Holly老師的英語新天地

   Hey Class ~ 本週整合聽力如下,加油！只剩兩週衝刺啦　

建議步驟：

1) 聽力 shadowing;

2) 改正自己模板背錯,或試著糾出文法錯誤的部分;

 3) 研讀老師的 sample answer, 學習不錯的句型結構,用字, 或片語;  

4) 最後加強印象, 重打一次sample essay囉!

Remember: The more  effort you put towards it, the higher your final score will be. Go Go Go!   

Script

It is often said that people are reading less literature today than they used to. What should we make of this?

Well first, a book doesn't have to be literature to be intellectually stimulating. Science writing, history, political analysis and so forth aren't literature perhaps, but they are often of high quality and these kinds of books can be just as creative and well-written as a novel or a play. They can stimulate the imagination. So don't assume that someone who isn't reading literature isn't reading a good book.

But let's say that people aren't just spending less time with literature; they are also spending less time with books in general. Does that mean that the culture is in decline? No! There's plenty of culturally valuable material that isn't written - music and movies, for example. Are people wasting their time when they listen to a brilliant song or watch a good movie? Do these non-literary activities lower cultural standards? Of course not. Culture has changed. In today's culture, there are many forms of expression available other than novels and poems. And some of these forms speak more directly to contemporary concerns than literature does.

Finally, it's probably true that there's less support for literature today than in earlier generations. But don't be too quick to blame the readers. Sometimes it's the author's faults. Let's be honest. A lot of modern literature is intended to be difficult to understand. There is not much reason to suppose that earlier generations of readers would have read a lot of today's literature either.

Sample Answer

(by Holly Lin / 257 words)

The reading passage worries that the fact that people nowadays read less literature will have unfortunate effects for us, whereas its listening counterpart believes otherwise by stating three points as follows.

First, the author argues that no other form of writing can provide the intellectual stimulation that literature gives, so less interest in literature will be harmful to the reading public as a whole. In contrast, the lecturer states that other types of articles, such as scientific, historical and political writings can be as creative, well-written and equally stimulating as novels or plays do.

Second, the writing points out that the majority's move from literature to entertainment is alarming, since this trend will lower the level of culture in general. However, the professor claims otherwise by mentioning that other forms of entertainment, such as music and movies, will not lower our cultural standard; on the contrary, they even speak more directly to the contemporary world, which ought to be a good thing to our culture.

Third, the writer fears that due to the lack of enthusiastic readers, many publishers decide to invest less on serious writers, and thus, lots of talented authors nowadays don't get a chance to be found and supported. Yet the speaker contends that readers are not to be blamed for that; instead, the authors themselves are sometimes at fault because what they write are so hard to understand. He even goes so far as to suspect that earlier readers wouldn't have wanted or been able to read many works of literature written today.

 Reminder: Submit your homework (complex sentences + order of IND writing) by Friday night to get password to BONUS file!