问答题
There are two writing questions in this section.
For question 1, you will read a passage and listen to a lecture about the same topic. You may take notes while you read and listen. Then you will write a response to a question based on what you have read and heard. You may look back at the passage when answering the question. You may use your notes to help you answer the question. You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response.
For question 2, you will write an essay based on your own knowledge and experience. You have 30 minutes to plan and complete your essay.
There are two writing questions in this section.
For question 1, you will read a passage and listen to a lecture about the same topic. You may take notes while you read and listen. Then you will write a response to a question based on what you have read and heard. You may look back at the passage when answering the question. You may use your notes to help you answer the question. You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response.
For question 2, you will write an essay based on your own knowledge and experience. You have 30 minutes to plan and complete your essay.
问答题
Directions: Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
Communal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias: collections of articles on various subjects. What is specific to these online encyclopedias, however, is that any Internet user can contribute a new article or make an editorial change in an existing one. As a result, the encyclopedia is authored by the whole community of Internet users. The idea might sound attractive, but the communal online encyclopedias have several important problems that make them much less valuable than traditional, printed encyclopedias.
First, contributors to a communal online encyclopedia often lack academic credentials, thereby making their contributions partially informed at best and downright inaccurate in many cases. Traditional encyclopedias are written by trained experts who adhere to standards of academic rigor that non-specialists can not really achieve.
Second, even if the original entry in the online encyclopedia is correct, the communal nature of these online encyclopedias gives unscrupulous users and vandals or hackers the opportunity to fabricate, delete, and corrupt information in the encyclopedia. Once changes have been made to the original text, an unsuspecting user cannot tell the entry has been tampered with. None of this is possible with a traditional encyclopedia.
Third, the communal encyclopedias focus too frequently, and in too great a depth, on trivial and popular topics, which creates a false impression of what is important and what is not. A child doing research for a school project may discover that a major historical event receives as much attention in an online encyclopedia as, say, a single long-running television program. The traditional encyclopedia provides a considered view of what topics to include or exclude and contains a sense of proportion that online "democratic" communal encyclopedias do not.
Listen to Track 61.
Communal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias: collections of articles on various subjects. What is specific to these online encyclopedias, however, is that any Internet user can contribute a new article or make an editorial change in an existing one. As a result, the encyclopedia is authored by the whole community of Internet users. The idea might sound attractive, but the communal online encyclopedias have several important problems that make them much less valuable than traditional, printed encyclopedias.
First, contributors to a communal online encyclopedia often lack academic credentials, thereby making their contributions partially informed at best and downright inaccurate in many cases. Traditional encyclopedias are written by trained experts who adhere to standards of academic rigor that non-specialists can not really achieve.
Second, even if the original entry in the online encyclopedia is correct, the communal nature of these online encyclopedias gives unscrupulous users and vandals or hackers the opportunity to fabricate, delete, and corrupt information in the encyclopedia. Once changes have been made to the original text, an unsuspecting user cannot tell the entry has been tampered with. None of this is possible with a traditional encyclopedia.
Third, the communal encyclopedias focus too frequently, and in too great a depth, on trivial and popular topics, which creates a false impression of what is important and what is not. A child doing research for a school project may discover that a major historical event receives as much attention in an online encyclopedia as, say, a single long-running television program. The traditional encyclopedia provides a considered view of what topics to include or exclude and contains a sense of proportion that online "democratic" communal encyclopedias do not.
Listen to Track 61.
【正确答案】What is important to understand from the lecture is that the professor disagrees with the criticisms of communal online encyclopedias presented in the reading, namely that the encyclopedias contain inaccurate information; that unscrupulous users can tamper with the information in the encyclopedias; and that the encyclopedias do not distinguish important topics from unimportant ones.
In your response, you should convey the reasons presented by the professor for why the criticisms of communal online encyclopedias are not convincing. A high-scoring response will include the following points made by the professor that cast doubt on the points made in the reading:
[*]
Your response is scored using the Integrated Writing Rubric (see Appendix A). A response that receives a score of 5 clearly conveys all three of the main points in the table using accurate sentence structure and vocabulary.
【答案解析】[解析]
TRACK 61 TRANSCRIPT
Narrator
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor
The communal online encyclopedia will probably never be perfect, but that's a small price to pay for what it does offer. The criticisms in the reading are largely the result of prejudice against and ignorance about how far online encyclopedias have come.
First, errors: It's hardly a fair criticism that encyclopedias online have errors. Traditional encyclopedias have never been close to perfectly accurate. If you're looking for a really comprehensive reference work without any mistakes, you're not going to find it—on- or off-line. The real point is that it's easy for errors in factual material to be corrected in an online encyclopedia—but with the printed and bound encyclopedia, the errors remain for decades.
Second, hacking: online encyclopedias have recognized the importance of protecting their articles from malicious hackers. One strategy they started using is to put the crucial facts in the articles that nobody disputes in a "read-only" format, which is a format that no one can make changes to. That way you're making sure that the crucial facts in the articles are reliable. Another strategy that's being used is to have special editors whose job is to monitor all changes made to the articles and eliminate those changes that are clearly malicious.
Third, what's worth knowing about: The problem for traditional encyclopedias is that they have limited space, so they have to decide what's important and what's not. And in practice, the judgments of the group of academics that make these decisions don't reflect the great range of interests that people really have. But space is definitely not an issue for online encyclopedias. The academic articles are still represented in online encyclopedias, but there can be a great variety of articles and topics that accurately reflect the great diversity of users' interests. The diversity of views and topics that online encyclopedias offer is one of their strongest advantages.
TRACK 62 TRANSCRIPT
Narrator
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose the specific points made in the reading passage.
TRACK 61 TRANSCRIPT
Narrator
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor
The communal online encyclopedia will probably never be perfect, but that's a small price to pay for what it does offer. The criticisms in the reading are largely the result of prejudice against and ignorance about how far online encyclopedias have come.
First, errors: It's hardly a fair criticism that encyclopedias online have errors. Traditional encyclopedias have never been close to perfectly accurate. If you're looking for a really comprehensive reference work without any mistakes, you're not going to find it—on- or off-line. The real point is that it's easy for errors in factual material to be corrected in an online encyclopedia—but with the printed and bound encyclopedia, the errors remain for decades.
Second, hacking: online encyclopedias have recognized the importance of protecting their articles from malicious hackers. One strategy they started using is to put the crucial facts in the articles that nobody disputes in a "read-only" format, which is a format that no one can make changes to. That way you're making sure that the crucial facts in the articles are reliable. Another strategy that's being used is to have special editors whose job is to monitor all changes made to the articles and eliminate those changes that are clearly malicious.
Third, what's worth knowing about: The problem for traditional encyclopedias is that they have limited space, so they have to decide what's important and what's not. And in practice, the judgments of the group of academics that make these decisions don't reflect the great range of interests that people really have. But space is definitely not an issue for online encyclopedias. The academic articles are still represented in online encyclopedias, but there can be a great variety of articles and topics that accurately reflect the great diversity of users' interests. The diversity of views and topics that online encyclopedias offer is one of their strongest advantages.
TRACK 62 TRANSCRIPT
Narrator
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose the specific points made in the reading passage.
问答题
Directions: Read the question below. You have 30 minutes to plan,
write, and revise your essay. Typically, an effective response will contain a
minimum of 300 words.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Life today is easier and more comfortable than it was when your grandparents were children.
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Life today is easier and more comfortable than it was when your grandparents were children.
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
【正确答案】To earn a top score, you should develop a multi-paragraph essay that responds to the issue of whether life is easier and more comfortable now than when your grandparents were children. Typically an effective response will contain a minimum of 300 words.
One successful way to express agreement with the prompt is to describe how developments in a particular field have helped to make life easier. Describing how work in the household has become so much easier as a result of the availability of electronic appliances could be one way to develop such a response; you could explain how these machines save time on doing household tasks that years ago took many hours or even days to complete, and conclude that life is much easier now because we have more free time.
On the other hand, you could disagree with the prompt by explaining that life was more comfortable when your grandparents were children. For example, it may be the case that when your grandparents were children, the air and water were cleaner, food was fresher, and some types of jobs were less stressful; you could discuss the importance of any of those in support of your opinion.
Keep in mind that there is no "correct" answer to this question. Either side of the issue can be supported with examples and reasons. It is important to make sure that you state your opinion and develop a response that explains your opinion well. The development of your essay is judged by how effectively you support your opinion; a well-developed essay will contain clearly appropriate reasons, examples, and details that illustrate your opinion. Development is not evaluated simply in terms of how many words you write.
Your response should be well organized. A well-organized essay allows an evaluator to read from the beginning to the end of the essay without becoming confused. You should be sure not to just repeat the same information in different ways.
The quality and accuracy of the sentence structure and vocabulary you use to express your ideas is also very important.
Your response is scored using the Independent Writing Rubric (see Appendix A).
【答案解析】