Q：一共需要练多少篇？

每一个大分类的文章其实写一篇就够了，找到那个类别的文章的感觉就成，小分类要是各写一篇会写死的。

Q：打字慢怎麽破？

慢慢来，多练习打英文字，可以培养速度。建议上一些英文论坛跟人argue。如果实在太慢了，就不要写三个points。宁愿花多点时间好好illustrate two points，会让人觉得你每个idea都论证得很饱满，而不是有很多idea但每个都是走马观花。

Q：句式语言和词汇怎么提高？

如果是verbal的句式语言和词汇，那当然是越千奇百怪越好。但是在写analytical writing，我比较推荐用简单直接的语言，表达复杂的思想。平时看一些英文的新闻。仔细看作者表达的方式。然后用自己的语言表达出来。看看自己写的东西是不是看起来很直接很好懂，同时又能表达出原文的意思。Verbal里面很多倒装句，有时候ETS会故意把原文搞复杂来考你。如果你的英文造诣很高，当然可以用到writing去。不过如果不行，就会弄巧成拙。所以我建议用简单句子、简单词汇，加以适当的、可以控制的复杂度，去写analytical writing。

下面贴四篇个人练笔：教育篇、政治篇、历史篇、科学篇。

第一篇，教育篇。

First part, from college student perspective.

20: Some people believe that college students should consider only their own talents and interests when choosing a field of study. Others believe that college students should base their choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field. (Which view)

32: College students should base their choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field. (Claim)

39: College students should be encouraged to pursue subjects that interest them rather than the courses that seem most likely to lead to jobs. (recommendation)

129: College students should base their choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field. (recommendation)

Second part, from educator's perspective.

15: Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers. (Claim)

98: Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study in which jobs are plentiful. (Policy)

135: Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers. (Policy)

136: Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study in which jobs are plentiful. (Claim)

Many would-be college students feel torn between choosing a major that is more likely to lead to good money or better job prospects and choosing a major that they find particularly interesting. I recommend that one’s interests and talents could be the primary factor in deciding one’s field of study, as long as it is where the student’s true passion lies in. However, the information of related career prospects could also be used as a supplement in making up one’s mind.

First of all, a student’s interests drive her to explore deeper in the subject and her talents enable her to excel more easily. History is replete with examples of how some extraordinary individuals succeed by persistently following their true passions and working hard to realize their dreams. Charles Darwin, the English naturalist in 19thcentury, already developed his fascination towards nature at the age of eight—he spent a lot of time doing bird-watching and collecting beetles in his father’s gardens. Such a childhood passion leads him to become a famous systematic naturalist. It is generally accepted that interests and talents are critical in one’s success in any fields. So does college education. Without interests, a student has no motivation to work hard on the subject; and without talents, she need to struggle with the works, which further demoralizes her. In universities, I often see students who study simply for the purpose of passing the exams. They copy other students’ homework in order to submit before the deadline; or perhaps less egregiously, they study only notes with highlighted exam points while giving up reading books rich in content of the subject. After the exam is over, they throw away the notes and forget everything about the course. As a result, they could have at best average performance in the course they choose, which affect their career prospects subsequently. Therefore, I disagree students to choose something they are neither interested in nor good at, just because those lead to potentially lucrative jobs.

However, a student must also be aware of the unemployment rate of his chosen majors. If a student chooses a major which looks fun and interesting, but sadly lead to very bleak career prospects, she might suffer a lot after four years. Currently in Facebook there is a popular quote from a business man saying that, “I don’t always talk to arts and literature students; but when I do, I tell them a big Mac with no onions.” This is to mock literature students who cannot find employment and have to work as waiters in McDonald’s. This is indeed quite sad for students who have passions in literature. Of course, those students with rich fathers do not need to concern about this problem. However, for the majority of students who come from middle-classed families or even poorer ones, it would be a bit cruel to encourage them to learn the difficult Shakespeare’s works, while knowing that after four years of hard works they might end up living in a meager wage. The recently increasing college tuition fees are making this situation even worse, as many students are burdened with more than 100k tuition loans upon graduation. Therefore, it seems that students should not choose something which might lead to their unemployment and financial difficulties upon graduation. This might be in conflict with my first point.

In fact, the extreme scenario of unemployment should not be taken so seriously that a student weigh it more heavily than her interests and talents. This is because the job market is always changing and sometimes unpredictable. When one says that students should look at the availability of jobs, one overlooks the fact that the job market consists of both job offers and job seekers. While it is possible to predict, though not so accurately, the trend of job offers in the future, based on the development of different industry sectors in the nation, one can hardly predict the change in the number of job seekers. Consider the college admission of computer science major. Ten years ago the number of students choosing this major surged due to the booming computing industry; then suddenly the number dropped and the schools soon realized that students were worried about IT outsourcing to India and China; but now the number came up gradually again that the NetworkWorld magazine put “Want a job? Get a Computer Science degree” as its headline. If a student bases her major choice on the job availability, she would be disappointed that things might change after her four years’ college studies. This is even more insecure than basing her decision on her talents and interests.

In a final analysis, I would encourage students to pursue their interests and talented fields, rather than looking at the current trend in the job market. For some of the majors which are always less demanded by the job market, such as the Literature, there are always some approaches to hedge the risk of unemployment. For example, students can choose double majors. In this way, she can always land a good job with another major and wait until she can find her dream job. There are always ways to work out for people who have true passions in certain things. Keep your dreams and you would lead a successful life on one day.

(from educator's perspective, take away the first paragraph on interests and state the responsibility of education institutions.)
Stance: agree but educators also need to be aware of the influence of their words.

Firstly, no doubt it is important to have job security. (original second paragraph)
Second, the job market is always changing. (original third paragraph)
Thirdly, education institutions need to consider what the society needs as well.

High school graduates do not know the true picture of most college majors and most of them do not really have the enthusiasm towards a particular field. The majority of them have their opinions strongly influenced by stereotypes portrayed in mass media. Performing artists are fun, businessmen are powerful and engineers are boring geeks. This trend is partially attributed to the current fact that there are 8.5 liberal arts students for every 1 engineering major student in USA.

第二篇，政治篇。

The surest indicator of a great nation is represented not by the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists, but by the general welfare of its people.

Which of these defines a great nation, the achievements of its rulers, artists and scientists, or the general welfare of its people?  I personally think that welfare, defined by societal support for basic housing, education and medical system, weighs more as one of the many indicators of a great nation, because it concerns the life of each single citizen of that country. Yet these two aspects are not entirely unrelated; the achievements of spectacular individuals also contribute partly to the general welfare, while a society with good standards of living allows artists and scientists to focus more on their career aspirations.
Admittedly, a nation’s prosperity always accompanies with great achievements of its rulers, artists and scientists. One who knows history would not deny the greatness of ancient Roman Empire: there were the famous writers such as Horace and Cicero; there were the sagacious rulers who set the Roman law, which was influential to European legal system for thousands of years; there were the ingenious engineers and architects who built great constructions such as the Colosseum. Even though there were numerous slaves who had lived in dire conditions in Roman, we still remember the Empire as a great nation for its contributions to modern politics, arts and science. In fact, from a historical perspective, when one is asked how he defines an ancient empire’s greatness, his first response would probably be listing out the achievements of its rulers, artists and scientists appearing in that era. This indicates that people have unconsciously regard great achievements of spectacular individuals as one important barometer of a nation’s greatness, regardless of how we argue against it.

However, in modern terms, if a nation has great achievements in these realms, yet leaves its citizens living with poor welfare, it cannot become, or remain as, a great nation. For example, the Soviet Union had remarkable achievements in the space technology and weaponry in the 20th century; but the living standards of its average citizen lagged far behind of those of the average citizen of a Western state. The nation’s collapse in 1991 indicated that the government’s pursuit of cutting-edge technology is definitely insufficient in ensuring a nation’s survival, let alone greatness. Even the Roman Empire in previous example also declined gradually due to the loss of civic virtue throughout society. If each average citizen is facing difficulty in obtaining basic needs, on a large scale there would be a majority of people who feel unhappy and insecure about their lives. This would damage the nation’s whole well-being and thus rule it out from the list of great nations.

Last but not least, the two indicators are influencing each other: a nation who does well in general welfare provides a platform for aspiring artists and scientists to attain achievements, while the achievements of political leaders contribute to the general welfare of people. If each citizen is receiving a well-financed education, he would be given opportunity to develop his own talents and ultimately he may choose a career in arts or science. If each citizen can easily afford housing or medical treatment by using earnings of their own hard work, he would feel secure about his own life and thus concentrate more on his work to contribute to the society. On the other hand, great rulers also help in improving the welfare of its populace. It is through the government’s good economic, diplomatic and social strategies can the citizens be guaranteed to live in a well-protected and stable society.

In the final analysis, among a myriad of indicators which measure a nation’s greatness, general welfare might be a more important one because it determines a nation’s general well-being. However, it is supported and influenced by the achievements of rulers in the nation. At the same time, a good living standard also allows people to focus on arts and science developments. Altogether they make a great nation.

第三篇，历史篇。

Claim: Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today.
Reason: We are not able to make connections between current events and past events until we have some distance from both.

When North Koreans are blindly worshiping Kim Jong Il, the country’s leader, and suffering from severe poverty brought by his dictatorship, they simply do not associate what they are doing now to the similar conditions under Mao’s governing of China before 1980s. From this example, it seems true that humans sometimes could not connect current events with past events, especially when they are participants of current events. But does this infer that our understanding of the past events do not help us in making important decisions today? I would say no. An objective understanding of history, though not a panacea for today’s problems, is helping all rational individuals to avoid repeating mistakes and to understand human nature.

First of all, if a person is taught an objective understanding of history, he can make sensible judgment when he faces a similar current situation; otherwise he cannot. （这一段我不是不小心分成小段的。我是想，一个大的point放成一个block of text。然后里面的小例子再分小段。这是我的个人风格。其实GRE作文没有严格要求必须是怎么分段，主要是看我们自己最后成文的逻辑，所以平时看一下英文母语的人的写作方式，你会发现其实很多中方法都可以，不用那么rigid)

Consider again the example at the beginning, perhaps only after one hundred years could the North Koreans find out similarities between their current era and China’s pre-1980s. But this is because the people are currently not given opportunities to learn the recent history of China in an unbiased way, as their government would not let them know any bad sides of being led by a dictator. This, on the contrary, emphasizes the importance of history.
Consider also the situations in most developed countries which allow citizens to freely spread information and learn history: when certain social problems emerge, there are always critics who stand out to compare and contrast the problems with past similar ones in the history and exhort politicians and regulators to take certain actions.
The above examples prove that understanding history correctly and objectively could help people to make connections between current events and past events, without the need of waiting for the former to become history itself; and an ignorance of history’s true picture makes people unable to do so, let alone of making judicial decisions on today’s events based on history.

Secondly, history informs us the mistakes or failed attempts humans have made in the past, and thus teaches us not to repeat them when we come to make important decisions on current events. If we know that some social ideologies have been proved to fail in the past, why do we bother try it again? For example, Robert Owen, one of the fervent proponents for the once popular utopian socialism in early 19th, purchased a land to do community experiment to test the practicality of this ideology. But the experiment turned out to be a failure. One straightforward reason is that, in a society of public property, the slackers can always enjoy the fruits of others—so no one work. If political leaders can interpret this historical experiment correctly and thoroughly, he would become very careful and suspicious when directing the society to pursue the socialist ideal. Therefore, knowing about the past helps people to think deeper on the current social directions, and thus makes better decisions on a societal level.

Another important lesson history can teach us is human nature. Napoleon, the famous French military leader, once said, “History paints the human heart”. Through study of human history we learn the basic human nature—our desires and motives, as well as our fears and foibles. History is replete with examples of how compromise and mutual understanding result in happy win-win situations, how violent suppression evokes rebellions, how selfishness and greed lead to isolations by others, and how jealousy leads to one’s disastrous life. Through learning of each of these facts, we could understand ourselves better and discern cause-and-effect relationships between human nature and behaviors. In this way, we become aware of possible consequences of different kinds of our behaviors. This helps us in making judicial decisions in our everyday life.

In the final analysis, people’s decisions are always influenced by the history taught to them, in one way or another, unless they do not acknowledge the importance of history or not understand history in a disinterested way. By presenting the past mistakes humans have made, as well as how human nature causes certain historical events, history contributes to our everyday decisions in a varying degree, from personal to societal level.

第四篇，科学篇。

Governments should not fund any scientific research whose consequences are unclear.

Should governments stop financing scientific researches with unclear results? I fundamentally disagree with such a recommendation. At first blush it looks a very practical one because it makes sense for governments not to waste taxpayers’ money on worthless scientific researches. However, I believe that governments cannot fairly judge whether a scientific research is beneficial, due to the nature of scientific research and potential long-term benefits of theoretical researches.

The primary problem of this recommendation is that it is paradoxical in its nature: scientific research is to explore the unpredictable in search of true answers to our questions; therefore no one can firmly determine its consequences before it is conducted. And yet the recommendation is illogically assuming that governments are able to know whether a scientific research is worthwhile beforehand. Consider the first digital computer, ENIAC, which was designed and constructed by two researchers from University of Pennsylvania. It was expensive and bulky; yet it can only perform some basic algorithmic operations very slowly. Its invention and research seemed to fit the criteria of “having unclear consequences”; yet thanks to the US Army who did not stop financing this project, we today can enjoy the convenience of modern computers which evolved from this precedent. The example illustrates that no one, including the governments, can accurately predict whether a researched technology has any profound impacts on society in the future. This suggests that the above recommendation is impractical and may force governments to make unfair judgments on scientific researches which seem not to have very clear objectives.

Secondly, theoretical scientific research might be severely impacted if governments stop funding, simply because they do not see any immediate or obvious benefits. Theoretical scientific research is not concerned with solving practical problems with immediate interests. But it provides insights into phenomena and builds knowledge frontier; its outcomes are made used by applied scientific research. There are many examples: Albeit Einstein’s general relativity, Stephen Hawking’s Black Hole theory, Alan Turing’s Turing Machine, and etc... These scientific researches might seem to serve only one unclear purpose – exploring the uncharted—at least during the time when they were still in gestation. But one could not deny the great benefits they brought to their respective area of subject. If governments are to stop financing these scientific researches, the majority of theoretical scientific researches, which might or might not bring potential benefits, would be killed in embryo.

However, given the limited economic resources, governments need to allocate more funding to those scientific researches which serve more urgent and more immediate social problems. This inevitably would diminish funding for some other researches which do not have clear consequences. But it makes sense. If there was a severe epidemic sweeping through the globe causing millions to die, shouldn’t governments allocate most of its research resources to those biologists who focus on finding out the cures? Admittedly, research funding should be always allocated accordingly by weighing against more pressing social problems; this is one of the responsibilities of governments.

In the final analysis, considering that scientific research is meant to discover the unknown results, and that theoretical research might not serve immediate benefits, it is entirely possible that governments cannot make fair judgements on whether a scientific research is worth the expense. Although sometimes governments need adjust their research funding allocation accordingly, given the limited economic resources, in overall the recommendation is too absolutistic.

原文作者：erencie