来源：环球教育
小编：环球教育 116环球教育教研中心为大家带来的“2017年3月11日托福考试写作/口语考前解析”，希望对大家有所帮助!托福考试预测和真题回忆均由环球教育教研中心供稿，转载请注明出处。
1.Some people think that giving students time during a class to discuss ideas with each other is a good way to help students learn; others think giving students time for discussion is ineffective or a waste of time. Which idea do you agree with, and why?
As is known to all, the education in China is exam-oriented. Everything students learn in class is for passing the exams. There are few open topics for students to discuss in Chinese class. It is believed by both Chinese teachers and students that discussion in class is an ineffective way to learn. I totally agree with it.
To begin with, Chinese students have got used to the way they are educated. Most students are required to listen carefully to the teachers and take as many note as possible in the class from primary school to senior high school. It will be too much to ask for students to accept class discussion within a short period of time. It is possible that students might not know what to say in the first place. When topics were given in class, it would be possible that the whole class would be silent. It is not only a waste of time, but also embarrassing.
In addition, the effectiveness of class discussion depends on the students’ personality. Unlike students from western countries like the United States, Chinese students are introverted who are reluctant to express their ideas in front of their fellow classmates. Some students might be afraid of speaking in public. They are worried if they do something wrong, it will be quite humiliating. Some students are just not interested in sharing although they have plenty of amazing ideas in mind.
Moreover, in order to conduct successful class discussion, the teacher plays the most crucial role. It is quite tough for the teacher to supervise the process. He is supposed to be capable of dealing with various challenges. He has to know how to start the topic when the whole class remains silent. Also he has to know how to engage as many students as possible. He has to know what to do when the discussion is absolutely off the topic.
In sum, class discussion might be an effective teaching method in other countries. However, it is not the case in China. It takes time for Chinese students to get familiar with it. It might be good when students become more extraverted. The qualification of the teacher matters the most in carrying out a successful class discussion.
2.Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: people should not spend a lot of time on communication by technologies, such as through social media or with text messages.
With the development of modern technologies, people today are enjoying communicating through social media and text messages, which is convenient compared to scheduling face-to-face meetings. However, some people argue that people should not spend too much time on communication using technological devices. I totally agree with this viewpoint for the following reasons.
To begin with, communicating through social media reduces the time people meet in real life. Convenient it might seem, in fact, this type of communication could isolate people from each other. To illustrate, while chatting through social media, we usually choose to type and send text messages, which lacks tones, intonations, and facial expressions to show our feelings. Even if we could use emoji, the emoji still fails to express our true feelings because those symbols and pictures are identical in everyone’s computer screens or cellphones. Gradually, people will not consider seriously the feelings conveyed by texts and emoji and thus the communications become less effective. For example, some people only “like” others’ pictures and sharing on Facebook without any comments. It is inevitable that people feel more and more isolated from each other by simply “liking” each other’s postings online without meeting in person.
Moreover, always sticking to our cellphones or sitting in front of computers is harmful to our physical health. For instance, many people have found themselves suffering from muscle pain because of a sedentary lifestyle. On the contrary, if people meet in person, they might hang out and take a walk while taking to each other. Though different from doing exercises in gyms, this in person meeting at least enables people to relax and even sweat a little bit.
In addition, during spare time, people could choose to schedule a short trip, do some exercises, or simply read some books that they are interested in. The above types of activities are beneficial for our physical health, and could help broaden our horizons. In order not to become addicted to social media, it is necessary for us to limit the time we spending on our cell phones as well as the Internet.
Based on the above discussion, people should not spend a lot of time on communication by technologies, such as through social media or with text messages. On the contrary, we could meet in person, which could help us maintain social relationship with others. Besides, we should make use of our leisure time to do some beneficial activities instead of staring at the screen of our cellphones or computers all the time.
3.Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: To be happy, it is more important to maintain a small group of friends over a long period of time than it is to make new friends.
There is an old saying in Chinese that our neighbors could offer us greater help than our relatives do when we are in trouble. This proverb shows that neighbors have been playing an indispensable part of people’s life in China. Nowadays, some people still believe that the majority of us are interested in improving the neighborhood. However, in my opinion, people today neither have the time nor the willingness to maintain their relationship with neighbors.
To begin with, people today have intensive schedule of study or work, thus they have little time to spend on improving the neighborhood. For workers who need to financially support their families, they need to complete demanding assignments during workdays; sometimes they even need to work overload and overtime. Therefore, workers will be exhausted after five days of working, and might simply relax at home during the weekends. In terms of students, they usually do not hang out with friends as students in the past did, because they need to write numerous papers in order to earn credits and prepare for the college entrance exam. This phenomenon is especially true in Asian countries where students’ academic performance is referred to as the standard of good students or bad students. In this sense, students do not have time to play with their peers, let alone maintain relationship with neighbors.
Moreover, even if people have the spare time to do something, they prefer to develop their own interests or travel with friends rather than improving the neighborhood. With the development of the society and modern technology, people could enjoy different types of entertainments, such as playing online games, traveling, shopping, to name a few. Those activities occupy most of people’s leisure time today; on the contrary, entertainment activities were very limited in the past, and people then did not have too many choices to kill time except for visiting their neighbors. Based on the above discussion, it could be seen that people today are less interested in improving the neighborhood.
To sum up, because of the busy life and the pervasion of various types of entertainment activities, people today lack the time and the willingness to maintain their relationship with neighbors.
