新版SAT写作范文详解

新版SAT写作的题目，要求根据所给文章，分析作者是如何使用各种修辞手段、表现方式来支持自己的观点的。

3月5日考试写作题难度很大，给出的提示文章原载于《华盛顿邮报》(2013年7月3日)，作者E. J. Dionne Jr.，是政治题材的专栏作家，布鲁金斯学会(美国智库之一)研究员，乔治城大学政治学教授，美国国家公共电台(NPR)评论员，著有《Why the Right Went Wrong》一书。

这篇题为“A call for national service”的提示文章全文共12段，748词，长度几乎达到官方给出的文章上限(750词)。以下从文章内容和写作手法两方面进行分析。

文章内容

[P1] Here is the sentence in the Declaration of Independence we always remember: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

[P2] And here is the sentence we often forget: “Andfor the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection ofDivine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes andour Sacred Honor.”

[P3] This, the very last sentence of the document,is what makes the better-remembered sentence possible. One speaks of our rights. The other addresses our obligations. The freedoms we cherish areself-evident but not self-executing. The Founders pledge something “to eachother,” the commonly overlooked clause in the Declaration’s final pronouncement.

P1-P3：通过引述《独立宣言》中两句话表明：我们在享受权利rights的同时忽略了应尽的义务obligations，即pledge something “to each other”，这个something包括our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor。

[P4] We find ourselves, 237 years after theFounders declared us a new nation, in a season of discontent, even surliness,about the experiment they launched. We are sharply divided over the verymeaning of our founding documents, and we are more likely to invoke the word“we” in the context of “us versus them” than in the more capacious sense thatincludes every single American.

P4：延续前文论点：我们今天只顾着自己“we”，忘了别人“them”。文章一上来就扯《独立宣言》和上帝Divine Providence可能会让一些同学有点懵，其实核心信息已经重复了两遍，很容易抓：

we often forget … we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.

… pledge something “to each other,” … commonly overlooked …

我把P1-4总结为文章部分：When enjoying our rights we only care for ourselves, forgetting our obligation to pledge something “to each other”.

[P5] There are no quick fixes to our sense ofdisconnection, but there may be a way to restore our sense of what we owe eachother across the lines of class, race, background — and, yes,politics and ideology.

P5：There may be a possible solution.可以把部分理解为一个问题，这里开始提供解决方案。

[P6] Last week, the Aspen Institute gathered apolitically diverse group of Americans under the banner of the “FranklinProject,” named after Ben, to declare a commitment to offering every American between the ages of 18 and 28 a chance to give a year of service to thecountry. The opportunities would include service in our armed forces but alsotime spent educating our fellow citizens, bringing them health care andpreventive services, working with the least advantaged among us, and conservingour environment.

P6：具体阐述解决方案“Franklin Project”的内容：offering everyAmerican between the ages of 18 and 28 a chance to give a year of service tothe country。

[P7] Service would not be compulsory, but it would be an expectation. And it just might become part of who we are.

[P8] The call for universal, voluntary service is being championed by retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in league with two of the country’s foremost advocates of the cause, John Bridgeland, who served in the George W. Bush administration, and Alan Khazei, co-founder of City Year, one of the nation’s most formidable volunteer groups. The triotestifies to the non-ideological and nonpartisan nature of this cause, as did acolumn last week endorsing the idea from Michael Gerson, my conservative Postcolleague.

P8：讲这个project的三个提出者：Stanley McChrystal , John Bridgeland, and Alan Khazei。

这里暂时可以把P5-8总结为：A possible solution, championed by McChrystal, Bridgeland, andKhazei, is provided by the Franklin Project: offering every American between the ages of 18 and 28 a chance to offer a year of service to the country.

[P9] “We’ve a remarkable opportunity now,”McChrystal says, “to move with the American people away from an easy citizenship that does not ask something from every American yet asks a lot froma tiny few.” We do, indeed, owe something to our country, and we owe anenormous debt to those who have done tour after tour in Iraq and Afghanistan.

P9：讲了Franklin Project 的一个好处：move away from an easy citizenship that does not ask somethingfrom every American yet asks a lot from a tiny few。

[P10] McChrystal sees universal service astransformative. “It will change how we think about America and how we thinkabout ourselves,” he says. And as a former leader of an all-volunteer Army, hescoffs at the idea that giving young Americans a stipend while they serveamounts to “paid volunteerism,” the phrase typically invoked by critics of service programs. “If you try to rely on unpaidvolunteerism,” he said, “then you limit the people who can do it. . . . I’dlike the people from Scarsdale to be paid the same as the people from EastL.A.”

P10：讲了另一个好处：change how we think about America and ourselves并反驳了对有偿志愿活动paid volunteerism的批评：如果不给钱，参与人数就少了。

[P11] There are real challenges here. Creating the estimated 1 million service slots required to make the prospect of servicetruly universal will take money, from government and private philanthropy.Service, as McChrystal says, cannot just be a nice thing that well-off kids dowhen they get out of college. It has to draw in the least advantaged young Americans. In the process, it could open new avenues for social mobility,something the military has done for so many in the past.

P11：讲了面临的挑战challenges=take money and draw in the least advantaged youngAmericans和又一个好处=could open new avenues for social mobility

我把P5-11总结为文章第二部分：a possible solution (offering every American between the ages of18 and 28 a chance to give a year of service to the country) and its benefitsand challenges

[P12] Who knows whether the universal expectationof service would change the country as much as McChrystal hopes. But we haveprecious few institutions reminding us to join the Founders in pledging something to each other. We could begin by debating this proposal in a way that frees us from the poisonous assumption that even an idea involving service toothers must be part of some hidden political agenda. The agenda here isentirely open. It’s based on the belief that certain unalienable rights entailcertain unavoidable responsibilities.

P12：这里是很典型的让步加反驳，先说效果有待观察，然后反驳说至少能提醒我们pledging somethingto each other，让我们免受错误思想的荼毒，服务他人可以很纯粹，没有隐藏的政治目的。最后一句还呼应了开篇谈到的权利rights和义务responsibilities。

我把P12总结为文章第三部分：The universal expectation of service can remind us that havingcertain rights requires us to pledge something to each other in return, and itis a good start.

由于没有拿到原题最后的官方总结，我根据文意把全文主题(Author’s claim)概括为：National service isa positive, desirable ideal for young Americans.

写作手法：

，evidence。这个应该是全文最多也最明显的特征了，作者通篇大量机构和。比如第八段讲了FranklinProject的三位提出者并详细介绍了他们的身份和资历，这就是很清楚的ethos，建立可信度。让读者知道这个解决方案不是某个打酱油的拍脑袋提出的，而是专业人士苦心经营的。之后还多次引用这些人的话语(quotation)，来为这个项目的可行性和有效性背书。已有官方范文中对于这种写作手法有非常成熟的案例，可以轻松套用。

第二，reasoning。可以从全文或局部的行文思路切入。根据之前对文章的分析，部分提出问题，第二部分给出解决方案并分析利弊，第三部分重申主题。把作者的行文思路一层一层分析清楚即可。当然，此写法难度较大且比较耗时，所以我在课上就明确表示不推荐所有同学使用。感觉有压力的同学可以只分析局部或在后面的stylistic and persuasive elements里选两种来写。

第三，stylistic and persuasive elements。这里花样比较多，我选几个讲。

1、根据官方题目要求里给出的两种手段wordchoice和appealsto emotion，我会选择第九段来写，这一段里出现了一些含义较强的词语wordswith strong connotation，如are markable opportunity，asks a lot from a tiny few，weowe an enormous debt等。这些词突出了我们亏欠别人的太多，从而愈发衬托出FranklinProject的重要性。段落最后的tourafter tour in Iraq and Afghanistan更能唤起人们的同情心，想到那些军人在危险之地一遍遍玩命，读者自然会为自己的自私感到愧疚。

2、除了选择官方指定手段，我们也可以自由选择。所以还可以选最后一段的让步加反驳concession and rebuttal，因为这个feature太过明显，且已有的官方中有类似的写法存在，具备参考意义。

总结，严格来讲，以上我一共给出了五种features，考试现场五选三，再根据上课讲过的相应套路操作即可。本次写作考试总体偏难，高分不易。目测五月亚洲题可能会有所调整，拭目以待。