I"ve been writing for most of my life. The book Writing Without Teachers introduced me to one distinction and one practice that has helped my writing processes tremendously. The distinction is between the creative mind and the critical mind. While you need to employ both to get to a finished result, they cannot work in parallel no matter how much we might like to think so. Trying to criticize writing on the fly is possibly the single greatest barrier to writing that most of us encounter. If you are listening to that 5th grade English teacher correct your grammar while you are trying to capture a fleeting thought, the thought will die. If you capture the fleeting thought and simply share it with the world in raw form, no one is likely to understand. You must learn to create first and then criticize if you want to make writing the tool for thinking that it is. The practice that can help you past your learned bad habits of trying to edit as you write is what Elbow calls "free writing". In free writing, the objective is to get words down on paper non-stop, usually for 15-20 minutes. No stopping, no going back, no criticizing. The goal is to get the words flowing. As the words begin to flow, the ideas will come from the shadows and let themselves be captured on your notepad or your screen. Now you have raw materials that you can begin to work with using the critical mind that you"ve persuaded to sit on the side and watch quietly. Most likely, you will believe that this will take more time than you actually have and you will end up staring blankly at the pages as the deadline draws near. Instead of staring at a blank start filling it with words no matter how bad. Halfway through your available time, stop and rework your raw writing into something closer to finished product. Move back and forth until you run out of time and the final result will most likely be far better than your current practices.
单选题 When the author says the creative mind and the critical mind "cannot work in parallel" in the writing process, he means
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:推断题。本题考查词组in parallel的含义。语句前半句意为“当你需要同时运用这两种思维来写点儿东西时”,后半句意为“无论你的愿望多么强烈”,从语气可以推断出写作时无法同时运用两种思维。
单选题 What prevents people from writing on is
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】解析:细节题。题干中的prevents…from writing on与原文第二段首句中的single greatest barrier towriting相对应,答案就是句子的主语Trying to criticize writing on the fly,C项是同义转换。
单选题 What is the chief objective of the first stage of writing?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】解析:细节题。由第二段末句可知,题干所说的the first stage of writing指的是“运用创造性思维把观点记下来”,B项是同义转述。
单选题 One common concern of writers about "free writing" is that
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】解析:细节题。第四段第二句指出,这种方法带来的问题是,需要花费太多的时间去进行编辑,还有可能一无所获。
单选题 In what way does the critical mind help the writer in the writing process?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】解析:细节题。第五段第二句和第三句中的stop and rework your raw writing和Move back and forth的过程,实际上就是指运用批判思维对原始素材进行编辑加工的过程。最后达到的结果是写出更好的文章。