托福独立写作常见的一些审题的雷区

　　那么该如何改正呢?既然题目只是问我们一个客观事实，那么论述的过程要么就是用事实说话，摆事实讲道理，比如记者会跟踪、偷拍明星，并将他们的一举一动在第一时间发布;电视上会邀请明星来参加真人秀(reality shows)，甚至还会到明星家里去拍亲子秀，这样明星的整个生活都暴露在公众视野;为了博眼球，他们甚至还会将一些信息进行拼接来制造新闻，甚至是假新闻，然后引发公众关注，企图明星能更多地曝光自己的生活等等，然后再说明这样的关注已经过分了。以下是一个参考主体段：

　　… I do agree that the media have laid too much emphasis on the privacy of famous people.(开头段)

　　Firstly, a tendency has emerged that some producers of reality TV shows are willing to allocate large amounts of money to invite celebrities and even their children or families. It is evident that viewers could have an opportunity to get access to the real life of a super star, i.e., to see what a working day or a weekend of a star is, how different a star’s growing experience is from ordinary people, or what a star will do in a relationship. These shows can thus gain its popularity and then earn more from commercials but the celebrities have lost all their privacy and their families’ lives may be bothered as well.

　　上文中从事实切入，说了所谓“媒体关注”的方式，考生们在写的时候也可以用具体的例子，接下来点到这对于明星来说会产生的问题，以此来回应“too much”。当然这不是唯一的解题思路，对于这道题我们也可以分析这个现象背后存在的原因，但归根结底需要的是命题这个结论。

　　再来看一下TPO 20这道题目：

　　Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

　　Successful people try new things and take risks rather than only doing what they know how to do well.

　　Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

　　以下是来自一位学生的开头段和第一个主体段：

　　Nowadays there is a controversial issue about how people achieve success. Someone holds the opinion that by trying new things and taking risks that they become successful, while others think that they already know how to do well. From my perspective, I agree that it’s the spirit of adventure that plays the most important role in being successful.

　　First of all, trying new things could bring people more creativity and inspiration. To achieve success, you must make your products or services outstanding from the competitors. How to do it? I think the key factor is to be creative. In order to be creative, people must try new things. Let us take Jobs for example. The Apple was nearly bankrupt before Steve Jobs was invited to come back. As the CEO, what Jobs had done was trying his best to make products full of creativity. Iphone is the first cellphone using the technique of multi-touch, Macbook air is thinner than any laptops. Therefore, it is creativity that brings Apple from the edge of bankruptcy to the biggest company in the world.

　　如果有关注到上文中加粗的位置，相信你心里也一定在犯嘀咕了，也许也会有一种感觉，叫做“文不对题吧”。我们还是先来翻译一下这道题目的问题：

　　你是否同意如下观点：成功人士(往往都是)尝试新鲜事物，而不是只做自己确定能做好的事。

　　刷过一些独立写作题目的考生可能会有一个思维定式，就是认为独立写作基本就在考察某些事情的好与不好。很明显上文中的同学，就把这道题想成了“如何成功”或“成功的要素”，于是他的思路就变成了“冒险创新”跟“稳中求进”，哪个更能让人成功。于是也就有了他的第一个理由：“尝试新事物可以让人更有创造力。”有同学可能会问，这难道不对吗?成功的人不就是这样的吗?问题就在这里，我们需要论证的是，“成功的人都会尝试新事物”，而不是“尝试新事物使人成功”，细说来，后者应该是前者论题在论述中的一个部分或环节，我们最终需要证明的是一个事实，即“成功人士更爱冒险尝试新事物还是只做自己确定能做好的事”。

　　于是到这里可能有人会问，刚刚上面的段落中不也举了赫赫有名的乔帮主和他的苹果帝国作例子吗?这恰好不也从正面印证了这个事实吗?没错，如果单独看这个例子其实并无问题，但因为例子去证明的观点并不是考官所问的，所以即使例子对，也会显得文不对题。笔者将上面的例子进行了修正，将它们改成了相对比较正确的内容，读者可以参考对比：

　　Successful people have long been regarded as the role models for ordinary people and the ones many are willing to imitate. How they succeed in their fields has also been a topic of discussion among public. Although it is sometimes believed that only doing things one person is good at will make success, I still think it is trying new things that should be defined as the determining factor for success, since a diversity of examples have proven this statement.

　　First of all, the success of a great many business elites should be undoubtedly ascribed to the attempts to develop new fields. Most of them were faced with similar situations when starting their business: being negated, doubted, refused, even despised, just because things they had done were totally new and risky, not only for themselves, but for the market. The only positive side probably lies in the number of their rivals, zero. However, just by doing this, they finally exploit new opportunities, open new markets, and become the winner in the competition. Ma Yun, now the richest man in China, is a good example. After being turned down for hundreds of times, he has built his e-commercial empire all over the world, which used to be labeled as “impossible”. Steve Jobs, used to be the CEO of Apple, has been a legend and the God for billions of fans, largely due to his on-going efforts on the innovation of his products. It is not difficult to imagine that if they had only done what they know they can do well: Ma would have been teaching English in a school and Jobs perhaps a common Harvard undergraduate.