A43，最后搏命两周，求拍求建议~

大剑Jade · 发表于 2011-10-10 11:24:17

Argument
题号：新GRE 43
题目：Two years ago, consultants predicted that West Egg's landfill, which is used for garbage disposal, would be completely filled within five years. During the past two years, however, the town's residents have been recycling twice as much material as they did in previous years. Next month the amount of recycled material—which includes paper, plastic, and metal—should further increase, since charges for pickup of other household garbage will double. Furthermore, over 90 percent of the respondents to a recent survey said that they would do more recycling in the future. Because of our town's strong commitment to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted.

写作要求：Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
对应老GRE题号：11

This argument is well presented but far-fetched. It lays a claim that because their town commit strong to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted. Nevertheless, this argument is in effect definitely impractical due to several flaws after a close scrutiny, albeit it may appear plausible at a cursory glance.
First off, a threshold problem arises where the report of the residents recycling comes into being. The author certainly assumes that the report is reliable and convincing. However, this contention is open to a number of interpretations. For example, what if the residents just tell lies because of an inherent ambience of being pretentious in this region? They might be doing this to show that they are more concerned about the problem of environment than people from other places. And what if the number of residents has increased during the past several years? This could surely result in more recycling. Thus, without accounting for as well as ruling out other likely scenarios, by no means could the author conclude that the report of twice recycling could be equivalent to more recycling per resident in reality.
Moreover, even though the author might be able to provide evidence for us to deduce a solution to the problem presented above afterwards, the argument still maintains ill-conceived. Another problem could be located that the author presumes that the increase of charges could contribute to more recycling. Nonetheless, it’s totally possible that people would not even notice the rising increase, because they need not gain a living merely by recycling, and I will wager that no one is willing to live by this means. To corroborate his point, the author should pay a close heed to as well as cope with the representative possibilities, such as the people’s indifferent attitude towards the doubled charges. Only then could he bolster his conclusion.
Ultimately, even if the foregoing assumptions might turn out to be supported by ensuing evidence, a crucial problem remains that the effectiveness of this survey stays doubtful. It’s reasonable to cast doubts upon the author’s presumption which I reject as inadequate. For instance, the author omits to inform us that what kind of survey conducted. Is it conducted by experts in this field? Is the number of the respondents representative and not restricted in a narrow area and among certain people? If these questions haven’t been contemplated before, the survey loses its reliability since the result of it may be inaccurate. Pursuing this line of reasoning, it proves to be the author’s responsibility to mull over his assumptions so as to pave the way for a more tenable argument.
In retrospect, the author seems precipitous to jump to the conclusion based on a series of problematic premises. To dismiss the specter of implausibility of this argument, the author ought to come to grips with the problem mentioned above: the reliability of the report, the cause-effect relationship between the rising charges and more recycling, and the effectiveness of this survey. Only by grasping the gist of the argument could the author draw a convincible conclusion pertaining to the commitment of this town relating to more recycling. After all, feckless attempts with a fallible method could be nothing but a fool’s errand.
543words,29min

ppguo · 发表于 2011-10-11 08:38:02

第一段：“in effect " 你是不是想说：in fact

ppguo · 发表于 2011-10-11 08:49:43

第二段有个地方千万要注意，美国文化中说别人lie 是一件非常严重的事情，不能随便这么说。so instead of saying that people lie about the survey, you can say that even people said they want to do more recycling, how many of them will really do that?

大剑Jade · 发表于 2011-10-11 09:15:27

in effect=in fact哦，原来还有这么一回事，领教了~~以后坚决不说lie~~嗯，而且我分析的可能不到位，那些居民更可能不是故意lie,而是避开了一点谈另一点

ppguo · 发表于 2011-10-11 09:29:22

谢谢你的认同啊。不过那个“in effect" 还是觉得怪怪的，查了字典，应该是跟effectively 比较接近的意思。

大剑Jade · 发表于 2011-10-11 09:37:13

嗯，确实有细微的差别，in effect主要是in substance, virtually, 即almost entirely这样的意思，我觉得比in fact表达更加精确。

ppguo · 发表于 2011-10-11 09:39:10

貌似咱们俩儿用的词典有出入，不过这都是小问题。继续加油~~

大剑Jade · 发表于 2011-10-11 09:41:57

嗯嗯~

jasonliu119 · 发表于 2011-10-12 19:27:41

关于那个回收费增加的问题上，你是从拾荒者的角度思考的吧？但是，我觉得应该主要从顾客，也就是付费给人清理垃圾的角度会更加让阅卷者理解吧？美国有这些拾荒职业么？

大剑Jade · 发表于 2011-10-12 20:45:47

哦，那个我只是考虑在平时的工作之余拿点外快，应该说政府为了鼓励居民回收垃圾，应该能够有相关鼓励回收的政策吧？

[作文] A43，最后搏命两周，求拍求建议~

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