北美考试院 托福写作组 张晟凯 

解题思路：

此题是阅读材料提出某个事物的三个缺点，而听力材料分别反驳这三个缺点的综合写作题型，需要考生抓住听力中反驳的要点，并在文章中进行尽可能详尽的复述。

本题考查的话题属于托福综合写作中占比极大的自然学科类话题，探讨的是“有袋类动物的三个缺点”。在TPO中有大量题目涉及到了生命科学类话题，如TPO4、TPO10、TPO15、TPO24、TPO29、TPO34、TPO43、TPO45、TPO47、TPO48、TPO49、TPO51等。考生可适度选择上述提到的TPO材料，熟悉相关话题，分析材料结构和写作结构。

可以类比TPO 51的综合写作：大象的三个令人惊讶的行为

TPO 51 综合写作

阅读部分：大象的三个令人惊讶的行为

Main idea: Our long-standing interest in elephants has led to several beliefs about surprising elephant behaviors.

· When elephants become old and weak, they know that they are nearing the end of their lives. 当大象变老变弱时，它们知道自己正在接近生命的尽头。

· Elephants seem to have artistic ability. 大象似乎有艺术才能。

· It has long been believed that elephants have a fear of mice. 人们一直认为大象害怕老鼠。

听力反驳：上述的大象的三种行为是误解

Main idea: The beliefs you just read about are based on misunderstandings of elephant behavior..

· We should not assume that old elephants are aware that they will die soon just because they break away from their herds. 我们不应该仅仅因为老年大象脱离了自己的象群就假设他们能意识到自己很快就会死去。

· An elephant using a paintbrush is just painting lines it’s been trained to paint. It doesn’t necessarily know that the lines are supposed to represent flowers or animals. 一头大象用画笔只是在画它被训练过的线条。它不一定知道线条是代表花还是动物。

· Elephants that react fearfully to mice aren’t reacting to the mice themselves but to the fact that mice are unfamiliar to them. 大象对老鼠的恐惧反应不是对老鼠本身的反应，而是对老鼠不熟悉的事实的反应。

题目解析：

1月16日的托福独立写作探讨的是：“如果想在短时间内了解一个城市，哪个是的方法——参观历史遗迹、去商店或超市还是去餐馆或咖啡馆”。这是一道三选一的题目，我们可以任选“好好坏”、“好坏坏”和“对比法”三个方法中的一种来完成写作。

本篇范文使用了“好坏坏”的写法，即分三个主体段，分别论述所选观点A的好处、未选观点B的坏处以及未选观点C的坏处，以保证每个点都能论述到位。这里选择了个选项作为观点——“参观历史遗迹”，因此个主体段论述的点为：“历史遗迹最能代表一个城市的历史和文化，因此参观历史遗迹对于快速了解该城市有较大的帮助”。第二个主体段论述选项二的缺点：“当代的市场和超市大部分都是连锁的，某种程度上大同小异，因此无益于了解城市”。第三个主体段论述选项三的缺点：“由于餐饮行业的商业化，很多能代表当地特色的餐馆已经越来越少了”。

请参考如下范文：

During the past decades, in the wake of the rapid improvement of living standard, an increasing number of people attempt to travel once or even more times each year. Recently, an interesting discussion about how to know a city in a short time has caused wide public concern. From my point of view, visiting the historic sites of the city seems to be the best way. My reasons and examples are given below to illustrate my standpoint.

Historic sites, as is known to all, represent local culture and history best, which can undoubtedly assist visitors to know the core of the city. There is no denying that those well-preserved historic sites, to some extent, act as the symbols of the area. With time going by, so many events have these historic sites witnessed that the connotations accumulated in them are extremely plentiful. Tourists, especially those who are fond of exploring the inner charm of a city, are supposed to visit local historic sites to feel the cultural value. For example, when you travel to Beijing, only by visiting the Palace Museum can you experience the long history of this city, which is the capital of present and ancient China. The same is true of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal, and other famous historic sites.

Shops and markets, however, are terrible choices if you intend to know a city. It is universally acknowledged that the majority of shops nowadays are chains, which means that they are the same in essentials while differing only in minor points. Suppose that you walk into a local store when you are visiting a city, most of the commodities that you see at the first glance are bound to be something that you are very familiar with, which results from the advanced contemporary manufacturing industry and international trade. Thus, it is not a wise method to know a city by going to local shops and markets.

Considering the increasing commercialization of the catering industry, there are fewer and fewer restaurants that can represent local specialties. To survive in the fierce competition, a lot of restaurants nowadays struggle to adapt to ecdemic diners, which leads to the similar flavor of different restaurants. As you can imagine, it is increasingly difficult to find a restaurant that can provide original local food. Hence, knowing a city through enjoying restaurants or cafes is obviously in vain.

To put it in a nutshell, among three ways of knowing a city in a short time, I still believe visiting the historic sites is the best. Thinking of those fascinating sceneries, I hope everyone can have more opportunities to travel around the beautiful world, especially visiting all sorts of historic sites.