珍珠和珍珠项链：写作的一个比喻

文章一开始，便是一大段英文，也许并不能产生许多阅读的愉悦;当你知道，这段英文是由ETS提供的一位托福考生的作文，你可能已经完全丧失了耐心，但还是希望你快速地浏览一遍，因为想与你聊一聊的并不是枯燥的考试，而是一个你一定感兴趣的问题：为什么一位英语学习者在被无数词汇书、语法书、写作书折腾后，面对英文写作，依然一筹莫展?为什么在一道作文题目面前，付出的努力、汗水与收获总不成比例?我们思考着“为什么”的答案，却不小心产生了一些误会，有意思的是，误会又时常是生活的常态。

　　请读一读下边的文章，然后回答几个简单的问题，一起探索真正的答案。

　　作文题目：Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

　　Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship.

　　There are certain considerations or factors that everyone takes into account in a relationship. People may look for honesty, altruism, understanding, loyalty, being thoughtful etc! Everyone would more or less wish that the person s/he is dealing with, has some of these virtues above. Putting them in an order to their importance, however can be very subjective and relative.

　　When someone asks him/herself the question “What do I consider to be the most important thing in my relationship?” the answer depends on a lot of factors such as how his/her earlier relationships were.

　　After stating that everyone’s opinion can be different about this, for me honesty, in other words, always telling the truth is the most important consideration in a relationship. Opposite of this is inarguably lying and if someone needs to lie, either s/he is hiding something or is afraid of telling me something.

　　In any relationship of mine, I would wish that first of all, the person I’m dealing with is honest. Even though s/he thinks that s/he did something wrong that I wouldn’t like, s/he’d better tell me the truth and not lie about it. Later on if I find out about a lie or hear the truth from someone else, that’d be much more unpleasant. In that case how can I ever believe or trust that person again? How can I ever believe that this person has enough confidence in me to forgive him/her and carry on with the relationship from there. So if I cannot trust a person anymore, if the person doesn’t think I can handle the truth, there’s no point to continuing that relationship.

　　Although I would like to see altruistic, understanding, thoughtful and loyal behavior from people, an instance of the opposite of these behaviors would not upset me as much as dishonesty would. Among all the possible behaviors, dishonesty is the only one for me that terminates how I feel about a person’s reliability. Therefore honesty would be my first concern and the most important consideration in a relationship.

　　问题1：这篇文章就遣词造句而言写得好吗?

　　答案因人而异，基本取决于各人的英文水平和谦卑心。

　　问题2：这篇文章有许多你不认识的单词吗?

　　我想，如果你是在校高中生，应该发现，80%的单词都是你已经见过的。

　　问题3：如果你学过新概念，请判断这篇文章大致相当于新概念几册的水平。

　　答案：介于新概念2、3册之间。

　　问题4：请判断你的英文水平达到新概念几册呢?

　　最后一个问题：

　　你能猜猜这篇文章在TOEFL考试中得到几分?(满分为5分)

　　答案：满分

　　如果你认识该作文中大部分词汇，并坚信自己至少有新概念2或3甚至4的水平，我们是不是可以得出一个结论：你在托福写作部分能获得满分或无限接近满分?同时，你身边还有不少这样的英语学习者——学过新概念2、3册的，考过4、6级的，背过词汇5000的，投入不少业余时间参加英文补习班的，在重点高中出类拔萃的……