2018年托福寫作模擬試題：選擇居住的地方對幸福的影響

　　Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The place people choose to live has more effect on happiness than the job people choose.

　　【譯文】你是否同意或不同意以下觀點(diǎn)：人們選擇居住的地方對幸福的影響比人們選擇的工作更大。

　　【解析】在正式下筆前，你可以花點(diǎn)時間捋清思路。寫下你想在文章中展開論述的要點(diǎn)，以及打算使用的論證手法，這將有助于文章條理清晰。

　　Becoming an adult is fraught with many difficult decisions, such as choosing a career and where to live. Stresses come with every job. If where you live does not help you escape the stresses of work, then you will never be happy, no matter how good a job you have.

　　【譯文】成年人的世界總是充滿了艱難的抉擇，比如選擇一個職業(yè)和在哪里生活。每一份工作都有壓力。如果你住的地方不能幫助你擺脫工作的壓力，那么無論你的工作有多好，你都不會快樂。

　　【解析】論點(diǎn)是引導(dǎo)文章的主要思想或觀點(diǎn)，讀者可以從文章論點(diǎn)中了解你想要表達(dá)的關(guān)鍵信息。無需贅言，你只需用一句話闡明論點(diǎn)，簡明扼要地表達(dá)論述思路。總而言之，言簡意賅。

　　I have a cousin in California who has a terrible job at a hotel. She could move back to the East Coast and maybe find a better job, but she says she would not dream of it; she loves the Californian weather and lifestyle too much. She told me that even though work is terrible sometimes, whenever she has a bad day she just goes for a walk on the beach and then feels better. There will always be something stressful or unpleasant about your job. My cousin lives by the philosophy that the quality of life does not have to depend on your job. As long as you live a full and adventurous life after hours work hours, you can be happy. In order to accomplish living life completely, I believe location is very important.

　　【譯文】我在加州有個表親，她在一家旅館有份很糟糕的工作。她本可以搬回東海岸，也許會找到一份更好的工作，但她說那不是她所希望的;她非常喜歡加利福尼亞的天氣和生活方式。她告訴我，盡管有時工作很糟糕，但每當(dāng)她心情不好的時候，她就會去海灘散步，然后感覺好多了。你的工作總是會有壓力或不愉快的事情。我的表姐生活的哲學(xué)是，生活的質(zhì)量并不一定要依賴于你的工作。只要你在工作時間過了一段時間后，你就能過一種充滿冒險精神的生活，你就會很快樂。為了活的更完整，我相信住址是非常重要的。

　　【解析】舉例在托福獨(dú)立寫作中扮演著非常重要的角色，“真實(shí)可信、生動有趣、充實(shí)飽滿”這三個要素決定了這個例子是否成功支撐了你的寫作。沒有具體例子，文章將缺乏“畫面感”，大量的“講道理”只能讓文章讀起來味同嚼蠟。

　　Even if you love you job, there are still plenty of hours in the week where you are not at the office. I have a friend who loves the outdoors. He has a great job in Denver, Colorado working at a geological institute. He loves his job, but the main reason he chose to move to Denver was to be able to spend his weekends mountain climbing. You can be happy with your job, but living in a place where you can find happiness outside of work is the best way to find contentment in life.

　　【譯文】即使你熱愛你的工作，一周仍有很多時間是工作之外的。我有一個喜歡戶外活動的朋友。他在科羅拉多州的丹佛市有一份很好的工作，在一個地質(zhì)研究所工作。他熱愛自己的工作，但他選擇搬到丹佛的主要原因是能夠在周末的登山活動中度過。你可以對自己的工作感到滿意，但生活在一個你能在工作之外找到快樂的地方是在生活中找到滿足感的最好方法。

　　【解析】記住托福的舉例一定要要具體和詳實(shí)。沒有具體例子，分論點(diǎn)就缺乏論據(jù)，缺乏論據(jù)，就缺乏可信度，導(dǎo)致論證不充分。不管是表親的例子還是這位熱愛戶外運(yùn)動的朋友的例子，都營造了非常豐滿的畫面感，使得文章不再單薄骨感。

　　Granted, sometimes you must move to a place you do not like, because you want to keep a job you like. Sometimes people are transferred by their companies to less than ideal locations. Companies know that it is often difficult to convince employees to take a position in a remote or far away location, so they offer employees incentives to move to these areas. Many people use these incentives of extra pay and other amenities as a means of motivation. Oftentimes these assignments are temporary and the employees return at the first chance they get. Maybe they are not depressed to work in these locations, but they certainly aren’t the happiest they could be.

　　【譯文】當(dāng)然，有時候你必須搬到一個你不喜歡的地方，因?yàn)槟阆胍�保住自己喜歡的工作。有時，人們被他們的公司轉(zhuǎn)移到不太理想的地方。公司知道，要說服員工在偏遠(yuǎn)或遙遠(yuǎn)的地方擔(dān)任職位通常是困難的，所以他們會給員工提供激勵，讓他們搬到這些地方。許多人利用這些額外的報酬和其他便利設(shè)施作為一種激勵手段。通常這些任務(wù)是暫時的，員工一有機(jī)會就會回來。也許他們在這些地方工作并不沮喪，但他們肯定不是最快樂的。

　　【解析】讓步段其實(shí)是一種“以退為進(jìn)”，先承認(rèn)對方一定限度的合理性，然后再削弱對方的理論和現(xiàn)實(shí)基礎(chǔ)，從而來更好地捍衛(wèi)和增強(qiáng)自己的觀點(diǎn)

　　No matter how satisfied you are with your job, if you are not in a good location, you will not be as happy as you can be.

　　【譯文】不管你對工作有多滿意，如果你不在一個好的位置，你就不會像你所能做的那樣快樂。

　　【解析】本文的尾段其實(shí)非常直接，就是簡短的重申明確自己的觀點(diǎn)!