How another essay turned out

The following is the third reader's article on last June's CET-6 topic: Ownership of houses in a big city in China

Reader's essay

We can learn from the table that there has been changes in ownership of houses. The table shows that private houses account for 80 per cent in 2000, up from 25 per cent in 1990, while State-owned house have undergone downward change. To account for the above mentioned changes, various reasons have been put forward. For one thing, with the development of market-economy, people have realized that the private houses can keep the value. For another, some people say they wound have the sense of security. According to a recent article by Peter Woods, head of economy department of Harvard, 92 per cent people have the private houses in America. And the article also shows the number is on the rise. A case in point is Marry, my foreign friend, who said last week she want to buy a private house for marriage by email.

Some people have realized the important of the private property. There is, however, a series bad impacts in human spirit. For instance, the egoism, individualism have come into being and developed.

Comment

This essay meets the basic requirements outlined in the directions. First, it gives a brief description of the changes in house ownership in cities as shown in the chart. Then it presents two reasons for the changes. In the second paragraph, the author mentions some of the effects of these changes on our society and people. On the whole, the author is able to convey his ideas in basically coherent English. There are no major mistakes in grammatical structure, which shows the student has got a fairly good foundation for improving his writing. Another strong point is his use of idiomatic phrases and collocations, such as "account for", "undergo changes", "put forward", "for one thing", "for another", "on the rise", "a case in point", "for instance", and "come into being". The weakness of the essay lies in the literal translation of Chinese words, some inaccuracies in expression and inadequate connection between sentences, especially in the second paragraph.

1. Literal translation. In the fourth sentence of the first paragraph, the phrase "keep the value"does not convey the idea the author intended. What value can private houses keep? We can only guess the author meant the value of money in the owner's pockets. So in the revised version it is changed to "is one way of protecting their money against inflation."Again, in the second sentence of the second paragraph, the phrase "human spirit"does not convey the author's intended meaning. "Human spirit"is all those qualities regarded as typical of the human race, as you can see from the following examples:

The desire for joy lies deep within the human spirit, as deep as the soul's quest for happiness.

The human spirit is virtually indestructible.

What the author wanted to say is people's "moral behaviour"or "morality". Another instance occurs in the last sentence. The word "individualism"in English is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact Americans are devoted to developing it. The basic meaning of "individualism"is the principle of being independent and self-reliant. It is not selfishness.

2. Inaccurate expressions. In the second sentence of the first paragraph, "...State-owned house have undergone downward change"literally means "State-owned houses have changed."In fact, the houses themselves did not change. It was their ownership that changed, or rather, the percentage of the total they accounted for changed. What the author meant to say is "the proportion of State-owned houses had a downward change."Again in the fifth sentence of the same paragraph, "some people say they wound have the sense of security"is incomplete in meaning. What the author intended to say is something like "...they would have a sense of security if they owned their houses,"or "owning their own houses gives them a sense of security."

3. Inadequate connection between sentences. In the second paragraph, the link between the first and the second sentence is missing. There is not any necessary connection between realizing the importance of private property and the bad effect that follows. That is why in the revised version "and began to invest in real estate"is added. Also, "egoism"and "individualism"in the last sentence, whatever the author intended them to mean, have not come into being because of the change in the ownership of houses. They came into being perhaps at a time when primitive society began to disintegrate. Clear thinking makes for clear writing. If we want to write clean coherent essays, we must do some thinking before we put pen to paper, or do some careful revision after the first draft. Of course, 30 minutes is really short for a good essay, especially under pressure. But everyday practice will prepare you for good performance in the test.

I hope the author of this essay will not be discouraged by these comments. What I want to do is point out the problems in his writing so that he will know how to improve. To be fair, this essay is slightly better than the average we see in the grading. If I were to mark the essay, I would give it a score of 9-10 points, which is fairly good, isn't it? Writing is the most difficult part of learning a language. It is only through wide reading and constant writing that we can reach the goal of expressing ourselves freely. The fact that the author of this essay reads our paper steadily and shares his essay with us is a very good sign. It shows he has strong motivation to learn. And that is everything.

Revised version

The following is a slightly revised version of the essay for the reference of interested learners:

We can learn from the chart that there have been changes in the ownership of houses in the city. The chart shows that private houses accounted for 80 per cent in 2000, up from 25 per cent in 1990, while the proportion of State-owned houses had a downward shift. To explain these changes, various reasons have been put forward. For one thing, with the development of the market economy, people have realized that buying a house is one way to guard their money against inflation. For another, it gives people a sense of security. In a recent article by Peter Woods, head of the economics department at HarvardUniversity, it was pointed out that 92 per cent of the people in America have their own house. The article also says that this figure is on the rise. A case in point is my American friend Mary, who said in an email last week that she was going to buy a house before getting married.

Some people have realized the importance of owning property and have begun to invest in real estate. This, however, has had an adverse effect on our society and people. For instance, some selfish people try to speculate in the real estate market and have pushed the price of houses beyond the reach of ordinary salaried workers.


Readers are invited to write on this topic. Address it to elt@21stcentury.com.cn. Professor Xia at FudanUniversity will select some for comments.