冷知识|学会“读”托福，能帮你快速提高文书写作！

大家好，我是你们的贾琨老师，今天来教大家如何通过托福阅读来写文书。

托福阅读和文书写作之间有关系吗？

在我看来，答案是肯定的。

原因如下：

拓展知识面

托福阅读的选材范围广，可以有效帮助我们扩展知识面。

被托福阅读虐过的学生（别担心，多读多体会，早晚有一天你可以虐它）都知道，它的文章取材范围是非常广泛的，涉及的主要有自然科学、人文科学和社会科学这三大类别。其中，自然科学包括地质学、天文学、气象学、生物学等；人文科学包括考古学、文学、艺术、美学等；社会科学包括经济学、政治学、人类学、教育学等。因此，托福阅读的文章可以有效帮助我们打开眼界，在写文书的时候思路更广阔，脑洞更大。

表达专业地道

托福阅读的来源多是权威期刊报纸，表达专业地道。

托福阅读的文章主要来自于《国家地理》、 《经济学家》、《旁观者》、《纽约时报》、《纽约客》、《每日邮报》、《世界新闻报》、《科学美国人》、《自然》等，这些期刊报纸的表达，无论是从句型的结构，词语的选用、观点的严谨性、表达的专业性，都有非常多的借鉴价值。

高效学习

托福阅读给备考时间紧、任务重的学生，提供了非常好的仿写和学习机会。

如何提高托福写作能力和文书写作能力，是我们在咨询的过程中经常被问到的问题。对于申请准备期较长，规划较早的孩子们来说，可以通过原版小说的阅读结合托福阅读来有效变“输入为输出”；但是，对于即将进入申请季、或是规划较晚的学生来说，托福阅读是非常重要的提升写作能力的利器。

因为这个时候，备考任务繁杂，抽空去阅读课外读物是比较奢侈的事情了，于是，托福阅读这个备考语言的必备内容就可以作为考生磨砺语言的方法，既可以提升阅读能力，又可以夯实写作实力。读写不分家，说的就是这个道理。

好，下面我们以TPO56的第一篇文章（Alfred Wegener’s Theory of Continental Drift/Alfred Wegener’s的大陆漂移理论）为例，来讲讲如何借助托福阅读提升文书写作水平。

先放上全文供大家参考（共4段，717字）

第一段：

In 1912, the German geologist Alfred Wegener proposed that Earth's continents are mobile rafts of lighter crust that have shifted over time by plowing their way through the denser crust of the oceans. The theory, called continental drift, was partly motivated by the apparent fit, like puzzle pieces, of the coastlines of South America and Africa. Wegener first presented his theory of continental drift at a meeting and in a paper, and then as a book, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, published in 1915. He continued to write updated versions of this work until his death in an ill-fated expedition to Greenland in 1930. Wegener maintained that Earth is composed of concentric shells of increasing density from crust to core. The outermost shell is not continuous but made of continental blocks of lighter rock called sial (an acronym for silica- and aluminum-rich rock) floating in the denser sima (silica- and magnesia-rich rock) underlying the oceans. All the continents had been joined in the supercontinent of Pangaea. As the continent broke up, the pieces moving apart left bits behind, explaining the presence of nonvolcanic islands and island chains, according to Wegener. Where the moving pieces collided, mountains formed.They were thrust up either by the plowing of the continents through the sima,as in the case of the Andes,or by the colliding of two blocks of sial, as in the case of the Himalayas.As for the force driving continental drift, Wegener initially invoked Polfluchtkraft- -a force causing flight from the poles as a result of Earth's rotation- -and later the tidal force resulting from the gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon and Sun.

第二段：

One of the most influential geologists to join the mobilist camp, as the drifters school became known,was Arthur Holmes. Holmes recognized the importance of radioactive heat- -which had recently been discovered- -and realized that there must be a mechanism to remove it from Earth's interior.That mechanism,he argued,is convection- -the rising of less dense material and the sinking of more dense material. He went on to propose that the mantle (the part of Earth's interior below the outer crust and above the core) convects in large, circulating patterns, and that this motion carries the continents across Earth's surface. He also related crustal movement and mantle convection to the evolution of mountain belts. Wegener adopted Holmes's mechanism in the last rendition of his theory. Holmes, for his part, presented his grand concept of a dynamic Earth in his influential and popular text Principles of Physical Geology, published in 1944.

 第三段：

Although it was eventually supplanted by the theory of plate tectonics, Wegener's theory of continental drift influenced science because it explained disparate observations, because it was placed in the context of existing theories, and because it offered a coherent view of Earth's evolution. For example, Wegener showed not only that the coastlines on opposite sides of the Atlantic fit together, but that geologic features on the different continents fit as well. He asserted that the Appalachians, which can be traced northward through the Canadian Maritime Provinces, match the Caledonian Mountains in Scotland and Norway.He marshaled evidence from the distributions of fossil and living species to argue that land bridges joining continents were less likely than a single continent. The example commonly cited is that of Mesosaurus, a shoreline scavenger reptile that lived in the Permian period and is found as fossils in rocks on both sides of the South Atlantic Ocean. Mesosaurus was thought not to be a great swimmer, certainly not able to cross an ocean.

 第四段：

Wegener also found supporting evidence in ancient climates. Mounting observations indicated that the past climate of many regions was much different from the present climate.In the tropics,geologists had found sand and gravel left by ancient glaciers, and in rainy regions they had located prehistoric deserts.Then there was the discovery, by a British expedition, of plant fossils only 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the South Pole. Particularly puzzling was evidence suggesting that widely different climates in different regions had occurred at the same time, so one could not account for different climates by claiming simply that the whole of Earth was once hotter or once cooler than now. Wegener solved this dilemma by showing that observations of paleoclimate could be explained if the positions of the continents had shifted relative to those of the poles.

下面从一些词汇和句子出发，来讲解我们可以如何吸收托福阅读中好的词句和写作原则，来丰富我们自己的文字和表达。

试想一下，一篇文章从头到尾如果都充斥着一个被反复提到的词，那么读者是很容易产生审美疲劳的，与此同时还会质疑作者的单词量和写作水平。所以，积累一些常用单词的替换表达是非常重要的，以这篇文章为例，第一段用的是Wegener maintained that Earth is composed of concentric shells of increasing density from crust to core（见第一段标红色字体），maintain在这里是“坚持(意见)、固执己见”的意思，表现了Wegener对自己提出观点的坚定决心。

在第三段，Wegener再次捍卫了自己的观点，这次用的句子是He asserted that the Appalachians, which can be traced northward through the Canadian Maritime Provinces, match the Caledonian Mountains in Scotland and Norway（见第三段标红色字体），asserted也是“坚持自己的主张、断言”的意思，但是在这里，我们看到，文章并没有再重复使用maintain了。

托福阅读最著名的就是“埋伏”在其中的长难句，让同学们望而生畏、望而却步、闻风丧胆。但其实仔细研究，托福阅读的文字中绝不仅仅只有长难句，它整体的风格是长句子和短句子结合，读起来更有韵律和节奏感。我们以第一段标绿色字体为例（为了方便讲解，给每一个句子加一个编号）：

（1）Where the moving pieces collided, mountains formed. （2）They were thrust up either by the plowing of the continents through the sima,as in the case of the Andes, or by the colliding of two blocks of sial, as in the case of the Himalayas.（3）As for the force driving continental drift, Wegener initially invoked Polfluchtkraft- -a force causing flight from the poles as a result of Earth's rotation- -and later the tidal force resulting from the gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon and Sun。

这三个句子，我们肉眼可以看到，是一个逐渐变长的过程，由短到长，由少到多，节奏感自然就营造出来了。

第一句话，只有七个单词，但是信息量并不少，小短句把“山是如何形成”的条件阐述的清晰明了。

第二句话，我们可以学习下它的写法，这里的either or引导的分别是sima（硅镁层）和sial（硅铝层），为了论证这这俩概念，又分别举了 Andes和Himalayas这两个例子。同学们需要注意的是，这种题目特别容易出作者目的题，解题不难，找到例子和它对应的论点就可以找到突破。如果我们在写作中，需要介绍并阐述两个对象的时候，可以学习并套用这个句型：..., either.., as in the case of.., or..., as in the case of...

第三句话，比前两句都长，但是句子本身的意思并不难理解，可以用 initially和later这两个词作为突破点，第一个部分，刚开始Wegener引用的是Polfluchtkraft（这个initially一出来，就说明后面Wegener改变了观点，如果他没有改变，是不会用initially这样的字眼的），后来，他则引用了tidal force。阅读的时候，我们需要注意关于“时间”的表达，此类表达往往会涉及到一个逆向的推理（比如，我以前很喜欢吃薯片，这句话的言外之意是现在已经不爱吃薯片了）；写作的时候，我们也可以借助“时间点”来表达改变，比如我们认知的改变，行为的改变，爱好的改变，等等。

（1）Plow（第一段的第一句话，标紫单词）

In 1912, the German geologist Alfred Wegener proposed that Earth's continents are mobile rafts of lighter crust that have shifted over time by plowing their way through the denser crust of the oceans。

分析：Plow这个词，大家可能更熟悉的是它的名词含义“犁；似犁的工具”，在这个句子中，plow则是相对不那么常见的动词用法，意思为“破浪前进；开路”。当我们知道了plow的动词用法之后，再回到原文感受下：by plowing their way through the denser crust of the oceans, 当穿过较为稠密的海洋地壳的时候，一般的go through这样的动作就显得稍弱一些，plow这个词，很精妙的表达了突破海洋地壳的困难。

例句示范：I needed to plow through the nostalgia and get to work. 我需要克服乡愁，开始工作。（Plow在这里轻松营造出来了“乡愁难以消除”的感觉）

（2）Marshal（第三段的第四句话，标紫单词）

He marshaled evidence from the distributions of fossil and living species to argue that land bridges joining continents were less likely than a single continent.

分析：Marshal这个词，和Plow类似，大家更为熟悉的可能是它的名词用法，意思为“元帅；典礼官；司仪”。在这个句子里面，它作为动词使用，意思为“收集；结集；组织；维持秩序”。He marshaled evidence from the distributions of fossil and living species..., 他收集了化石和生物物种分布的证据。相比于collect，marshal更为小众一些，但是用的正确，会增强文字的表现力。

例句示范：“It’s a big country,”said Wednesday, marshaling his thoughts. 这是一个大国，Wednesday说道，整理着他的思绪。

（3）Mounting（第四段的第二句话，标紫单词）

Mounting observations indicated that the past climate of many regions was much different from the present climate. 

分析：在这个句子里，mounting作为形容词用，意思为“上升的; 增长的”，它和increasing，rising，growing都是同义词，我们可以积累起来，替换着使用。

例句示范：Lane watched her with mounting irritation. Lane看着她，怒气不断上升。

本期文章就到这里了，希望对你有帮助，如果还有其他问题，欢迎在下方留言告诉我~