New round of essay comments

OVER the next few weeks, Professor Xia Guozuo of FudanUniversity will comment on essays from last December's CET-4 writing test. This issue, she comments on one that got 14 points.

In last December's CET-4, the directions for the Written Part were as follows:

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter in reply to a friend's inquiry about applying for admission to your college or university. You should write at least 120 words according to the outline given below in Chinese:

1. 建议报考的专业及理由

2.报考该专业的基本条件

3.应当如何备考

Original version

A Letter in Reply to a Friend

I'm very glad to learn that you'd like to apply for admission to my university.

Since you are good at writing, I strongly recommend you major in journalism. From my point of view, you are dynamic and always curious about what happens around you. You also seem to be a good observer while having the unbelievable ability of accurate description. You are born to be an excellent journalist!

Now I should mention some important points you should pay attention to. First, you should get high grades in the College Entrance Examination, for journalism is a very popular major in our university. There's much competition in getting enrolled. Besides the preparation for the exam, a good health condition is also necessary.

Go over all your lessons and read some books about journalism, and you will be more confident of your application. If you still have time, you'd better watch TV and read newspapers. All the above is my advice.

Try your best, and you will develop your talent to the full in the future. Good luck!

Comment

This letter is fairly well written. It meets the requirements given in the directions and is generally coherent. There are no grammatical or spelling mistakes and it reads smoothly. It shows that the author had a solid foundation in English grammar and a good ability to express himself in writing. His familiarity with common English collocations and everyday idiomatic expressions is adequate as seen in expressions like "good at"; "strongly recommend"; "major in"; "from my point of view"; "curious about"; "unbelievable ability"; "born to be"; "much competition" ; "go over all your lessons"; and "develop your talent to the full".

The essay's chief weakness is in the inappropriate tone used in some places. The author seems to talk somewhat like a tough, good-natured uncle. For example, in the first sentence of the third paragraph, instead of saying "Now I should mention some important points you should pay attention to," it would be more polite to say "I'd like to mention a few important points you should be aware of if you want to be accepted at our university." And, in the first sentence of the fourth and fifth paragraphs, the imperative mood (should, must) could be changed to indicative (simple statement) or conditional clauses (see revised version).

Other improvements that could be made:

1. In the third sentence of the second paragraph, "while having the unbelievable ability of accurate description" could be changed to "and have a great ability to describe things accurately."

2. In the second sentence of the third paragraph, it would be better to use "high marks" than "high grades" to be more accurate, though they can be used interchangeably.

3. In the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, "confident of your application" could be changed to "confident in/about your success in applying."

Revised version

The following is a slightly revised version of the original for the reference of interested readers.

I'm very glad to learn that you want to apply for admission to my university.

Since you are good at writing, I strongly recommend that you major in journalism. From my point of view, you are dynamic and always curious about what is happening around you. You also seem to be a good observer and have a great ability to describe things accurately. You are a born journalist!

But, I'd like to mention some points that you should pay attention to if you want to be accepted at our university. First, you should try to get high marks in the College Entrance Exam. Journalism is a very popular discipline/major at our university, so there's a lot of competition to get in. In addition to careful preparation for the exam, good health is needed.

To prepare for the exam, you need to go over all your lessons and read some books on journalism. This way, you will be more confident about success in applying. If you still have time, it would help if you watched TV and read newspapers, which, after all, are part of journalism.

I'm sure if you're admitted to our journalism school, you can develop your talent to the full in future. Good luck!

Coming up: Comment on an 11-point essay.

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The author is a professor of English at FudanUniversity.