随着全球化的发展,英语能力变成了一个非常重要的衡量一个人能力的标准之一,而如何衡量这个能力,则需要特定的考试。*范围内流行的考试种类中,托福考试(TOEFL)便是其中一种非常常见并且广受认可的英语能力判断考试。它分为听说读写四科,而口语这一单科一共四个问题、分为两个不同的部分,即独立口语和综合口语;其中,独立口语涉及一个问题,综合口语涉及三个问题。今天我们就来进行其中的*个task,即独立口语的简单介绍。
独立口语所涉及的这一个问题,本质上来讲是关乎个人选择的。它可能关于考生是否同意某个观点(agree or disagree)、或者是否更倾向于某个说法(prefer)。比如是否同意某个观点可能会问到考生:There is a policy that parents should not be allowed to see children’s grades without their permission. Do you agree or disagree? 而是否更倾向某个说法可能会问考生:Do you prefer a big family or small family? 考生在考试过程中,会在电脑屏幕上看到这些问题,并且考生会有15秒的准备时间和45秒的答题时间。这里建议考生*好是说到至少40秒。
这个部分的考试主要看的是考生*组织语言的能力和词汇运用的能力。回答task 1这一类问题时考生应该选择自己比较容易能够解释清楚原因和给到例子的角度去说,注意无论是同意不同意还是倾向性相关问题,都必须进行二选一,不可中立。一般情况下,一个问题给到一到两个原因就可以了,因为每一个原因还需要*更多的细节或给出相应的例子。
举例来说,在回答There is a policy that parents should not be allowed to see children’s grades without their permission. Do you agree or disagree?这个问题时,考生需要注意尽可能不要完全重复这个问题,在说到相关内容时需要进行改述,或者直接就说同意或不同意这个statement就行,否则会显得自己词汇量非常有限。同时,考生需要适当的使用如besides、in addition这一类的表达来*自己的连贯性。比如上述的同意与否题,考生可以持有不同意立场并进行以下这种回答:I utterly disagree with this statement. Parents should be given access to their children’s grades so that they can keep track of their kids’ academic performance at school, which allows them to provide the most appropriate help needed to make sure kids do well at school. Besides, if marks are kept from parents, especially lower ones, it will be difficult for parents to know how their children are doing at school, so they can only guess. If parents fail to monitor their kids, some children might end up failing to get into higher education due to poor exam scores. 在上述这个回答当中,我们可以看到see children’s grades这个说法被替换成了be given access to their children’s grades, 而parents should not be allowed to see被替换成了are kept from parents。同时这个回答中,还使用了besides这个词来呈现了两个不同原因的并列关系。
值得一提的是,托福独立口语问题会有一定的重复率,考生可以多看看题库并多加练习。熟能生巧,夯实基础加上不断地练习是通向好成绩的必经之路。