。没有什么能使我扫兴的!

确切地说，这只是到了我们前来就业的农场的地界，离有人烟的居民点还远得很。至少现在极目望去还看不见一幢房子。这个农场和劳改农场仅有一渠之隔，但马车从早晨九点钟出发，才走到这里。看看南边的太阳，时光大概已经过中午了吧。这里的田地和渠那边一样，这里的天更和渠那边相同，然而那条渠却是自由与不自由的界线。

车路两边是稻田。稻茬子留得很高。茬口毛茸茸的，一看就知道是钝口的镰刀收割的。难道农场的工人也和我们一样懒，连镰刀也不磨利点?不过我遗憾的不是这个，遗憾的是路两边没有玉米田。如果是玉米田，说不定田里还能找出几个丢失下来的小玉米。遗憾!这里没有玉米田。

太阳暖融融的。西山脚下又像往日好天气时一样，升腾起一片雾霭，把锯齿形的山峦涂抹上异常柔和的乳白色。天上没有云，蓝色的穹窿覆盖着一望无际的田野。而天的蓝色又极有层次，从头顶开始，逐渐淡下来，淡下来，到天边与地平线接壤的部分，就成了一片淡淡的青烟。在天底下，裸露的田野黄得耀眼。这时，我身上酥酥地痒起来了。虱子感觉到了热气，开始从衣缝里欢快地爬出来。虱子在不咬人的时候，倒不失为一种可爱的动物，它使我不感到那么孤独与贫穷——还有种活生生的东西在抚摸我!我身上还养着点什么!大车在丁字路口拐了弯，走上另一条南北向的布满车辙的土路。我这才发现其他几个人并不像我一样呆呆地跟着大车，都不见了。回头望去，他们在水稻田后面的一档田里低着头寻找什么，那模样仿佛在苦苦地默记一篇难懂的古文。糟糕!我的近视眼总使我的行动非常迟缓。他们一定发现了可以吃的东西。我分开枯败的芦苇，越过一条渠，一条沟，尽我最大的力气急走过去时，“营业部主任”正拿着一个黄萝卜，一面用随身带的小刀刮着泥，一面斜睨着我，自满自得地哼哼唧唧：

“祖宗有灵啊——”“祖宗有灵”是劳改农场里遇到好运道时的惯用语。譬如，打的一份饭里有一块没有溶化的面疙瘩;领的稗子面馍馍比别人的稍大;分配到一个比较轻松而又能捞点野食的工作;或是碰着医生的情绪好，开了一张全休或半休的假条……人们都会摇头晃脑地哼唧：“祖宗有灵啊——”这个“啊”字必须拖得很长，带有无尽的韵味，类似俄国人的“乌拉”。

我瞟了一眼：他手中的黄萝卜不小!这家伙总交好运道。“营业部主任”也是“右派”，但听他诉说自己的案情，我却觉得他不应属于“右派”之列，似乎应归于“腐化分子”或“蜕化变质分子”一类才恰当。他自己也感到冤枉，私下里说是百货公司为了完成“反右”任务，把他拿来凑数的。当在“生活检讨会”上，他知道我的高祖、曾祖、祖父、外祖父都是近代和现代的稗官野史上挂了名的人，父亲又是开过工厂的资本家时，会后曾悄悄地带着羡慕的口气对我说：

“像你，才是真正的‘资产阶级右派’哩!浪过世面，吃过香的喝过辣的!像我，从小要饭，后来当了兵，他妈的也成了‘资产阶级右派’!熊!哪怕让我过一天资产阶级的日子，再叫我当‘右派’也不冤哩……”

可是，他并没有从此对我态度好一点，相反，还时时刻刻带着一种刻骨的忌恨嘲讽我，以示他毕竟有个什么地方比我优越。他年龄比我大得多，比我更为衰弱，一脸稀疏肮脏的黄胡须，鼻孔常常挂着两条清鼻涕。他不敢跟我斗力，却把他的外援和好运道在我面前炫耀，以逗引出我的食欲和馋涎。他知道这才是最有效的折磨。我对他也有一种直觉的反感，老想摆脱他却摆脱不了。因为都是“右派”，分组总分在一起。这次释放出来，他也由于家在城市，被开除了公职，又和我一同分到这个农场就业。

这是一块黄萝卜田。和青萝卜田不一样，黄萝卜田里是没有畦垅的，播种时就和撒草籽似的撒得满田都是。撒得密的地方黄萝卜长得细小，挖掘的时候难免有遗漏下的。但这块田已不知被人翻找了多少遍，再加上地冻得梆梆硬，我蹲在地上用手指头抠了许多有苗苗的地方也没找到一个。

“营业部主任”刮完了泥，站在离我不远的地方，和嚼冰糖一样把萝卜嚼得嘎巴嘎巴响，有意把萝卜的清脆、多汁、香甜用响亮的声音渲染得淋漓尽致。

“这萝卜好!还不糠……”他趁咽下一口时，这样赞扬。

这种萝卜只有在田被冻得裂了口的裂缝中才能抠得出来。我是有经验的。我又顺着裂缝细细地寻找了一遍，还是没有找到。那必须是裂缝中恰恰有个黄萝卜，也就是说恰恰有个遗漏下的萝卜长在裂缝中，可想而知，这样的概率非常非常之小。“营业部主任”的好运道就表现在这里!

然而我今天却毫不气恼。我站直腰，宽怀大度地带着勉强的微笑从他面前走过去，斜斜地抄条近路去追赶那辆装着我们行李的大车。

以说明为主是说明文与其他文体从表达方式上区别的标志。下面是小编整理的说明文的写作技巧，欢迎阅读。

一、抓住事物的主要特征，把握说明中心。

所谓特征，就是这一事物区别于其它事物的标志。只有抓住了事物的特征来说事状物，明理显性，才能说得准确，说得深透。

如《苏州园林》一文中，作者紧抓住苏州园林之中有个共同点，就是“务必使浏览者无论站在哪个点上，眼前总是一幅完美的图画”。换句话说，“一切都要为构成完美图画而存在，决不容许有欠美伤美的败笔”。文章先从亭台轩榭的布局，假山池沼的配合，花草树木的映衬，近景远景的层次四个主要方面进行说明，同时又从角落的布置，门窗的雕琢，油漆的调配三个细微的方面进一步表现它的总的特征。可是要想扣住事物的特征，在介绍说明中，必须有选择，有重点。如果面面俱到，结果就会什么事情也说不清楚。

抓住了事物的本质特征，也就抓住了说明的中心。记叙文，议论文，往往带有作者强烈的思想倾向和明显的主观色彩，如茅盾的《白杨礼赞》以白杨枝干的挺拔，力争向上，象征中华民族奋发向上的精神，赞扬敌后军民不屈不挠的气慨。而作为说明文的《杨树》，它的中心是介绍其不同品种的形态、生态、用途和不同特点。由此看来，扣紧说明对象的特征以确保文章中心不偏移，这是说明的要领。写作时，不能凭主观感情作为褒贬事物的标准，而应客观地科学地去说明。

二、根据不同的说明对象，合理安排说明顺序。

说明文的结构方式，应视文明对象的具体情况而定。如《人民英雄纪念碑》就是以纪念碑的方位顺序来组织文章。作者从东西南北四个方位着手，逐面写来，不仅层次清楚，而且使读者获得了有关中国革命的历史知识。《故宫博物院》是以其组成部分的一定顺序安排结构的，作者从天安门写到太和门、神武门，依其建筑的顺序从前至后逐一写来，并重点介绍太和殿、养心殿，使读者对故宫的整体和各个重点建筑都有较明晰的了解。

对于比较深奥的科学原理或比较复杂的事物、现象，在安排说明结构时，可按照人们认识问题逐步深入的思路安排结构。如《向沙漠进军》这篇，就是采用人们认识它们的规律，由浅入深，由具体到抽象的办法，先从读者熟悉的具体事例说起，再追根溯源，讲清成因原理。

实用性说明文大都有固定的结构方式，一般不宜随便变动。而文艺性说明文的结构则灵活多变。如《蜘蛛》先从谜语说起，再从中引出解释的问题。《死海不死》则是先叙述生动的传说故事，然后再介绍死海的形成。无论采用哪一种结构方式，都必须条理清楚，层次分明，重点突出。

三、文字要准确简明，语言要通俗生动。

准确，就是选用恰当的词句，恰如其分地反映出事理的含义和客观事物的本来面目，使人看了明白。如解释“名词”：“表示人或事物的名称的词，叫做名词”。解释“固体”：“有一定体积、而且有一定形状的物体叫做固体”。读者在这里对“名词”、“固体”的概念就可以得到确切的了解。如《蜘蛛》一文中，在介绍蜘蛛腹内的五种腺体的名称(壶状腺、葡萄状腺、腹合腺、管状腺、梨状腺)及功能时，作者采用当时的研究成果，运用了生物学中有关术语，在介绍蜘蛛捕捉蛟、蚋等小虫时，指出它把小虫“咬在‘嘴’里”，这里的“嘴”，实际上是指蜘蛛的第一对附肢——螯肢，它的前端变钩状，很锐利，尖端有小孔，跟这对附肢基部的毒腺相通，毒腺能分泌毒液。许多蜘蛛就是用交叉的螯肢(毒牙)来咬 昆虫的;它并非通常意义上的嘴，所以用引号标明;而在介绍落网中甲虫的拼搏时，这样写道：“它的六条腿东一推，西一撑;蜘蛛好容易把这条腿缚住，那条腿又伸了出来”。准确、生动、传神地写出了甲虫与蜘蛛激烈抗争的场面。

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

导语：我对火车有着极深的热爱，总感觉它有一种跟情怀相关的东西，慢悠悠地荡漾开来。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的作文素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

我对火车有着极深的热爱，总感觉它有一种跟情怀相关的东西，慢悠悠地荡漾开来。

一位名人，聊起自己当年对火车的感受，说起这么一个细节。大学毕业时，他去看望即将分手的女友，想挽回一段感情，但“到底留不住被抛弃的命运”，失望而归，登上返程的火车。那时的绿皮火车很慢，缓慢开动时，门也未关，他突然瞥见女友出现在站台，躲在一根柱子后忍不住抽泣，他心里一动，一下就跳下火车……那虽然是一段有始无终的感情，但因了火车，记住了一段年少轻狂的岁月。

《山居杂忆》中提起小时候跟父母一起坐火车，从杭州到上海，沿途小站都停，小孩子容易入睡，睡一会儿醒来，桌子上摆满了玫瑰酥糖、葱管糖，长安镇的特产，站台上买的;经过嘉兴，站台上可以买到南湖菱、嘉兴粽;再到另一个小站，又可以买到松江的酱烧猪蹄筋、酱麻雀，盛在用细竹编的小篓子里……车厢里满满的惊喜和生活气息。到开饭的时间了，餐车还送来热腾腾的鸡蛋炒饭，满车的葱香味，小孩们最爱……那时的生活大概是接地气些吧，回忆中总有香气。

读《繁花》时，我最喜欢其中那段对于慢火车的描写：

“江南晓寒，迷蒙细雨，湿云四集。春游，等于一块起司蛋糕，味道浓，可以慢慢吃，尤其坐慢车，最佳选择。人少，时间慢，窗外风景慢，心情适宜。

春天短，蛋糕小，层次多，味道厚，因此，慢慢看，慢慢抿。

窗外，似开未开的油菜花，黄中带青。稻田生青，柳枝也青青，曼语细说之间，风景永恒不动。”

1) 主语+ cannot emphasize the importance of … too much.(再怎么强调……的重要性也不为过。)例如：We cannot emphasize the importance of protecting our eyes too much.

2)There is no need for sb to do sth. for sth.(某人没有必要做……)，例如：There is no need for you to bring more food. 不需你拿来更多的食物了。

3)By +doing…，主语can …. (借着……，……能够……)，例如：By taking exercise, we can always stay healthy. 借着做运动，我们能够始终保持健康。

4) … enable + sb.+ to + do…. (……使……能够……)，例如：Listening to music enables us to feel relaxed. 听音乐使我们能够感觉轻松。

5) On no account can we + do…. (我们绝对不能……)，例如：On no account can we ignore the value of knowledge.我们绝对不能忽略知识的价值。

6) What will happen to sb.? (某人将会怎样?), 例如：What will happen to the orphan? 那个孤儿将会怎样?

7)For the past + 时间，主语 + 现在完成式…. (过去……年来，……一直……)例如：For the past two years，I have been busy preparing for the examination. 过去两年来，我一直忙着准备考试。

8)It pays to + do….(……是值得的。)例如：It pays to help others. 帮助别人是值得的。

9)主语+ be based on….(以……为基础)，例如：The progress of thee society is based on harmony.社会的进步是以和谐为基础的。

10)主语 + do one’s best to do….(尽全力去……)，例如：We should do our best to achieve our goal in life.我们应尽全力去达成我们的人生目标

In recent years, internet voting has become increasingly popular in China.

People not only cast on-line votes themselves, but also urge others to vote for

competitions like the “Most Beautiful Teacher” and the “ Cutest Baby”.

Li Jiang, a high school student, is invited to vote in the “ Best Police

Officer 冶 competition, organized by the local government to let the public have

a better understanding of police officers’ daily work. Li Jiang visits the

website and reads all the stories. He is deeply moved by their glorious deeds.

He is already thinking of becoming a policeman himself in the future.

Su Hua is invited by his uncle to vote for his cousin in the “ Future

Singer冶 competition. He has already received three similar invitations this

week. His uncle tells him that if his cousin wins the competition, the family

will win an oversea s tour for free. Su Hua likes his cousin very much, but he

finds other singers perform even better. To vote, or not to vote This is a

question that troubles him very much.

写人：

1．Our English Teacher

Our English teacher, Ms Huang, came to our school in 1970. She has been an English teacher for more than 30 years. She works hard and has been a model teacher for many years.

She is kind and friendly to us after class, but She is rather strict with us in class. She always encourages us to speak and read more English. She often says, "Practice makes perfect."

She is good at teaching and tries her best to make every lesson lively and interesting. She often gives us slide shows, teaches us English songs and helps us to put on short English plays.

She is not only our teacher but also our friend. We all respect and love her.

Tomorrow she is going to attend an important meeting, at which she will be given a medal for her advanced deeds.

2．My English Teacher

Our English teacher, Mr. Wang, is a strongly built thirty-year-old man, who is often simply dressed. He has been teaching us English ever since he graduated from the English Department, Beijing Normal University in 1993. He devotes all his time and energy to teaching, often working late into the night preparing his lessons. He is capable of making his lessons lively and interesting, and all of us like his lessons. He is very strict with us but he shows us great concern. He offers us help whenever we need it. We all consider him not only as our good teacher but also as our close friend. We all respect and love him.

B．写物：

3． Our school

Our school is located at the centre of Beijing, It is one of the largest schools in the city with over 2,000 students and about 200 teachers. Our school subjects include politics, Chinese, English, maths, history, geography, physics, chemistry and biology and so on. Most of us pay great attention to the study of English, Chinese and maths because they are very important subjects in the university entrance exam. We take special interest in English. We have spent much time on it, but we still find it difficult to learn the language well. In the afternoon when class is over, we enjoy staying at school for about one hour for some physical exercises before leaving for home.

4． My Home Village

My home village is a small one. Its in Yuxian county of Shanxi Province. Small as it is, its very beautiful.

There are many hills around my home village and they are more beautiful than some big mountains. In spring, we can fly kites which are made by ourselves on the top of the hills. The kites fly very high. In summer, the trees are green and the grass is green, too. It is green everywhere on the hills. There are so many wild apple trees on the hills. The wild applesare nice to eat. In autumn, the corns under and around the hills are ripe. So we eat them almost every day. In winter, when it snows, all the ground is covered with snow. We can play with snow and sometimes we eat the clean snow with sugar. In my hometown the sky is blue, the air is clean, the water is sweet and the people are very friendly. I love my hometown!

5．Changes in Our Life

Over the past twenty years or so, great changes have taken place in our life. Take my family for example. My parents contacted others mainly by sending them letters in the past. But now we call long distance at home. And once my parents listened to the radio for news and other information. But now we get the news by watching TV. Another big change is in my living conditions. When they got married about twenty years ago, my parents lived in a small room crowded with furniture. But now we have moved into a big new three-room apartment. In short, our life has become comfortable and convenient.

C．日记：

6．A Good Deed

Oct. 19th TuesdayFine

One afternoon, on my way home, I saw an accident: a car hit an old man!

I shouted to the pedestrians for help, but no one stopped. When the car driver saw this, he quickly closed the window Of the car and drove away. "What shall I do? The old man needs help." I thought.

At that time, a truck stopped and out came the driver. "Whats wrong with the old man, boy? What could I do?" the driver asked me. "Uncle, please help the old man. A car hit him and he is badly injured! "I said. "Well, dont worry. Let me take him to the hospital. the driver said.

A few minutes later, the driver took the old man to the hospital and I telephoned the police station. I told the whole story to the police and I also told them the number of the car. The police said to me, "Well done, boy! Leave it to us. He must be punished!" Then I went to the hospital to see the old man.

When I got home, it was 7:30. I think what I did was fight.

D．书信：

(1) 你堂兄建华在国外学习，你们经常用英文通信。他即将完成学业，不久前来信就是否回国工作征求你的意见。请根据下列提示回信。

1．建议他回国。

2．你的理由是：学有所用，就业容易；照顾父母。

注意：1．词数100左右；

2．行文应连贯，内容应完整；

3．开头语已为你写好。

Dear Jian Hua,

I m very glad to have received the letter you sent me two weeks ago.

To Jian Hua

Dear Jian Hua,

Im very glad to have received the letter you sent me two weeks ago. I ve been thinking about the question you asked me. In my opinion, you should come back after you finish your studies abroad.For one reason, what you are studying is badly needed nowadays in China. It will be quite easy for you to find a good job. In fact, I know a few big companies in our city are hoping to employ people like you. For another reason, I think it will be much more convenient for you to look afteryour parents as they are getting old. Therefore, I think its a good idea for you to return. So what are you waiting for?

Best wishes;

Ming Hua

(2) 2005年春季

Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.

你叫李宏，你校在为一批来自加拿大的交流学生征寻为期两周的住宿家庭。你有意申请，写封信说明你申请的理由。(包括所具备的条件)。

2005春季范文

Dear sir,

I hear that our school will welcome some Canadian students to stay with us for or two weeks. Students who want to invite them to stay can take part in it. I want to try.

First , my parents and I can speak English well. That benefits us to communicate with each other. Second, our house is big enough for he or she to stay. Furthermore , I live near the Huangpu River. It has a good view of Shanghai.

Last but not least , in my home, he or she will enjoy much China culture. My grandpa and grandma are good athandwriting. My grandma also has a good skill in Chinese painting.

I think our friendly will give him a both interesting and comfortable experience.

Thank you for your reading during your busy work.. I hope that you will agree with me .

Yours sincerely,

Li Hong

(3) 假如你是王华，18岁生日后，真的有种长大成人的感觉。于是你想就父母对你的关怀和你今后的打算，以书信形式同爸爸妈妈谈谈。信的开头如下：

Dear Mum and Dad,

How are you doing ?

范文

Dear Mum and Dad,

How are you doing ?

I?m writing to you about my gratitude for your having brought me up and my future plan.

Dear Mum and Dad, I am already 18 years old, which shows that I have grown up. Whenever I am thinking of this, I can?t help feeling grateful to you . It is you who first give me encouragement when I meet with difficulties, especially when I am not getting along well with my studies. Indeed, your inspiration seems to be a lamp, which offers me light of hope,courage and confidence. And more importantly, you are always teaching me to be good to others, and try to contribute to our society.

Dear Mum and Dad, I an now a senior three student , who is facing the competitive national college entrance examinations, So first of all, I ought to try my best to pass the exams. I am sure that through my great efforts I can and will be able to realize my beautiful dream of being a key university student. Then, I will strive to be an independent youth. The social situation I will be facing must be more competitive, so I will develop and prepare myself to be a youth with a strong sense of cooperation and competition. Believe in me, Mum and Dad, I will make a difference.

Best regards to you .

Yours sincerely, Wang Hua

(4)求职信

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have learned from an advertisement that your company is in need of a secretary. I would like you to consider me for the position.

My name is Li Min. I am twenty-three years old. I am studying business management in Xiamen University. I will graduate this summer. I am familiar with computer operation and office softwares, which can help me do the office work very well. And I have learned English for ten years.In the past two years, I have been an editor for the English Paper of my department. My grades come out top in my department. Whats more, I like office work very much and I also think that I can be competent for the job.If I could have the opportunity to get the job I will be quite appreciative.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Li Min

E．说明文：

How People Spent Their Holidays

As can be seen from the table, great changes took place in the ways that people spent their holidays over the period from the year 1990 to 1999. The proportion of traveling abroad and camping was increasing steadily, from 12% to 24% and from 10% to 36% separately, while that of staying at home and going to the seaside was decreasing year by year, from 38% to 31% and from 40% to 9% separately. Why were there changes? I think people can nowadays afford traveling.Also, people prefer to pursue a high-quality and colorful life. So we can see that people＇s living standard has been rising greatly.

F．议论文

(1) 最近，你校同学正在参加某英文报组织的一场讨论。讨论的主题是：公园要不要收门票?请你根据下表所提供的信息，给报社写一封信，客观地介绍讨论情况。

60％的同学认为:

1．不应该收门票

2 公园是公众休闲的地方

3. 如收门票，需建大门、围墙，会影响城市形象

40％的同学认为: 1．应收门票，但票价不要太高

2．支付园林工人工资 3．购新花木

注意：1．信的开头已为你写好。

2．词数：100左右。 3．参考词汇：门票---entrance fee

Dear editor,

I?m writing to tell you about the discussion we have had about whether an entrance fee should be charged for parks. 60% of us schoolmates think that an entrance fee do not meet people?s expectations, for a park is considered to be a place where the public can have a good time when they are not busy either at home or at work. If an entrance fee must be paid by the visitors for a park, it will be necessary to build a gate and surrounding walls. In the end a city will take on a bad look. 40% of us schoolmates think that an entrance fee can be accepted, but it must not be too expensive. The money from ticket selling can be used for paying the gardeners in the park and buying some other kinds of flowers and trees.

With regard to myself, I think an entrance fee is useful, for it can be used to protect a park. Do we share the same opinion, dear editor?

Yours truly,

Li Hua

Dear editor,

I?m writing to tell you about the discussion we have had about whether an entrance fee should be charged for parks. Sixty percent of my schoolmates are for the idea that an entrance fee should not be forced on the public. They believe parks are the place where the public enjoy themselves at their leisure. They think that a gate and wails are to be built if an entrance fee is to be charged. The city will not look so beautiful as it should

文章要有一至两个亮点。如果是记叙文，应该用抓人的情节和生动的描写表现你的真情，记叙文不能没有描写。如果是议论文，就一定要有--个典型的论据，就应该有纵横捭阖，很深刻的见解。如果是微型小说一定要有巧妙的构思。这个亮点还可以是一句富有哲理的警句，也可以是一个精彩的比喻，也可以是一个超常的搭配(酽酽的歌喉)。总之，要能使评卷老师精神为之一震。

行文中要多次扣题，要一路扣题一路歌。材料引语和话题中的相关文字至少在文中出现三次以上。开头三句话内应点题一次，结尾应回扣标题，“回眸一笑百媚生”。中间至少扣题一次。几次扣题事实上也是在不断地提醒自己不要跑题。有球场上叫暂停的效果，可以调整思路和写法。

思想要健康。“思想健康”不是说要你只说冠冕堂皇的话，不是要你刻意拔高，“健康”是针对“病态”“庸俗”而言的，它的底线是不能欣赏违背法律法规和偏离社会道德的事。恋爱题材是考场作文的禁区，无论考生写得如何缠绵悱恻，真挚动人，因其行为是中学生日常行为规范所不允许的，这类作文自然得不了高分。

观点不可太绝对，要留有余地。“义正”未必要“辞严”，“理直”未必就要“气壮”。联系现实生活时，涉及社会黑暗面时，要有分寸，不要一味指责。“质问京山大冤案”。批评家长老师和社会要与人为善，抱着协商与治病救人的态度，要提建设性意见。不可尖刻讽刺挖苦，甚至恶意地进行人身攻击。

临场写作时可以根据题意和你的表达需要想像一个或一类读者就在你的面前。如以“沟通”为话题作文，写与家长的沟通，可想像父母就在身边;写“沟通”之艰难和必要，就好像误解过你的人正在听你倾诉;写国际间通过沟通走向合作，就设想自己参与了国与国的谈判。即使所写文章没有明确的阅读对象，你也可以想像此文是写给你的语文老师的。你要知道，你的文章的惟一读者是那位跟你的语文老师非常相似的人。写记叙文，且最好将主人公设定为自己。想想阅卷老师的喜好，说他们想听的话。尽可能赢得评卷老师的同情。

写法上可以求新。要考虑，怎样表现更智慧，更艺术，更有可读性;但更要求稳。我的意见是大家一定要在一种比较稳的情况下，确有把握时才可写小小说或者是写戏剧，或者是写别的，确有把握之后才写这种文体，如果没有把握的话，就选择比较稳妥的老的文体，老的写法。

不可按上年或前几年的高考作文思路行文。求新求变是人们所追求的，高考作文也不例外。但若按上年或前几年的高考作文思路行文，甚至拿来套用，机械模仿，不懂灵活应变，就会吃力不讨好，这也是失分的点。因为阅卷者大都是相对固定的，对以前的高考作文非常熟悉。不主张写诗歌文言文。

苦于材料缺乏则可以突出自己的爱好。你如果喜欢体育，那你就像体育记者一样，叙体育议体育，只要切合题意就好。你如果喜欢听××的歌看××的书爱好上网……你就可以将自己这一方面的经历和感受与命题联系起来。那样就不愁内容贫乏文思枯竭。不要瞎编乱造。靠编故事骗取老师的眼泪从而获得高分的时代已经一去不复返了。

要美化自己，而不是丑化自己。要显现自己的高境界大抱负多知识同情心，要显现自己以天下为己任的豪情。不要出于反衬别人等考虑而故意丑化自己，如果让评卷老师以为你真就是那样，那就麻烦了，因为高考是选拔性考试。从某个角度讲，评卷老师评卷的过程就是一个选择淘汰对象的过程。

字数以字左右为宜。不能给人凑字数的感觉，但也不能拖得太长，不允许加纸条。许欢写长文的同学，开篇要注意不要放得太开，开口不要太大，能跳过去的就跳过去，要相信读者的理解能力。要注意节省篇幅，要防止高潮来了没地方写了。切忌三段文。要突出的句子(扣题的表现主旨的文眼点睛之笔抒情议论议论文的分论点等)最好单独成段。

看到题目后，可先搜索一下自己以往所写的优秀作文，看有没有可以再利用的。需要注意的是一定要不牵强。

充分发挥自己的优势。认识水平高擅长理性思维的同学可选择议论文，擅长形象思维会刻画人物的同学可选择微型小说，擅长抒情的同学可选择散文。

精写前几段，给评卷老师留下一个好印象。要精雕细刻，要出彩。比如，可开门见山，直奔主题;可制造悬念，引人入胜;可提出问题，引人注意;或巧用排比比喻拟人等修辞手法，或巧述故事，引人入胜，或巧用题记，揭示主旨，或巧用诗文显诗意。写好结尾和过渡段。阅卷老师一般是S型的扫描全文。结尾可画龙点睛，发人深思;或总结全文，照应开头;或虚笔拓展，扩大容量;或精辟议论，深化主旨。

要给自己充足的构思时间，不要急于动笔。“宁停三分，不争一秒”，因为写作是“开弓没有回头箭”的，写到一半，突然发现，呀，把题目理解错了，或没领会好命题的要求。最可怕的是文章写到一半，又想另起炉灶。时间没了，心情也坏了，干着急。建议打草稿，防止“三边工程”(边立项，边设计，边施工)。考场作文不宜见异思迁，边写边改。要贯彻一种构思。一旦构思已定，就不要轻易改变。

要力避前松后紧虎头蛇尾。有些同学构思提纲拟好后，开头反复推敲，精雕细琢，后来发现时间不够，于是草草收兵。此外，要谨慎对待修改。今年实行网上评卷，更应慎重。修改一般只着眼于字词方面的，可用米尺比好之后划两横。结构方面不能修改。要保持卷面的整洁美观，要努力做到改动少而效果好。

如果偏题或者离题，作文的主要分数就失去了。为防止跑题，可从如下几点做出努力：一是将材料引语和话题联系起来思考，不可单看话题;二是看自己确立的观点能否用话题所给材料来证明;三是想一想这则材料当初发在媒体上登载是要达到一个什么效果的。万一跑题了，要考虑逆挽，使文章形成一种欲扬先抑的结构形态。

一定要完篇。熟话说，好文章是风头猪肚豹尾。没有豹尾，老鼠尾巴也要有一个，绝不能写半头文。用半篇文章给你评分，怎么会得高分?

要重视拟题，特别要注意不能缺题。不是万不得已，不要以话题做标题。张伟民讲那是一种浪费。拟题是显示你才气的一个好的平台，不能轻易放弃。缺题影响远不止分。正好给了评卷老师扣分的理由。

大家都想知道怎么写作文才能拿到更高的分数，下面就来看看语文迷网小编为大家整理的写作技巧吧。

一、了解高分作文的特点

要想作文获得高分，必须了解高分作文具有的特点，才有助于我们朝之而努力。高分作文一般具有以下特点：

1、书写工整，书面整洁，很少有涂改痕迹。

2、分段合理。全文分段一般不止一个自然段，让阅卷老师很容易就能找到作文所要求写的要点和重要句子。

3、要点齐全，不缺要点。

4、首尾呼应，自然成一体。

5、使用了大量的高级词汇和句型。阅卷老师一看就知道这个同学的功底非不一般，自然就给打高分了。

6、开头言简意赅，不啰嗦，不偏题，迅速引入主题。

7、段与段之间，自然过渡。有合适的连接词。

8、句与句之间，有恰当的连接词，使之自然成一体。

9、全文中同一个意思，基本没有重复使用某一个词、短语或者句型等，说明这个同学的词汇量不同寻常。老师自然就对该作文有好感了。

10、能够恰当使用谚语、格言等给文章添彩。

二、勤积累，巧准备

要想作文得高分，除了了解以上的特点外，还要在平时的学习中注意一下方面：

1、牢记课标词汇是基础

一篇作文多数是由积极词汇写出来的，这些词汇主要来源于课标。因此，牢记课标词汇是写好作文的基础。

2、掌握课标词汇和短语的用法

要想作文不扣分或者少扣分，有个要求是作文的语病少。怎么能够减少语病呢?这就要求我们在平时的学习过程中反复通过练习，掌握课标词汇和短语等的用法。例如，对于as soon as 、stop some body from doing something 、other 、another等的用法很多学生就经常出错。

3、高度重视同一个意思的多种表达方式

高分作文有个特点是：让老师发现你拥有丰富的词汇量，你的水平高人一筹。这由何而来?靠我们在平时学习过程中，逐步积累起来的。比如：今年的中考作文，谈的就是帮助他人的问题。同一个意思“帮助”，假如你就用一个动词“help”，岂不显得你词汇贫乏?假如你在作文中不断地变换方式，用help、give somebody a hand、 give a hand to somebody 、be in need of 等以表达“帮助”同一个意思，岂不更好呢?

像这样的例子很多，比如：大家都觉得很简单又很基础的“表示姓名的方式”就有：My name is Jim.I’m Jim.I’m called/named Jim. I’m a boy called /named /with the name of Jim. 等等。

表达年龄的方式有：She is 12. She is 12 years old. She is aged 12. She is a girl of 12(years old) 。She is a girl aged 12.等等。

很显然，使用高级一点的更好。

4、加强练习，积累经验

学习语言最好的方法是运用，作文也不例外。我们要想作文得高分，必须经常练习，才能提高水平。

5、充分利用作文范文

很多资料书上都有作文范文。诚然，他们有很多值得借鉴的地方。

我们怎么利用它们呢?首先，我们先不要看文章，自己先思考一下：假如你来写，你会怎么去写，会用到哪些词或者句子等。然后去比较，勾出其中的好词佳句，并且把它摘录在专门的作文册子上。供写作时选用。

另外，背一些范文也是很有必要的。

6、背诵一些谚语和警句

作文中如果出现恰当的谚语和警句，会有锦上添花的效果。

三、精心审题，沉着写初稿

很多同学看到作文后，下笔就写。这是不对的。一则很容易写偏题、写出病句，涂改后书面又不整洁，影响得分。

其实，会写作文的同学都知道，审题非常的重要，可以防止很多毛病，提高得分。那么我们审题要做些什么呢?

审题主要要做一下事情：

1、审人称、时态、体裁等

审题时，要求我们要弄清楚这篇文章主要使用的人称是第几人称，什么时态、什么体裁。这些问题解决后至少不会犯很严重的错误：全文皆错。例如，如果一篇文章，本来应该一般过去时，你的每句话却用了一般现在时态。你想想，那还能得高分吗?

2、明确必须表达的要点

高分作文有个特点是要点齐全。如果漏掉一个要点，则要扣分。因此我们必须认真细读其要求，把必须表达的要点勾出来。保证不漏掉任何一个要点。

3、罗列出可能会用到的短语、句型，确定好使用哪个?

4、确定好如何分段

就是要确定好，将哪些要点放在一个自然段里面，首段、尾段打算写哪些?

四、耐心修改，提炼句子

很多同学写完作文后就感觉大事已毕，高兴地放下笔就了事了。其实，这时候，不妨从以下方面去修改，相信会让你受益匪浅的。

1、巧妙选择使用高级词汇、短语、句型等

当我们掌握了一定量的同意表达法之后，在写作时有时不会让你都运用到的。这时为了展示你与众不同的能力，你务必要选择高级的。例如，就以今年中考的英语作文为例，它就要求写“帮助老人的感受”。至于“老人”的表达法，有old people和the old 。使用后者的同学自然能力比前者强。同样的道理，作文中的“病人”的表达法有sick people ，patients ，the sick ，你认为使用哪个更能显示你的高水平呢?当然是the sick了。

2、巧妙使用低级表达法代替自己的难点

我们写作时难免会遇到一些难以用英语表达的东西。怎么办呢?换为最简单的表达法吧。例如：我市今年中考作文题，就要求学生表达一个意思：帮助同学，可以增进友谊。很多学生翻译不来“增进”，面对这样的问题怎么办呢?怎么不换个说法呢?你看，If we help our classmates with their study and other things ， we can make our friendship longer 。不就达到目的了吗?

3、大胆改变句型，使之生辉

例如，我们将一些句子改为感叹句，复合句、强调句、反意疑问句、将句子改得更能显示你的高水平和能力。何乐而不为呢?

4、高度关注句与句 、段与段之间的衔接问题。务必做到过渡自然，衔接紧凑。

5、适当引用个别谚语或警句，来提高作文档次。

五、一丝不苟抄誊作文

一篇好的作文，经过审题、修改之后，务必要一丝不苟地抄誊在答题卷上，再认真地仔细检查一遍，那才是大公告成了。

导语：好的开头能使文章生色,激发读者阅读的兴趣;好的结尾,能增强表达效果,使读者思索、回味文章的思想内容。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀英语作文素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

1. It is important for everyone to learn English well in our rapidly developing world.

在这个迅速发展的世界里，对每个人来说，学好英语是非常重要的。

同样句型包括：It is important/(necessary, difficult, convenient, possible)for sb. to do sth.

2. The harder you work at it, the more progress you will make.

你工作越努力，你取得的进步就越大。

(1)The+比较级..., the+比较级...

(2)比较级+and+比较级(The world is getting smaller and smaller.)

3. If everyone makes a contribution to protecting the environment, the world will become much more beautiful.

如果每个人都为保护环境做出贡献，世界会变得更加美好。

类似的句型还有：If necessary…, they can…

4. The best way to remember new words is to practice them every day.

记忆新单词最好的方法是每天操练这些单词。

5. The atmosphere in my family is fantastic

我的家庭气氛温馨和睦。

6. The reason why people choose to live in the city is that the life is more convenient and colorful.

人们为什么选择生活在城市的原因是因为城市的生活更方便、更多彩。

7. I had a great first impression of American people.

我对美国人民有了很好的第一印象。

8. We have lots of confidence in our ability to solve any problem.

我们对自己解决问题的能力有足够的信心。

9. With the rapid development of modern technology, the Internet has become a necessary part of our daily life and work.

随着现代科技的迅速发展，互联网已经成为生活和工作中必不可少的一部分。

10. You should read as many books as you possibly can.

大家应该尽可能的多读书。

11. China is becoming more and more prosperous because of the reform and “opening up” policy.

由于实施了改革开放政策，中国变得更加繁荣了。

12. We all need clean air to breathe; we all need clean water to drink; we all need green places to enjoy.

我们都需要呼吸清新的空气，我们都需要饮用洁净的水，我们都需要绿地来享受。

13. Let’s work together to make our world a better place.

让我们一起努力把世界变得更加美好。

14. We should make full use of our time to do useful and productive things.

我们应该充分利用好时间去做有用的、富有成效的事。

15. We should get into the good habit of using our time wisely.

我们应该养成一个好习惯，明智地利用时间。

16. What I really want to know is whether he will go abroad next month?

我的确想知道的是，他是否会在下个月出国?

17. Television is harmful to developing minds.

电视不利于开发心智。

18. Children usually have far more potential than their parents had realized

孩子们都有很大的潜能，而父母却没有意识到这一点。

19. In the past 10 years, great changes have taken place in our school.

在过去的10年里，我们学校发生了巨大的变化。

20. People who spend more time with their families are usually healthier and happier.

那些花更多时间和家人在一起的人通常会更健康更幸福。

21. The job was hard, which made me so tired that I almost quite half way.

这份工作太辛苦，差点使我半途而废。

(1)直接使用：so… that…

The job was hard, boring and seemed endless, which made me so tired that I almost quit half way.

这份工作太辛苦、太无聊，而且没完没了，这使我非常累，差点半途而废。

(2)能够增加句子层次的高级连词还有：

(Not only …but also…)、(Because…)、(because of…)、(As long as…)、(so long as…)

22. The Red Star Television Factory, which produces TV sets of quality, was set up in the 1980’s.

生产高品质电视的红星电视机厂，始建于1980年。

23. The E-reading room, where we can send e-mails to all parts of the world, is open to both teachers and students.

我们可以向世界每个地方发电子邮件的电子阅览室，对老师和同学都同样开放。

24. I feel I will be fit for the job needed in your company.

我感觉我会是你们公司所需要的人。

25. The number of workers and engineers has risen(更高级词汇：increased) to over 2000, and 80% of them are college graduates.

工人和工程师的数量已超过了2000人，而且他们有80%都是大学学历。

26. There is an increasing tendency that students own their mobile phones on campus.

在校园内，学生拥有手机的趋势在不断增长。

27. Now in the rural areas, there are many children out of school. I think one of reasons is that their families are too poor to afford their schooling.

现今，在农村地区还有很多孩子失学。我认为原因之一就是他们的家庭太贫困，而无法供应他们上学。

28. People should pay more attention to the education of children because they will play a very significant /(important) part/(role) in the future of our country.

人们应该增加对儿童教育的重视，因为他们会在祖国的未来扮演重要的角色。

29. In 2008, you will see Beijing as beautiful as a garden, with cleaner water and clearer sky.

到2008年，我们会看到北京像花园一样，有着更加清澈的河水和碧透的天空。

30. How nice to hear from you again.

能再次收到你的来信真是太好了。

31. Your early reply will be highly appreciated.

敬盼早日回复。

I’m looking forward to meeting you in no time.

我期待与你早日相见。

32. If you have any questions or requests, please let me know.

如果你有什么问题和请求只管跟我说。

33. No matter what you do in the future, English will always be important.

不管你将来做什么，英语都是最重要的。

34. Nothing is more important than to receive education.

没有什么比接受教育更重要的事了。

35. There is no doubt that playing video game is going to be their biggest problem for students to affect study.

毫无疑问，玩电子游戏正在成为影响学生学习的最大问题。

36. Obviously, it is high/(about) time that we took some effective measures to solve the problem.

显然，早该采取一些积极的措施来解决问题。

写作高手使用的高难度表达：

I suggest the department concerned taking some effective measures to improve the present situation.

我建议有关部门采取一些有效措施改善现状。

37. Since he went to senior high school, he has worked very hard.

自从他上高中，他一直很用功。

38. We should spare no effort to beautify our environment.

我们应该不遗余力的美化我们的环境。

39. Smoking has a great influence on our health.

吸烟对我们的健康有很大的影响。

40. As a proverb says, /( As is well known to us,) storms make trees take deeper roots.

有句名言说道：风暴使树木深深扎根。

41. It is a great honor for me to introduce to you one of my very best friend, Liu Xiang.

很荣幸给你介绍我的一位好朋友，刘翔。

42. Coming from a family of English teachers, she always had a particular interest in English.

出于英语教师世家的她，对英语有着特别的兴趣。

描写人物性格的高级得分词汇如下：

diligent 勤奋的 energetic精力充沛的 humorous幽默的 attractive有吸引力的

modest谦虚的 optimistic乐观的 talkative健谈的enthusiastic热情的

43. I have fully realized that English is essential to my future.

我充分认识到英语对我的未来是多么的重要。

44. I suppose electronic dictionaries are convenient, but Iead to laziness!

我觉得电子字典很方便，但会使人们变懒。

45. In conclusion, the advantages of studying abroad outweigh its disadvantages.

总之，出国留学的优点要大于它的缺点。

46. Now, I think it is really successful experience, and I totally understand what labor means.

现在，我想这真是一次成功的经历，并且我完全理解了劳动的意义。

47. From this earthquake, I realized that the power of the mass is endless.

通过这次的地震，我认识到了群众的力量是无穷的。

高级名言谚语活学活用。

解释：“群众的力量是无穷的”这句名言是我们自己造的，极具威力，然后再安在毛主席的头上，更显力量。最后为了增加真实性加上时间和地点，使判卷老师误以为真，根本不敢怀疑。于是，心想：“这个句子太棒了，我都没听说过!”

造句：In 1951 Chairman Mao said in Nan Jing that the power of the mass is endless.

48. If you have spare time to visit my hometown, I’d be more than happy to be your guide.

如果你有空闲时间我的家乡做客，我会非常乐意做你的导游。

49. Nowadays, both teachers and parents worry a great deal about the student’s using the Internet.

如今，老师和家长都对学生上网现象极为担心。

50. Views on the issue in question vary from person to person.

对于该问题的看法因人而异。

51. We are blessed with new opportunities and faced with new challenges.

我们被赋予新的机会和面临着新的挑战。

52. Thank you for your consideration.

感谢你的体谅。

53. I really appreciate what you’ve done for my family and me.

我衷心感谢你为我和我家人所做的一切。

We should be very grateful if you help our children with their English study.

如果你帮助我们小孩学英语，我们将感激不尽。

54. We will never forget the happy days we spent together.

我们永远都不会忘记在一起度过的日子。

55. Many people are becoming aware of the importance of exercising.

很多人开始意识到锻炼的重要性了。

56. The talk will be given at the Lecture Hall on Oct.12th, starting at 3:30p.m.

报告将在10月12日3：30在报告厅举行。

57. Students should know how to take advantage of their time.

学生应该知道如何利用他们的时间。

58. I got sick and tired of doing the routine work day after day.

我厌倦了日复一日地做一些例行公事。

59. Conquering English is not different from conquering a great mountain; both of them require determination, courage, and perseverance.

征服英语不亚于征服一座高山，都需要决心，勇气和毅力。

60. I’m disappointed in the performance of our team at the sports meeting.

我对我们队在运动会上的表现感到失望。

61. I’m very satisfied with what we have achieved so far.

到目前为止，我对我们取得的成绩很是满意。

更多表示“决心”的高级句型：

I’m determined to…

I have made up my mind to complete the task.

62. The city is located on the banks of the Long River.

这个城市位于长江畔。

63. I’m very glad to have received the letter you sent me two weeks ago.

两星期前收到了你的来信，我真是太高兴了。

64. I’m writing to request more information about the day tour to London.

我写信是为了了解更多去伦敦旅行的信息。

65. Recently, our class have had a heated discussion about whether it is necessary for middle school students to carry mobile phones to school.

最近，我们班展了开一场讨论，是关于中学生是否有必要带手机去上学。

66. I wonder if you could tell me more about the trip.

我不知道你是否方便多告诉我一些有关旅行的事。

67. It is certain that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.

可以肯定，如果开车的人少一些，空气污染就一定会减少。

68. I personally feel that teacher is the most important profession in the world.

我个人认为教师是世界上最重要的职业。

69. We can’t imagine what the world is going to be without purified water.

我们无法想象没有纯净的水，这个世界会变成生么样子。

70. I was walking east along Park Road, when an elderly man came out of the park on the other side of the street.

当我沿着公园路往东走的时候，有一个老人在街的另一边从公园里走出来。

71. In the big city, there are more schools and hospitals are available for its people.

在大城市，有更多的学校和医院供人们使用。

72. Some people think that we should read extensively.

有一些人认为，我们应该有选择性地阅读。

73.In my opinion, you should come back after you finish you studies abroad.

在我看来，你结束留学后应该回国。

74. For another reason, I think it will be much more convenient for you to look after you parents as they are getting old.

另一个原因，我认为你回国可以更方便地照顾你日渐年迈的父母。

75. Classes in our school usually finish at four in the afternoon.

我们学校通常下午四点下课。

76. I am so sorry that I won’t be able to attend tomorrow’s lecture on American history.

我很抱歉，明天我不能参加那场关于美国历史的演讲。

77. While 25 minutes is spent on sports, only 12 minutes goes into housework.

花在教育锻炼上的时间是25分钟，只有12分钟的时间用来做家务。

78. Maybe you forgot you spent the money on something else yesterday afternoon.

你可能忘了昨天下午你花钱买了其他东西。

79. Good habits are the crosscut to success.

好习惯是成功的捷径。

80. I was deeply moved by the young boy, because I know Lei Feng is still living in our hearts.

那个年轻的小男孩深深地感动着我，因为我相信雷锋一直活在我们的心中。

81. Many new houses had been built and roads had been widened.

很多新的楼房建了起来，路也都拓宽了。

82. It is more than ten months since we last met.

从我们上次见面到现在已经有十个多月了。

83. It’s very nice of you to help me with my lessons every day.

每天帮助我复习功课，你真是太好了。

84. Nothing can live without air and water.

没有空气和水，任何东西都不能生存。

85. I prefer to live in the country rather than live in the city.

我宁愿住在农村，而不愿住在城市。

86. People must be stopped from throwing dirty things into the river.

应阻止人们往河里扔脏东西。

87. Peter sets aside some money every month so that he can buy a new car.

彼得每月留出一点钱以便购买一辆新汽车。

88. Linda didn’t go to bed until midnight so that she could finish reading the book.

为了看完这本书，琳达直到午夜才睡。

89. Early to bed and early to rise does good to your health.

早睡早起有益于健康。

90. More and more people are aware that it is important to obey the traffic rules.

越来越多的人意识到遵守交通规则的重要性。

91. Mrs. Brown is an Australian woman teacher with fair hair and blue eyes, who has been to many places of China.

布朗女士是一个澳大利亚的老师，她有一头金黄色的头发和一双蓝色的眼睛，她去过中国的各个地方。

92. On Sunday, May 18, we will visit Beijing, which has a history of 400 years.

5月8日，星期天，我们将会参观拥有400多年悠长历史的北京。

93. I think students should balance well between work and study.

我认为学生应该平衡好工作和学习两方面。

94. Friendship is one of the most precious emotions in our life.

在我们的生命中，友谊其中的一种非常珍贵的感情。

95. It goes without saying that we cannot be young forever. (适用于自编名言)

不言而喻，青春一去不复返。

96. Last but not least, it will definitely benefit the citizens.

最后而又很重要的一点，它必定给市民带来福利。

97. With the increasingly rapid economic growth, more problems are brought to our attention.

随着日益迅速的经济发展，更多的问题受到我们的关注。

98. The preservation of forests has aroused people’s wide concern

保护森林引发人们的广泛关注.

99. As far as I’m concerned, I am in favor of the opinion that…

就我而言,我赞同…的观点

100. Both governments and ordinary citizens should join hands to make this world a better place to live in, not only for ourselves, but also for future generations.

不仅仅是为了我们，更是为了我们的后代，政府和普通市民应该联合起来，使这个世界变成更美好的家园。

observe a child; any one will do. you will see that not a day passes in which he does not find something or other to make him happy, though he may be in tears the net moment. then look at a man; any one of us will do. you will notice that weeks and months can pass in which day is greeted with nothing more than resignation1, and endure with every polite indifference. indeed, most men are as miserable as sinners, though they are too bored to sin-perhaps their sin is their indifference2. but it is true that they so seldom smile that when they do we do not recognize their face, so distorted is it from the fied mask we take for granted3. and even then a man can not smile like a child, for a child smiles with his eyes, whereas a man smiles with his lips alone. it is not a smile; but a grin; something to do with humor4, but little to do with happiness. and then, as anyone can see, there is a point (but who can define that point?) when a man becomes an old man, and then he will smile again.

it would seem that happiness is something to do with simplicity, and that it is the ability to etract pleasure form the simplest things-such as a peach stone, for instance.it is obvious that it is nothing to do with success. for sir henry stewart was certainly successful. it is twenty years ago since he came down to our village from london, and bought a couple of old cottages, which he had knocked into one. he used his house a s weekend refuge5. he was a barrister. and the village followed his brilliant career with something almost amounting to paternal pride.i remember some ten years ago when he was made a kings counsel6, amos and i, seeing him get off the london train, went to congratulate him. we grinned with pleasure; he merely looked as miserable as though hed received a penal sentence. it was the same when he was knighted; he never smiled a bit, he didnt even bother to celebrate with a round of drinks at the "blue fo"7. he took his success as a child does his medicine. and not one of his achievements brought even a ghost of a smile to his tired eyes.

i asked him one day, soon after hed retired to potter about his garden,8 what is was like to achieve all ones ambitions. he looked down at his roses and went on watering them. then he said "the only value in achieving ones ambition is that you then realize that they are not worth achieving." quickly he moved the conversation on to a more practical level, and within a moment we were back to a safe discussion on the weather. that was two years ago.

i recall this incident, for yesterday, i was passing his house, and had drawn up my cart just outside his garden wall. i had pulled in from the road for no other reason than to let a bus pass me. as i set there filling my pipe, i suddenly heard a shout of sheer joy come from the other side of the wall.i peered over. there stood sir henry doing nothing less than a tribal war dance9 of sheer unashamed ecstasy. even when he observed my bewildered face staring over the wall he did not seem put out10 or embarrassed, but shouted for me to climb over.

"come and see, jan. look! i have done it at last! i have done it at last!"there he was, holding a small bo of earth in his had. i observed three tiny shoots out of it."and there were only three!" he said, his eyes laughing to heaven."three what?" i asked."peach stones", he replied. "ive always wanted to make peach stones grow, even since i was a child, when i used to take them home after a party, or as a man after a banquet. and i used to plant them, and then forgot where i planted them. but now at last i have done it, and, whats more, i had only three stones, and there you are, one, two, three shoots," he counted.

and sir henry ran off, calling for his wife to come and see his achievement-his achievement of simplicity.

就“说明对象”而言，英语说明文可分为对“客观具体事物”的说明和对“主观抽象观念”的说明两大类，比如：对“LASER（激光）”、“Computer Problem of Year XX（计算机XX年问题）”等等的说明都是对客观或者具体事物的说明，而“The Successful Interview（谈成功的面试）”、“How to Write Good English Composition（如何才能写好英语作文）” 等是对主观抽象观念的说明。对我们中学生朋友来说，在汉语说明文的教学中似乎比较侧重前者，即解释客观具体事物的说明文。但在英语说明文中，阐述和说明 “主观抽象观念”的说明文占了很大的比重，其中有些类似汉语中的议论文。但是无论是对“客观具体事物”的说明还是对“主观抽象观念”的阐述，英语说明文从结构上看大致可分为三个部分：第一部分一般是文章的第一段，提出文章的主题，也就是说，文章想要阐述、说明的主要内容；第二部分是文章的主体，可由若干个段落组成，对文章的主题进行展开说明；第三部分是结尾段，对文章的主题作归纳总结。从英语说明文的结构可以看出，要写好英语说明文的关键在于第二部分如何对文章主题进行展开说明。在英语中，常见的用来展开文章主题的方法有下列几种：

1.罗列法（listing）

在文章开始时提出需要说明的东西和观点，然后常用first，second，…and finally加以罗列说明。罗列法广泛地使用于各类指导性的说明文之中，下面这篇学生作文就是用罗列法写成的：

Early Rising

Early rising （早起） is helpful in more than one way. First， it helps to keep us fit （健康）。 We all need fresh air. But air is never so fresh as early in the morning. Besides， we can do good to our health from doing morning exercise （做早操）。

Secondly， early rising helps us in our studies. We learn more quickly in the morning， and find it easier to remember what we learn in the morning.

Thirdly， early rising enables （使能够） us to plan the work of the day. We cannot work well without a good plan. Just as the plan for the year should be made in the spring， so the plan for the day should be made in the morning.

Fourthly， early rising gives us enough time to get ready for our work， such as to wash our faces and hands and eat our breakfast properly.

Late risers may find it very difficult to form the habit of early rising. They ought to make special efforts to do so. As the English proverb says，“Early to bed and early to rise， makes a man healthy， wealthy and wise.”

罗列法经常用下列句式展开段落，我们可以注意模仿学习：

There are several good reasons why we should learn a foreign language. First of all， …Secondly， …And finally， …

We should try our best to plant more trees for several good reasons First of all， …Secondly， …And finally，

必须指出的是，有时罗列法并不一定有明确的first， second…等词，但文章还是以罗列论据展开的。

2.举例法（examples）

举例法是用具体的例子来说明我们要表达的意思，常用for example， for instance， still another example is…等词语引出。下面这篇学生作文就是用举例法写成的：

Recreation

It is impossible to keep in good health unless we take enough recreation （娱乐）。 The mind， too， needs change to make it fresh and vigorous （有活力的） There is much truth in the old saying， All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.“

There are many games which boys and girls can play after their school work is done， for instance， football， tennis， and kite-flying. Other examples of recreation are boating， fishing， gardening， cycling， walking， chess-playing， and reading. Persons who sit much at their business should take a kind of recreation that will supply their muscles （肌肉） with exercise. Those who spend most of their time in the open air and do manual work （体力活） should adopt （采纳） reading or some other quiet form of recreation.

Cycling is said to be an important means of recreation， but many persons foolishly tire out themselves by cycling too much. The same may be said in regard to football. Tennis is a pleasant form of recreation. Many persons take great delight in boating. Fishing requires much patience， and there is much danger of taking cold by sitting still on a cold day too long. A good brisk （轻松） walk is one of the finest forms of exercise. For persons engaged in outdoor labor， chess-playing is another excellent form of recreation.

可以看出，举例法和罗列法有时可以结合使用：即用罗列法来列出例子，用例子充实罗列的说明。

3.比较法（comparison and contrast）

比较法是对两个对象进行比较，从而进行说明的写作手法。比较法又可细分为比较相同点（comparison）和比较不同点（contrast）两种方法，比如：

From Paragraph to Essay

Although they are different in length （长度）， the paragraph and the essay are quite similar in structure （结构）。 For example， the paragraph starts with either a topic sentence （主题句） or a topic introducer followed by a topic sentence. In the essay， the first paragraph sets up the topic focus （主题所在） Next， the sentences in the body of a paragraph develop the topic sentence. Similarly， the body of an essay consists of a number of paragraphs that discuss and support the ideas given in the introductory （引导的） paragraph. Finally， a concluding sentence （结束句） ——whether a restatement， conclusion， or observation——ends the paragraph. The essay， too， has a concluding paragraph which ends the essay logically and satisfactorily. Although there are some exceptions （例外）， most well written expository （说明文的） paragraphs and essays are similar in structure.

可以看出，在比较相同点的时候，常用到similarly，also，too，in the same case，in spite of the difference等这样的词语。

European Football and American Football

Although European football is the parent of American football， the two games show several major differences. European football， sometimes called association football or soccer， is played in 80 countries， making it the most widely played sport in the world. American football， on the other hand， is popular only in North America （the United States and Canada）。 Soccer is played by eleven players with a round ball. Football， also played by eleven players in somewhat different positions （位置） on the field， is played with an elongated （拉长的） round ball. Soccer has little body contact （接触） between players and therefore needs no special protective equipment. Football， in which players make the greatest use of body contact to stop a running ball-carrier and his teammates， needs special protective equipment. In soccer， the ball is advanced toward the goal by kicking it or by butting （顶） it with the head. In American football， on the other hand， the ball is passed from hand to hand or carried in the hands across the opponents （对手） goal. These are just a few of the features which distinguish （区别） association and American football.

这是一篇用比较不同点的手法写的说明文。从文章中可以看出：however，on the other hand，in contrast，but，nevertheless等表示转折的词语常用来引导对不同点的比较。

4.定义法（definition）

定义法也是英语说明文中常用的写作手法，特别是在对具体事物概念进行说明时经常使用。定义法的基本要素是定义句。英语中常见定义句的模式是：

被定义对象is所属类别+限制性定语

可以看出，定义句中限制性定语越详细，定义就越精确，比如：

A bat is a small mouse-like animal that flies at night and feeds on（以……为食品）fruit and insects but is not a bird.

其实，在英—英词典中，对英语单词的英文解释就是定义法的典型例子。比如，看看Longman词典对student和teacher的定义是很有意思的：A student is a person who is studying at a place of education or training. A teacher is a person who gives knowledge or skill to sb. as a profession （专业）。

5.顺序法（sequence of time， space and process）

顺序法是指按时间、空间或过程的顺序进行说明的一种写作手法。比如按照时间顺序介绍一个科学家的生平，用空间顺序阐述逐渐开发西部的重要意义，用过程顺序法解释葡萄酒的生产过程等等。

下面这篇学生作文就是用顺序法写成的：

Coal

Coal underwent （经受） many changes before it became the bright， brittle （脆的）， black substance which we now use. During ancient times （在上古时代）， when the earth enjoyed a very warm and wet climate， the land was covered with large forests and big plants. As time went on， the ground changed and began to sink （下沉） a little. These very large numbers of trees and vegetables received a deposit （沉淀） of sand and clay. This layer of sand and clay pressed upon the layer beneath and prevented it from contact with air. These trees and plants received the pres sure and changed its appearance.

Generations after generations （几世纪后）， as the ground kept gradually sinking， another layer of sand and clay was again deposited （积聚） above the layers already formed. A great pressure was thus exerted （作用） and the peat （泥煤） was changed into the black and brittle substance which is known as coal.

Coal is a kind of mineral which is formed by nature as above stated. It is an important industrial material and is chiefly used as fuel. It is very valuable in the industrial world. The place where coal deposit is called a coal mine （煤矿）。 In China， coal mines are largely found in the north-west part of the country. Shanxi is a famous province for producing coal. It has the most coal of China.

6.分类法（classification）

分类法是将写作对象进行分类说明的一种写作手法。比如：著名的英国哲学家弗朗西斯·培根（Francis Bacon）在其脍炙人口的《谈读书》（Of Studies）一文中就用到了分类法：

Some books are to be tasted， others to be swallowed， and some few to be chewed and digested， that is， some books are to be read only in parts， others to be read， but not curiously， and some few to be read wholly， and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy， and extracts made of them by others； but that would be only in the less important arguments， and the meaner sort of books…

参考译文：书有可浅尝者，有可吞食者，少数则须咀嚼消化。换言之，有只须读其部分者，有只须大体涉猎者，少数则须全读，读时须全神贯注，孜孜不倦。书亦可请人代读，取其所需摘要，但只限题材较次或价值不高者……

——转摘自《英汉翻译教程》（张培基等）

可见，如果能够根据具体情况，选用合适的写作手法，就可为文章增添无穷的魅力。

除了上述提到的6种展开英语说明文主题的写作方法之外，还有因果法、归纳法等其他方法。但相比之下，对于中学生来说，上述6种方法是首先值得掌握的。另外必须指出的是：在一篇文章中往往是以一种写作手法为主，同时辅以其他写作手法。有时，甚至会几种写作手法混用而不分主次。因此，必须根据具体情况，选用合适的展开主题的写作手法，才能写出优秀的英语说明文。

导语：乔丹作为一名公众人物，在享有较高的社会回报的同时，也应该意识到其所肩负的社会道义和责任。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的相关高考素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

篮球上帝乔丹在一次中国之行中，拒绝乘坐主办方为他提供的奔驰、宝马，而是点名要了美国的道奇山羊。原来乔丹有一条重要的商业原则，那就是“做广告从来只做美国货”，因为，座驾事件与“尊严”息息相关。

从某种意义上说，球场外的乔丹给崇拜他的那些青少年们上了堂很好的思想品德教育课，这才是一个“星”真正的道德良知和社会责任。相反，我们的各种“星”们，同样作为

青少年们顶礼膜拜的偶像，他们的表现又如何呢?我们知道有的歌星歌唱得不怎么样，却热衷于把奇形怪态遁入极端;有些影星不在表演上下功夫，却老是以绯闻来炒作自己;还有那些所谓的足球明星，球踢得极烂，可酗酒、打架等丑闻不断。在未成年人思想道德建设方面，我们的“星”们有着不可推卸的社会责任，从这个角度来说，是不是应该好好学学人家乔丹呢?

分析：作为一名公众人物，在享有较高的社会回报的同时，也应该意识到其所肩负的社会道义和责任。

话题：“责任”“青少年领袖”

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.

说明文是对事物形状、性能、特点、成因等进行的理解式表达表述的文章。其形式多为文字提示或图表。这种文体使用比较广泛。科普文、产品介绍、国情或民俗介绍都属于这类文体。说明文是陈述客观事实，谓语动词通常用一般现在时态。说明文具有以下特点：

1. 科学性。介绍事物或解说事理必须揭示其本质特征。做到概念准确，判断恰当，分类清楚。

2. 客观性。写说明文时，要按照事物的本来面目如实地加以介绍、说明和解释。不能带有个人愿望或主观倾向。

3. 知识性。说明文以说明为主要表达方式，用简洁的语言介绍事物或阐明事理，使人们获得关于某一事物的知识和道理。

4. 解说性。说明文的目的就是在于把事物、现象或道理解释、介绍清楚，让读者明白。

几点写作注意

写说明文要注意以下几点：

1. 抓住中心，分清主次。首先根据要仔细阅读文字提示或观察图表，确定文章的中心内容。再根据内容把文章文分成几个段落，每段都要拟定一个主题句。然后确定中心人称和主体时态。

2. 列全要点，扩编句子。以拟定的主题句为中心，选择恰当的词和句型组织材料，编写句子，形成段落。

3. 布局谋篇，连段成文。按照一定的逻辑顺序，用适当的过渡词把已经写好的段落串连成一篇完整的文章。

具体写作实例

例如：根据下列提示，写一篇介绍你们学校的短文。

1. 位于市中心。

2. 有50多年的历史。

3. 现有60个教学班，近3000名学生。

4. 校园美丽，教学设备先进。

5. 教师经验丰富，工作努力。

6. 已为国家培养了许多高素质人才。

7. 本校为全市最好的学校之一。

要求：词数100左右。

写作示范：

Our school is located in the center of the city. I t has a history for more than 50years. Now, there are nearly 3000 students studying hard here, who were divided into 60 classes. I t has a beautiful campus and modern teaching facilities. The teachers are well experienced and they all put their hearts into teaching. Many students with high quality have been educated since the founding of the school. It is now one of the best schools in the city.

书面表达一直在历年高考中占有很重要的地位，而且相对于其他题型，书面表达最容易在短期内有所突破。下面小编为大家整理了英语作文的突破技巧，欢迎大家阅读。

书面表达在评阅时遵循语言第一位(语言高级)，内容第二位(要点齐全)，结构第三位(文章分段)的原则，也就是说阅卷老师最注重的是语言，换句话说是亮点，根据语言使用情况，亮点的多少而定出档次，所以同学们在书面表达中语言上的亮点是得高分的关键。

亮点一共有四种：

一、高级词汇和语法;

二、修辞手法;

三、有效的连词;

四、名人名言或谚语。

首先简单介绍亮点当中至关重要的高级语法，以及修辞手法当中的一些技巧的使用。

肯定不如否定好

修辞的使用在书面表达中算作很大的亮点，在高中阶段很少有学生会注重修辞的应用。双重否定也是种修辞，而且对于考生来说，只要稍加注意，可以在文章中设计双重否定的句子。例如想表达“邮递员天天准时到”，如果写成The postman comes on time every day，就不如变成双重否定，The postman never fails to come on time，就变成了亮点句，起到强调作用。几乎每个人对生活的态度都不同程度受到地震的影响，写成双重否定There was hardly a man or a woman whose attitude

towards life had not affected by the earthquake.应用类似的修辞会在高考中为同学们加分。

陈述不如倒装妙

在书面表达中阅卷老师喜欢看到的高级语法共有五种：倒装，强调，从句，独立主格和分词结构，以及虚拟语气。倒装是一种最简单易行的使句子呈现亮点的方法。在高中阶段只需掌握倒装的四种形式，足以应对书面表达，如何应用倒装，有很多方法和技巧。

否定词开头

如果写出的句子中有否定词， 例如I will never marry you. 不如变成倒装，用否定词开头Never will I marry you. 就算作使用了高级语法。其他的否定词，如not, seldom, hardly等开头后面的句子倒装都是比较好的句子。

地点状语开头

在很多年的高考书面表达中都有表达地点的句子，一个建筑位于什么位置，或什么地方有什么东西，都可以应用倒装。例如在2006年的全国卷中，图书馆位于学校的中央，Our library is in the center of our school.变成倒装就用地点状语开头：In the center of our school lies our library. 其他的例子，想表达河岸上有很多花:On the bank stand some flowers. 天空中繁星点点：In the sky hang little stars. 总之在想表达地点时就把地点状语放在句首后面主谓倒装。

这样做的好处之一是倒装本身就是高级结构，第二是倒装后把真正的主语放到了句子的末尾，后面还可以继续加从句，使整个句子再呈现更多的亮点。例如In the center of our school lies our library，which is between the garden and the teaching building.

Only+介词短语

例如在2007年全国卷中，让外教帮你找个笔友，有一句可以表达成只有通过这种方式我才能提高英语，这句话可以写成Only in this way can I improve my English.其他的例子还有Only by taking exercises can we keep healthy.

形容词+as+主语+be动词

例如Young as I am, I can manage it; Rich as our country is, we have a lot of problems. 2000年书面表达中：Badly injured as he was, he managed to take down the

car’s number. 还有其他的倒装结构，很高兴收到的你的来信：So glad am I to hear from you.在高考中要尽量使用一两个倒装。

主动不如被动巧

在近些年的阅卷中，发现考生在写作中很少使用被动语态，也许是受中文思维的影响，几乎整篇文章都使用主动语态。其实在英文中，被动语态的使用是很重要的。因为英语是一门客观的语言，而汉语是主观的语言，具体体现在英语中经常用被动语态，汉语经常用主动语态;英语中经常用物称或形式主语开头，强调一件事发生在什么人身上，而汉语经常用人称开头强调一个人发生了什么事。所以使用被动语态符合英语的习惯，如果能将整个文章中两个句子变成被动语态，就会呈现句型的变化，使整个文章句型丰富。

例如在2006年的高考中，很多学生在表达我们每次可以借五本书最多借十天时，都是用：We can borrow five books at most, and we can keep them for ten days.这句话如果写成：At most five books can be borrowed at a time and they can be kept for ten days，分数会更高。

分词结构不能少

在前文提到，在书面表达中老师喜欢看到的高级语法共有五种：倒装，强调，从句，独立主格和分词结构，以及虚拟语气。在所有的高级语法中，阅卷老师最喜欢看到的是独立主格和分词结构，其次是剩下的几项。但很多学生不知道如何在文章中使用这个最大的亮点。其实几乎所有的状语从句都可以变成独立主格或分词结构，时间状语从句，原因状语，条件状语等。例如条件状语从句：If such is the case, you should apologize to her. 如何变成独立主格或分词结构呢?学会下面的口诀，如果你的作文中有状语从句，马上可改成独立主格或分词结构这个最大的亮点。

口诀：一去，二看，三改。一去：去连词;二看：看主语;三改：改分词。

If such is the case, you should apologize to her.按照这个口诀来改，第一步，去掉连词if;第二步，看前后两句话的主语，前后主语不一致，所以要改成独立主格;第三步，改分词，is 变成分词是being，所以最后变成Such being the case, you should apologize to her.就变成了独立主格。

如果前后两句话主语一致，就变成分词结构，例如2005年高考书面表达中的一句话Because I am a student, I’d like to know the price for students. 改成Being a student, I’d like to know the price for students.其他想表达状语从句的时候几乎都一样。所以想表达由于，因为，如果等都写成独立主格或分词结构会让阅卷老师多给几分。

以上技巧有语文迷小编整理，看过后你真的学到了吗?

导语：我的家里每天都有欢笑声，下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀作文，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

In my big family, there are six members. They are my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, my mother, my little brother and I. We live together happily.

My grandfather and grandmother are in their seventies. My grandfather has something wrong with his heart, while my grandmother is in good health. Last summer, I taught her to play chess. She was so intrested in it that I had to play with her all day on weekends!

My father is a doctor and my mother is a middle school teacher. They are all very busy and hard-working. Although sometimes they disagree with each other, they respect each other.

My little brother is only two years old. He is very lovely. He has a round face and two big black eyes. There are two dimples on his cheeks when he smiles just like me. I often can’t help kissing him. Sometimes he is very naughty. When I don’t want to get up in the morning, he comes to pinch my ear to wake me, and runs away quickly when I open my eyes angrily.

What a harmonious family we have! I love my family forever!

【参考译文】

在我的大家庭里，有六个成员。他们是我的爷爷，奶奶，爸爸，妈妈，弟弟和我。

我爷爷和奶奶七十多岁了。我爷爷的心脏有点问题，而我的祖母身体很好。去年夏天，我教她下棋。她很感兴趣，我只好跟她玩一整天在周末!

我父亲是医生，我母亲是中学教师。他们都很忙，工作很努力。虽然有时他们意见不一致，但他们彼此尊重。

我的弟弟只有2岁。他非常可爱。他有一张圆圆的脸和两只大大的黑眼睛。他的脸上有两个酒窝，他笑得跟我一样。我常常忍不住吻他。有时他很调皮。当我早上不想起床时，他会来抓我的耳朵叫醒我，当我愤怒地睁开眼睛时，我很快就跑开了。

我们的家庭和睦和睦!我永远爱我的家人!

高考语文作文万能开头、结尾原则一：首尾相应结构严谨

例：

1、(开头)在城市尽头，没有繁华的街市，闪亮的霓虹;在城市的尽头，只有破旧的棚户区，有饱经生活风霜的生命;在城市的尽头、有他们这样一群人。

(结尾)太阳从地平线上升起，照亮了城市的尽头，照亮了他们的生活。

2、(开头)站在塞纳河畔，可以触摸巴黎时尚而又典雅的脉搏;身处第五大道、可以感受纽约华丽而又绚烂的气息;漫步银座街头，可以领略东京古老而又现代的文化;停留黄浦江边，可以体味上海兼容而又独特的精神……

(结尾)我在无限的思考中面对都市，触摸它的外壳，也渴望触摸它的灵魂。但愿有朝一日它的内质可以像外壳一样美丽动人，但愿有朝一日那些虚假与轻浮都会变得真实与坚固，但愿是"云销雨霁，彩彻区明"，但愿我们可以重新触摸到都市那由内而外的如花般缩放的美丽。

高考语文作文万能开头、结尾原则二：自然收束

例：

(开头)人生，其实就是一次过程，很多事，很多人，失败过，经历过才会懂，才会成熟。当失败来临的时候，不要伤悲，而应该看作是一次成长的机会，一次锻炼的机会。冲过去，会更美好、更灿烂的生活等着你，更会有一番成就感;如果退而不前，那只能迎来更多的失败，更多人生的遗憾。

(结尾)当我们快要走完人生路时，回首这一生，特别是那些困难和失败时，会觉得，或许正是由于这些，丰富了我们的人生，战胜、克服了它们，才让我们的人生更加完美无瑕。

高考语文作文万能开头、结尾原则三：画龙点睛

例：

(开头)怆然的灾难，古来有之。然而历史由古而今谁可曾见过这般振奋人心，撼天动地的团结?《史记》有云：民与民同心，则家安之，君与民同心，则国兴之。在今天，这是人民与人民，人民与国家，国家与世界的携手，何愁家不安，何愁国不兴?

(结尾)青山一道，我们同历风雨，团聚一处。而将五洲四海的人们集汇在-起的纽带，也许，是这样的期望：为天下立心，为生民立命，为往圣续绝学，为万世开太平!

高考语文作文万能开头、结尾原则四：使用诗歌

例：

流光容易把人抛，红了樱桃，绿了芭蕉。走在自己生命路上，有时很难看清自己是否走了弯路。不妨跳出来，调准焦距，才能照出最好生活。

高考语文作文万能开头、结尾原则五：妙用修辞

Hi， everyone ，

We’ll have an important activity—picking apples。 The picking will go on from 8:00 am to 11:00 am next Saturday and wele all of the people in our munity to join in the activity 。

To join in the activity ， you should sign your name in the office before 5:00 pm next Thursday ，which is the deadline ! Don’t miss it !

Attention! It is suggested that all the people who will join in picking apples should wear a hat and a pair of gloves because there will be a lot of leaves or dirty things that will otherwise fall on your head and make your hands dirty 。

Be active ， everyone in our munity !

The munity board