专业四级英语 写作 专四写作 TEM4 Revision of Writing

TEM4 Revision of Writing

General Strategies: Students should be familiar with the features of different types of writing: description, exposition and argumentation.

Description is painting a picture in words of a person, a place, an object or a scene.

A description is developed through details. The writer should choose details that can help bring out the dominant characteristics or outstanding quality of a person or a thing to be described. The irrelevant details should be left out.

Model Writings

a.Description

My Aunt Emily / My Favorite Relative

Of all my relatives, I like my aunt Emily the best. She is my mother’s youngest sister. She has never married, and she lives alone in a small village near Bath. Now she is in

her late fifties, but she is still quite young in spirit. She has a fair complexion, thick brown hair and dark brown eyes. She has a kind face, and when you meet her, the first thing you notice is her lovely, warm smile. Her face is a little wrinkled now, but I think she is still rather attractive. She is the sort of person you can always go to if you have a problem.

She likes reading and gardening, and she goes for long walks over the hills with her dog. Obviously, she is a very active person. Either she is making something, or mending something, or doing something to help others. She is extremely generous, but not very tolerant with people who do not agree with her. I hope that I am as happy and contented as she is when I am her age. Questions:

1. What is the title of this passage?

(My Aunt Emily / My Favorite Relative) 2. What does the speaker’s aunt look like?

(This question asks for a physical description/appearances.)

Which of the following choices are mentioned? The color of her skin/white skin, her hair, her eyes, her height?

3. What is the speaker’s aunt like? (This question asks about a person’s character or appearance or both.) kind, nice, warm-hearted, obliging, generous, sometimes not tolerant, happy and contented.

b.Exposition

Exposition means expounding or explaining. The purpose of exposition is to inform or explore so that people can understand something such as the process of a certain thing, the advantages and disadvantages of a certain thing, the causes of a natural or social phenomenon, the planning of a project, a solution to a problem.

Methods used in exposition: definition, illustration, process, classification and

division, comparison and contrast, an analysis of the causes and effects. The most important thing is to make a point clear. How to write a good exposition?

1.Prepare enough material so that abstract

discussion can be illustrated by examples.

2.Present facts and views in proper order

–in the order of time (chronological order), space (spatial order) or a logical sequence.

3.Try to make exposition intelligible and

readable. If it is possible, the exposition should be interesting and moving.

Model Writing

The division of labor is made according to sexes in this small village. Men are expected to support their families by doing all the work in the fields, by caring for the cattle, by cutting wood and by carrying on all the large transactions in buying and selling. When a male villager is at home, his