GRE写作工具箱.doc

外语下载中心 ｈｔｔｐ：／／ｄｏｗｎ．ｔｉｎｇｒｏｏｍ．ｃｏｍ　GRE孙远工具箱：ZERO整理

GRE写作工具箱

写作工具箱（新东方—孙远）
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。
对于文章中用黑体字的部分，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，我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.
经常有学生告诉我：不知道背诵什么好。现在我可以告诉各位：背诵下面的文章错不了，至少对GRE的写作来说有立竿见影的效果！可别再找借口了哦！

目 录

1. Section one: Education 5
1.1 Proverbs 5
1.2 Damaging Research 5
1.3 Education and Citizenship 5
1.4 The Teacher’s Role 6
1.5 Education Philosophy 7
1.6 Student Life 7
1.7 Adult Education 8
1.8 Moral Relativism in American 8
1.9 Schools Should Teach Values 10
1.10 College Pressures 11
1.11 To Err Is Wrong 15
1.11.1 Playing It Safe 16
1.11.2 Different Logic 16
1.11.3 Errors as Stepping Stones 17
1.11.4 Negative Feedback 17
1.11.5 Trying New Things 18
1.11.6 Nature’s Errors 19
1.11.7 Summary 19
1.12 The Practicality of the Liberal Arts Major 19
1.13 The Liberal Arts Degree Is Marketable 20
1.13.1 Skills acquired with a Liberal Arts Background Are Most Desired by Employers 21
1.13.2 Liberal Arts Majors Can Enhance Their Credentials 21
1.14 The Vast Emptiness at the Core of Today’s Liberal Arts Education 22
1.15 Education as Philosophy 23
1.16 What True Education Should Do 23
1.17 The Future of Universities 24
1.18 Teaching and Learning: Strategies for the 21st Century 25
1.19 Universities changing to meet the needs of the 21st Century 26
1.20 Education and Training 28
1.21 Knowledge and Wisdom 29

2. Section Two: Science and Technology 32
2.1 Computer in Education 32
2.2 Computer Make the Workplace Less Friendly 32
2.3 Solar Energy 34
2.4 Micro machines 35
2.5 Social Responsible in Science and Arts 35
2.6 Environmental Stress 36
2.7 High Technology and Employment 37
2.8 The Effects of Technology 38
2.9 Technology and Social Change 39
2.10 The Quest for Energy 40
2.11 Technology in Everyday Life 41
2.12 Science, Technology and Society: The Case of Medical Technology 42
2.13 The Impact of Technology 43
2.14 Scientific Institutions 43
2.15 The Norms of Science 45
2.16 Technology in Modern Societies 47
2.17 Galileo and the Inquisition 48
2.18 Technology and People 49

3. Section Three: Ideas 51
3.1 Critical Thinking 51
3.1.1 Be willing to say “I don’t know” 51
3.1.2 Define your terms 51
3.1.3 Practice tolerance 52
3.1.4 Understand before criticizing 52
3.1.5 Watch for hot spots 52
3.1.6 Consider the source 53
3.1.7 Seek out alternative views 53
3.1.8 Ask questions 53
3.1.9 Look for at least three answers 54
3.1.10 Be willing to change your mind 54
3.1.11 Lay your cards on the table 54
3.1.12 Examine the problem from different points of view 54
3.1.13 Write about it 55
3.1.14 Construct a reasonable view 55
3.2 The Function of Critical Thinking 55
3.3 Critical Thinking as Thorough Thinking 56
3.4 Creative people 56
3.5 The Lowest Animal 58
3.6 Decision by Consensus 59

4. Section Four: Mass Media 62
4.1 Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising 62
4.2 TV Addiction 65

5. Section Five: Society 67
5.1 The Function of Art 67
5.2 Intercultural Prejudices 68
5.3 Culture Shock 69
5.4 Groups 70
5.5 Authority 70
5.6 The No-Status Society 71
5.7 Conformity 71
5.8 Debating Moral Questions 72
5.9 Art as Nonverbal Communication 73
5.10 Turtle Island 74

6. Section Six: Politics 76
6.1 Proverbs 76
6.2 What Makes a Leader? 77
6.3 What Derails Fast-Track Executives? 79
6.4 A Leader 80
6.5 Watergate 80

1. Section one: Education
1.1 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.

1.2 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.

1.3 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.

1.4 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.

1.5 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 suicide 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.

1.6 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 after\school 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.

1.7 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.

1.8 Mor