揭秘托福GRE作文电子评分器-元月20日晚公开课习作收集帖

Catherine_hopeUID：3596105

本人授权寄托ID tesolchina持有人使用本人的习作及参加本次寄托公开课的练习答案作为科研、教学用途。 - 寄托ID：Catherine_hope

习题类型：GRE issue

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more complex and more mysterious."

Helping people to have more information about the world and to have a deeper understanding of the principle of thing, knowledge is the best thing past from one generation to another. Knowledge is a fantastic tool to make things more comprehensible. Meanwhile, however, knowledge can also make the things more complex and more mysterious than what we previously thought.

Knowledge is helpful in our recognition process of an unfamiliar thing by giving us a clearer look of things, which turned out to be more comprehensible. For example, when a person is wondering how we see the world, he can just search the internet and find out it is eye to sense the light reflect by the object and then transfer the signal to brain where an image is formed. In this way, the seeming unimaginable process of seeing an object is made to be comprehensible and imaginable to us.

Although knowledge gives us a clearer look of things and can make things to be more comprehensible, it also gives us more detail of things and makes them turn out to be more complex and more mysterious in the same time. The process of seeing an object can be understood by the cooperation of eye and brain. But here more questions come out. How do signals transferred from eye to brain? How could brain turn the signal into image? How can the image be formed in brain? Much more questions make the problem to be more difficult. It is a common phenomenon that people always raise more questions as they know more about a certain field. As we know more, we find ourselves unknown more.

Knowledge just provides us a paradoxical result at the same time, making our recognition process of an unfamiliar thing to be easier and more difficult. Consider, for another case, microscope give researchers more details about the basic element of a cell. With the scientific knowledge, the way of how cell absorbs energy and releases useless thing is understood. The theory about the role of cells in an organism is settled. On the one hand, researchers can have a clearer understand of how component in the cell organized and cooperate in a cell. The working procedure in a cell is conceivable and comprehensible to researchers. On the other hand, new questions come out and make researchers be puzzled again. What controls the components to work together? What makes the cell to recognize the subject it need? More mystery and problems are introduced as the knowledge provide by microscope emerged even though knowledge makes things to be more understandable.

Catherine_hopeUID：3596105

本人授权寄托ID tesolchina持有人使用本人的习作及参加本次寄托公开课的练习答案作为科研、教学用途。 - 寄托ID：

习题类型：GRE argument

题目：
Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been unique to the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a 'Palean' basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the BrimRiver from Palea. The BrimRiver is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could only have crossed it by boat, but there is no evidence that the Paleans had boats. And boats capable of carrying groups of people and cargo were not developed until thousands of years after the Palean people disappeared. Moreover, Paleans would have had no need to cross the river ?the woods around Palea are full of nuts, berries, and small game. It follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not unique to Palea. Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.

正文：
The argument is well-presented, but not thoroughly well-reasoned. By arguing no Palean boats has been found, the only way to cross Brim River from Palea to Lithos, the argument that the Palean baskets found in Lithos were not uniquely Palean seems logical.

However, other possible alternatives to take the Palean baskets from Palean to Lithos are failing to be considered. Such alternatives may include the way that the baskets floated across the river by themselves from Palean and were found by people in Lithos, or that Lithos people made boat and then came to Palean bringing back the baskets. It was also possible for other people who traveled by boat and passed by Palean to take the baskets from Palean to Lithos. It appears reasonable that the Palean baskets found in Lithos were made from Palean.

Even if one accepts that  boat is the only way to cross the river, the argument remains questionable. No discovery of boat couldn't prove that boat doesn’t exist. It is mentioned that the village of Palea is prehistoric, belong to a time so long ago that material at that time like wood would already rotten away. So if boats were made in such easily rotten material, they would surely disappear as time goes by. Even if boats could resist decay, they may lie deep in the river bed or somewhere in the place we haven’t searched. It is possible that Palean has already got the technic to made a boat and then taken the basket to Lithos to exchange for food or something else or just sent them to people at there for friendship. In this argument, no evidence has been rendered to prove if Palean process the making- boat ability. Did they have tools like axe to cut down big trees? Was there good material like bamboo to make a boat?

In addition, the argument fall to consider the changing geography shape of a certain area. The argument hasn’t provide details about the prehistoric shape of Brim river between Palea and Lithos. The geography of a certain area isn’t constant during such a long time under the influence of environmental factors such like weather, temperature. There may have been a time, such as during long time no-rain weather condition, when much less or no water was in the Brim river area and therefore the river was small and shallow or even didn’t exist. So Palean people at that time can easily cross this area by foot and exchange material with people from Lithos. If so, more details needed to be provided about the geography condition of this area.

In conclusion, the argument, while it seems logical at first, has several flaws as discussed above. We should investigate more details to prove that the Palean basket found in Lithos was not made in Palea. Without ruling out the influence of these, we could not conclude that the Palean basket isn’t unique in Palea, which would mislead our effort of research and make us get wrong conclusion.