學 AP 語言對托福獨立寫作的幫助

來自專欄留美考試 寫作疑難雜症診療室 AP SAT 托福4 人贊了文章

雖然我在 AP 語言與寫作掃盲貼 裡面討論了哪些同學適合報考 AP Language, 但我內心最真實的想法是大家都應該學一下 AP 語言，因為出題者挑文章的品味實在是太好了。多接觸一下有趣的想法，有趣的寫作，why not?!

不過如標題所示，今天想探討一下 AP 語言對托福獨立寫作的幫助。首先讓大家先讀一下 AP Language 16 年選擇題的一篇文章。該文選自哈佛文學教授，紐約客撰稿人 Louis Menand 獲得 2001 年普里茲獎的作品 The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (AP 語言出題者很會挑文章有沒有).

Pragmatism is an account of the way people think—the way they come up with ideas, form beliefs, and reach decisions. What makes us decide to do one thing when we might do another thing instead? The question seems unanswerable, since life presents us with many types of choices, and no single explanation can be expected to cover every case. Deciding whether to order the lobster or the steak is not the same sort of thing as deciding whether the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the first case (assuming price is not an object) we consult our taste; in the second we consult our judgment, and try to keep our taste out of it. But knowing more or less what category a particular decision belongs to—knowing whether it is a matter of personal preference or a matter of impersonal judgment—doesn』t make that decision any easier to make. 「Order what you feel like eating,」 says your impatient dinner companion. But the problem is that you don』t know what you feel like eating. What you feel like eating is precisely what you are trying to figure out.

「Order what you feel like eating」 is just a piece of advice about the criteria you should be using to guide your deliberations. It is not a solution to your menu problem — just as 「Do the right thing」 and 「Tell the truth」 are only suggestions about criteria, not answers to actual dilemmas. The actual dilemma is what, in the particular case staring you in the face, the right thing to do or the honest thing to say really is. And making those kinds of decisions — about what is right or what is truthful—is like deciding what to order in a restaurant, in the sense that getting a handle on tastiness is no harder or easier (even though it is generally less important) than getting a handle on justice or truth.

People reach decisions, most of the time, by thinking. This is a pretty banal statement, but the process it names is inscrutable. An acquaintance gives you a piece of information in strict confidence; later on, a close friend, lacking that information, is about to make a bad mistake. Do you betray the confidence? 「Do the right thing」—but what is the right thing? Keeping your word, or helping someone you care about avoid injury or embarrassment? Even in this two-sentence hypothetical case, the choice between principles is complicated—as it always is in life—by circumstances. If it had been the close friend who gave you the information and the acquaintance who was about to make the mistake, you would almost certainly think about your choice differently — as you would if you thought that the acquaintance was a nasty person, or that the friend was a lucky person, or that the statute of limitations on the secret had probably run out, or that you had acquired a terrible habit of betraying confidences and really ought to break it. In the end, you will do what you believe is 「right,」 but 「rightness」 will be, in effect, the compliment you give to the outcome of your deliberations. Though it is always in view while you are thinking, 「what is right」 is something that appears in its complete form at the end, not the beginning, of your deliberation.

以上作者討論的 pragmatist thinking 跟我一直在教托福獨立寫作強調的 specify 思維模式一樣：具體情況具體分析。

例如這道托福獨立經典題目：Do you prefer a high-paying job with longer work hours or an average-paying job with normal work hours?

這道題最根本上考察的是你的 priority, 你的價值觀，還有你所處的人生階段和社會大環境。如果你是一個事業心種的人，可能你會選擇高薪的工作；但如果你覺得家人朋友對你很重要，可能你寧願工資低一點有更多的時間留給社交；或者你覺得工作生活平衡更重要，希望工作以外能有更多時間發展其他興趣愛好；或者你想改行，所以希望有更多時間獲取知識技能。當然，也可能你年輕的時候想多拼搏，有自己的一番事業，年紀大了有了自己的家庭之後希望工作穩定一點，有更多的時間給家人朋友。也有可能現在物價上漲，人們不得不多工作多賺錢保滿足生活需求。

但 Menand 的文章除了給我們展現了一種思維方式，還給了我們一些能用在托福獨立寫作的句式。例如在這幾句的基礎上我們可以建立一個開頭段的模版：

What makes us decide to do one thing when we might do another thing instead? The question seems unanswerable, since life presents us with many types of choices, and no single explanation can be expected to cover every case. Deciding whether to order the lobster or the steak is not the same sort of thing as deciding whether the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the first case (assuming price is not an object) we consult our taste; in the second we consult our judgment, and try to keep our taste out of it.

托福獨立寫作開頭段模版：1) 設問句。2) The question seems unanswerable, since life presents us with many types of ____, and no single explanation can be expected to cover every case. 3) In general, when ___, we tend to __, whereas ____, we tend to ___.

但具體套用模版的時候要靈活修改部分字眼：Which type of jobs do I prefer - a high-paying one with longer work hours or an average-paying one with normal hours? The question seems unanswerable, since life presents us with many kinds of circumstances, and no single choice can be expected to be satisfying forever. In general, when I am young, I tend to choose the high-paying job because I want to make more money and gain more work experience, whereas after I get married, I prefer an average-paying job so that I can spend more time with my families and friends.

知乎上很多關於如何提升英語外語寫作能力的問題，上面的講解也展示了如何通過模仿借鑒他人的寫作來提升自己的句式豐富度。在此過程我們也學到了別人的思維方式。所以說， good writing is also good thinking; they are the same thing!

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