#Night听心电图
“我从来不觉得自己聪明。可能在其他方面,还不错,但学术上并非如此。我从来不太爱上学。无论我多么努力,最好的成绩都仅是B。中学时我还请了家教,她很棒,但我的成绩并没有显著的进步。我常常因为优秀同学的读写说唱能力,而为自己感到不安。我总是觉得自己不达标,所以一直认为升大学并不适合我。
中学毕业后,我休息了一年。那期间我到东南亚去当背包客。我非常爱那一趟旅程,简直不想离开。旅程结束后,我回到老家,就决定升学主修历史,因为那样我至少可以继续学习有关亚洲的一切。
我现在快要毕业了,成绩总平均是B。我甚至被我最爱的教授提名一个学术奖。他是Arne Kislenko。他其实很严厉,要求很高。教课时从来不将讲义投影,但是他对于课堂里讲解的每一个学问,都会附加故事以做进一步分享。虽然我差一点就被他当掉,但我后来主动报读了他另外两堂课;因为我从他身上学到很多很多。
我的论文主题是“泰国1932-1945的对外政策“。他在派发回来在论文上,写了两个大字:”见我“。然后他对我说,他决定将我提名参加Dean's List Essay Award学术奖;我是他班里唯一获提名的学生。虽然我最终没有得奖,但是我根本不在乎。这个经历展示了,只要我为我热忱的项目努力,我可以达到的是什么。那是我第一次得到学术上的认可,而这个认同,来自我所认识的人当中,最聪明的那位。“
梦想不必伟大,心跳必须炙热。
“I never saw myself as a smart person. Definitely not book smart. Maybe smart in other ways. I never liked school all that much. No matter how hard I tried, I could never reach past a B. I even got a tutor in high school, and she was great, but my grades didn’t really improve. I was intimidated by how well other students could write and speak. I didn’t think I’d ever reach that level. I figured that college just wasn’t for me. After graduation I took a year off and backpacked through Southeast Asia. I loved it so much. I didn’t want to leave. When I came home I decided to major in history, because at least I could keep learning about Asia. I’m almost finished now. I made it through with about a ‘B’ average. Last term I even got nominated for an award by my favorite professor. His name is Arne Kislenko. He’s a little bit of a hard ass. He expects a lot. He doesn’t even post lecture slides. But he has stories and tidbits for everything. Even though I almost failed his class, I registered for two more because I learned so much. I wrote my final paper on Thai Foreign Policy from 1932 to 1945. He handed it back with a note that said: ‘See me.’ He told me that he was nominating me for the Dean’s List Essay Award. I was the only student he chose. I didn’t win, but I didn’t care. It showed me what I could do if I write about a subject I care about. It was the first time I’d ever been recognized for something academic, and it came from the smartest person I know."
(Toronto, Canada)
how to write an academic essay 在 Eric's English Lounge Facebook 的最讚貼文
[托福常見問題] 同學們知不知道ETS於4/23晚間(22:00~00:00)舉辦了第二場的英文日慶祝活動,並在Facebook上開放了一場全球性的線上聊天活動。任何有關於托福或是英文學習的相關問題都可以盡情提問,而ETS也在活動中相當即時地給予大家官方的回應喔~
Eric老師昨晚也幫同學發問了一些問題,在這邊將老師和ETS的談話內容提供給各位,同時老師針對ETS的回答也有一些評語,希望對大家有幫助。
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問題1. ETS has mentioned that the additional/experimental sets in the listening and reading sections do not count toward a student's score. However, are they used to "weigh" the difficulty of the sets? Students typically just memorize the answers to these so what is the purpose of having these sets? Can someone offer us a complete and direct explanation?
ETS之前有提過在考題中會有實驗性的聽力和閱讀類題組,而這些考題並不會被列入評分,然而,這些考題的存在是被設定來評估測驗的難易度嗎? 能不能夠藉此機會提供一些完整、直接的解釋呢?
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ETS的回覆1. The extra questions are used for two main reasons. First, they help with a process called equating, which helps make sure the scoring of the test is fair. Second, they are used to evaluate the questions for future tests.
實驗性題組的設計主要是有兩個目的: 第一,這些題組協助我們評估考試的難易度,這樣才能確保測驗的評分是公平的;第二,它們被用來評估哪一些考題適合出現在未來的考試。
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Comment: Some students feel that certain sets of reading are more difficult than others because they truly are. However, ETS will adjust the scoring according to the response. The problem is, some students memorize the answers while others do not, and this may skew the data in certain local regions.That is, the scores of these additional sets do not always reflect students’ true abilities, and this may affect the process of “equating” on a local scale. Since the equating algorithm is not available to the public, it is difficult to judge whether the additional sets serve their intended purposes.
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問題2. In the speaking section, students are able to hear the answers of others before they begin as they do not start their exams at the same time. Does this give some an unfair advantage? How does this affect the reliability of the test?
就口說測驗來說,今天如果考生沒有在同一個時間開始進行測驗的話,在過程中,時間的落差就會讓部分考生在進入測驗之前就先聽到其他考生的答案了。這種狀況可能會讓那些考生在應答之前就得到了一些不太公平的優勢,這是否多少會影響到考試的測驗信度 (test reliability)?
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ETS的回覆2. While there may be a bit of a time difference between the start times of the test sections, it would actually be a disadvantage for a test taker to try to repeat someone else's answer that they are hearing from another testing station, because it is highly unlikely that they could still speak naturally, and the rater would recognize this. Test takers should keep their noise-canceling headphones on and focus on their own test to do their best.
在考試過程中,也許有一些考生在各個部份的作答時間上有落差,但是對於一位考生而言,要在短時間內去重覆另外一位考生的答題內容,其實是蠻吃力的,甚至在答題的內容可能都沒辦法像原先那麼自然了。再者,針對那樣的答案,測驗的評核者也可以辨別得出來,所以,考生還是必須要讓自己全程好好戴著耳機,專注面對眼前的考題,盡全力應答。
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Comment: As we stated in class, students should rely on their abilities and not testing tricks to gain a high score. Listening to other students' responses may help a few but also hurt others. When students hear the response of another test taker, they essentially hear fragments of a complete answer. Attempts to replicate the response under great stress can be disastrous as students may not be able to support their replicated answer with ease.
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問題3. It is commonly believed that template answers for the independent writing task are sometimes accepted by graders. Can you give us some feedback on this issue? The provided rubrics do not clearly address the issue.
大部分的考生都還是相信針對獨立寫作的模板解答有時候還是會被ETS的評分員接受,能不能夠藉此機會針對這個議題提供一些看法?畢竟,在官方所提供的評分標準內容中並未清楚地解釋這個部份。
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ETS的回覆3.Raters are trained to recognize so-called template answers and score them accordingly, because template answers will not match the requirements in the rubrics.
ETS的評分人員有受過訓練,可以清楚辨別所謂的模板答案,從而進行評分,因為模板類型的答題方式其實並不符合ETS的作答要求。
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Comment: It is taught in our classes that long-winded templates will not be accepted by either our teachers or ETS graders. However, the general structure and organization of persuasive essays (e.g. the five-paragraph approach) can still be referred to, especially for beginning students. In fact, since elementary school, students in the US are groomed to use the five-paragraph approach to address most writing prompts. This standard approach is also taught by most undergraduate English composition courses in Taiwan as it is the backbone of academic English writing. Students are also often encouraged to use so-called academic words, phrases, and sentence patterns in their essays as long as they fit the context of the text. These lexical resources and syntactic patterns are accepted, and even welcomed, provided that they strengthen the coherence and cohesion of the essay and add new information to the text. Nevertheless, students should never write verbose "canned responses" as the lexical resources present in these answers are often unrelated to given prompts. It is also inadvisable to rely on just one writing approach (e.g. the five-paragraph method), as students may be unable to find enough supporting ideas (e.g. three reasons in a five-paragraph essay) in stressful timed exams.Test takers might also encounter argumentative, descriptive, or even compare and contrast questions, none of which mandate the use of a five-paragraph approach. Hence, it is the responsibility of the writer to learn a variety of approaches and use one that best supports his or her claims in the given time frame.
ETS Writing Rubrics: https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_writing_rubrics.pdf
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完整的Q&A: http://goo.gl/35tpLj
how to write an academic essay 在 How to Write an Academic Essay: Format, Examples | EssayPro 的推薦與評價
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