全国2010年10月高等教育自学考试
英语写作试题
课程代码：00603
Ⅰ. Supply the missing paragraph. (20%)
The following passage is incomplete with the introduction missing. Study the passage carefully and write the paragraph in no more than 100 words. Make sure your tone and the vocabulary you use are in unity with the passage provided.
The Necessity of English Writing for English Majors
The difficulty of English writing frustrates many students so much that they turn to their Chinese writing skills for help. That is natural. In fact, their Chinese writing skills do help their English writing, especially in generating and organizing ideas and details. Meanwhile, Chinese writing is different from English writing in sentence structures and paragraph organizations and their differences in expressions are certainly even bigger. Simply translating Chinese word for word into English cannot make good English writing. Other students hold a wrong view of learning English. They think to learn English is just to memorize a large vocabulary, to master the grammar and to speak fluent English. Once they are proficient in those areas of English, they can naturally handle English writing well. To correct such a one-sided view, one thing must be kept in mind, that is, spoken English is not equal to written English. Oral speech is often rather loose and flexible without precise and proper arrangement. Oral English uses simple everyday language while written English comprises complicated words and sentence structures. Therefore, written English is more demanding, and it requires intentional and intensive practice. English writing course can serve this purpose.
The students’ laziness in observing and thinking partly accounts for their reluctance to practice writing. Writing sharpens and improves thinking. English writing can help students develop the habit and ability of thinking in English and become generally more competent in English. Composition topics can be varied yet close to life. If students have a good habit of observing life and thinking constantly, they won’t bump into topics with empty heads. Keen observation and deep thoughts are necessary for good English writing, and they are also signs for well-educated people.
Writing can also strengthen students’ abilities in comprehension and oral English. Writing is creative work. After brainstorming, various ideas and pictures may pop into their minds and some beautiful sentences may be written down on a piece of paper, which will last long in their memory. Their written English skills may help to polish and beautify their spoken English and make their oral expression precise and elegant. Writing involves lots of reading. When reading others’ writing, they will be sensitive to various styles and that will quicken their reading speed and comprehension.
Furthermore, English writing is in fact a most practical tool in students’ future career. It will be used in writing telexes, business letters, research papers and public speeches. Every kind of writing has its special style, which needs a careful study and strenuous practice. Yet all those are based on essential skills in English writing that will be covered in an English writing course.
Finally, the required competence for English majors differs from other English learners. English majors are not limited to the command of any particular sphere of the English language, but they must have all-round competence in terms of listening and reading comprehension, spoken ability and writing skills in English, so that they can adopt themselves to various situations in their future work.
No one is born capable of everything. Hard work is the premise of success. To be able to use English freely, we do not only have to read a lot, speak a lot, but also write a lot. English writing practice consolidates students’ overall English competence and enables them to express their ideas and feelings in a more precise, graceful and permanent form.
Ⅱ. Write an outline. (20%)
Read the following passage carefully and compose a “sentence outline” for it.
What I Have Lived for
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy — ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness — that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what — at last —I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life.
I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Ⅲ. Compose an essay. (60%)
Write an argumentative essay of about 250 words on the following topic:
Health is More Important Than Wealth
You are to write in three parts.
In the first part, state specifically what your view is.
In the second part, support your view with two or three reasons.
In the last part, bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or a summary.
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