SAT高分考生作文赏析之‘community’

2014年6月的亚太区考题为“Are people who stay in the same community happier than those who move from one place to another?” 对绝大多数同学来说，本题在语言层面应该不存在理解障碍，题目问我们长居同一地与搬来搬去哪种比较令人快乐，但想要抓住出题者深层次的考察点却并不容易。如果只解读出长居与搬迁，那么在写作当中很难体现出对题目的深刻洞察。

理解本题可以从community一词入手。在本题语境中，对community比较恰当的理解是“the people with common interests living in a particular area； broadly: the area itself”(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)。很显然，题目中的community指一种地方，因此我们取它的引申义，即“有共同利益/兴趣的人所生活的特定区域”。通过对关键词的释义同学们可以发现，题目表面上是在问长期住在某地，真正的深意蕴含在居住环境中的人身上，也就是说，stay in the same community除了指住在同一个地方之外，还蕴含着与自己的同胞、乡亲或有同好的人生活在一起的意思，而move from one place to another恰恰切断了这种人与人之间的联系。对题目理解到这一步，才算是在审题上达到了评分标准中“insightful”的要求。

在我们所选析的这篇考场作文中，作者恰好对上文所谈的深刻性有所涉及，但在论述上做的不够充分到位，得到了9分。接下来我们会从立意、论证、语言等角度对这篇文章进行一个比较深入的分析，同时探讨一下在哪些方面进行提升可以帮助本文获得一个更好的成绩。

In this era determined by fast social development, moving from places to another cannot fulfill people’s desire anymore. There is a huge amount of people tending to stay in their original place. Some people argued that moving places to live can make them happy because they have access to meet new friends and expand their horizons. This is also the reason why the so-called “couch surfing” so popular. However, from my own perspective, the statement above is implausible and in order to be happy, people should spend their whole lifetime in the same community and any reasons are as follows.

在首段中，作者将我们常用的两种开头写法——开门见山法与让步法——混合使用。首句提出搬迁式的生活不能再满足人们的欲望，人们更倾向于呆在一个地方。之后让步，论述了搬迁的好处(“meet new friends and expand their horizons”)，并用couch surfing的例子简要地进行了证明，这里作者对对方观点的关照是十分有效的。接下来作者用however转折，引出自己的观点，即获得快乐的方法是长居同一地，并在结构上引出下文(“any reasons are as follows”)。这里作者有写作不准确的地方，通过分析下文可知，作者在证明自己观点的过程中主要使用的论据是examples而不是reasons，因此这个reason是不准确的，可以换成一个更宽泛的词evidence。

虽然作者将两种开头方式进行了杂糅，但叙述条理清晰，在论述对方观点上充实而有度，自己的观点明确，也在结构上对下文进行了介绍，符合我们对有效开头的要求。如果想要进一步提高，首先可以考虑将段首两句论述自己观点的话放到转折之后，使结构更加明晰，另外对desire这个词更加深入地论述，即决定我们选择长居还是搬迁的欲望到底是什么。其实在本题当中，这个desire应指人们与自己的同胞或同类人生活在一起时获得的认同感、归属感与安全感，也就是我们在本篇评析的引言中提到的题目深层次的考察点。作者在首段写作中对这方面有考虑，但没有进一步的点明。

The story of Kant Immanuel, who is an influential Germany philosopher can perfectly illustrate my idea. Kant didn’t leave to a outside world in his whole life and he spent his whole lifetime in his original community. When Kant was a eight year-old boy, he started his career as a student in a small town in German. Then, he also had his college in the same town. When he was graduated he was regarded as the best student and as time goes by, he was fortunately choose to be a noted professor in a variety of universities. However, these universities are far from his community but with high salaries. All his living situation could be enhanced to a large extent. We all know that the Kant’s response is NO ad he still insisted in his own researches. Kant thought that he had all his friends in his community and he loves his living place very much. He doesn’t want to transfer to another place at all due to his friends. Eventually, Kant got award in his academic area and he became the one of the greatest philosopher in German. Kant’s success shows the power that original community have and people are fulfill themselves if they do not chang living places at all.