作者：北美考试院 托福写作组 崔国花
本次综合写作涉及生物自我调节的能力和人类活动对生态的影响。TPO中有部分题目涉及相关话题：TPO17讲到美国鸟类数量减少的原因，TPO18探讨解决Torreya数量减少的方式，TPO21讨论基因改造树（genetically modified trees）的优劣，TPO23分析yellow cedar数量减少的原因。
Key words: human behaviors, secrete, forest fire, parasite, ecosystem, colonize, resistance
题目解析：
12月19日的写作题讨论学校作息是否应该修改。之前独立写作考过学校应该早点开始上课还是晚点上课，以及公司是否应当采取四天工作制等相关问题。
此题的正反两方立场都有非常多的分论点可以扩充。如果同意题干的说法，我们可以说学习时间增长可以让每天学的内容更深入，放假时间更长可以让学生灵活安排假期时间学习、休息或完成其他计划等；而站在反对的立场我们可以提出，学习时间过长影响学习效率，休假时间过长影响学习状态，以及家长工作时间和学生上学时间不对应会给家庭增加麻烦等。
请参考以下范文：
Students today face unprecedentedly fierce competition than ever before. Therefore, they have to carefully balance their schoolwork and extracurricular activities in order to make full use of their spare time. Some schools decide to cut school days from five days per week into four days while adding extra 90-minute study time into each school day. Is this new schedule more conducive? Personally, I think it does more harm than good to both kids and their parents.
First, the new schedule will decrease the effectiveness of schooling. It seems that students would spend extra hours each school day to catch up the study time arranged in most schools. However, the efficiency and effectiveness of the academic activities in these two kinds of schools are quite different. Nowadays, due to the high expectation of being successful, even some primary schools have reduced sports or arts courses. Also, it is not uncommon to see teenagers devote most of their time, both in campus and at home, to academic work in pursuit of decent universities. Under this circumstance, if students spend 90 more minutes in school each day, that time will not be fully utilized. In fact, kids might be too exhausted to focus on their study. Additionally, since students spend more time each day at school, teachers might assign more homework. This is bad for students because their spare time is already limited due to longer school day. In other words, they need to finish more work in less time. As a result, kids will be demotivated since they feel they are forced to study all day long.
Furthermore, the three days off will cast negative influence on parents as well. The prevalent school arrangement synchronizes customary working hours. Most companies set a five-day workday schedule, just like most schools. If the students take three days off, their parents will need to figure out how to supervise their kids under the new schedule. This will be quite troublesome if both the parents go to work five days per week: they may have to turn to their families, hire a nanny, or find a tutor to supervise their children. Worse, it is possible that one of them has to quit his or her job or find a new job that allows more flexible working time. All these options will add unnecessary financial burden to a family or even be detrimental to one’s career development. For instance, when I was a primary school student, my school once open from Monday morning to Friday morning. This was troublesome for my mom because she had to find someone to take me home and supervise me every Friday afternoon. Sometimes, when all my relatives couldn’t pick me up and she couldn’t pay for a nanny, she had to take half a day off from work. Many parents of my schoolmates faced the same problem.
All in all, I suggest schools to keep the customary schedule since it generates better learning results and saves parents a lot of trouble.
