英语写作素材积累

*Franklin Delano Roosvelt:
Franklin Delano Roosvelt, the longest serving American president and one of the greatest statesman of the country, for example.
New Deal

*Frog:
Since we have inertia, so we always feel familiar with the environment we live in, and we ignore something changing slightly to bad and dangerous. We can cite an experiment of frogs as an illustration. If you put a frog into a pot full of boiling water directly, the frog will jump out of the pot immediately because of the high temperature it can not bear. But under another kind of circumstance that we put the same frog into warm water then heat it gradually to the boiling point, the frog unexpectedly adjusts itself to the increasingly high temperature and finally dies in the boiling water instead of jumping out as rapidly as it could. So we should have crisis awareness.

*Ostrich:
We often escape from reality, especially in danger and adversities just like ostrich that buries its head into the soil whenever encounters its predators in severe situation. It is called "Ostrich's Mind" by psychologists. However, it actually is a stupid behavior to face up to the emergency. So we should face the difficulty and danger in courage.

*Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. Proclaimed the "greatest of all American poets" by many foreign observers a mere four years after his death, he is viewed as the first urban poet. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating both views in his works. His works have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Whitman is among the most influential and controversial poets in the American canon. His work has been described as a "rude shock" and "the most audacious and debatable contribution yet made to American literature." As Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass (By Blue Ontario's Shore), "Rhymes and rhymers pass away...America justifies itself, give it time..."His most famous work is Leaves of Grass, which he continued to edit and revise until his death and is considered his most personal and political work. A group of Civil War poems, included within Leaves of Grass, is often published as an independent collection under the name of Drum-Taps.

*Mark Twain

*Ernest Hermingway
《有钱人和没钱人》（To Have And Have Not）《太阳照常升起》（The Sun Also Rises《The Old Man And The Sea》（老人与海《永别了武器》（A Farewell To Arms）
Ernest Hemingway, born in Oak Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the front, he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent considerable time in hospitals. After his return to the United States, he became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back t

o Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution.
During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Equally successful was A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an American ambulance officer's disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the story of an old fisherman's journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat.
Hemingway - himself a great sportsman - liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith. His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.


*Edgar Allen Poe

*Nathoniel Hawthorne

*D.W.Griffith

*Mathew Brady

*George Gershwin

*Noah Webster
"American Dictionary of English Language"

*George Washington

*John Adams

*Thomas Jeffson

*Abraham Lincoln

*Theodore Roosevelt

*Franklin Daleno Roosevelt

*Willam Shakespeare
"Hamlet"

*Christopher Columbus
*Neil Armstrong
brave

*Ray Charles
Ray Charles, was a celebrated American pianist and musician who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues. He is a blind Adica-American singer.

*Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is a notable American television host. The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest rated talk show in the history of television.

*Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, one of the greatest and most influential philosophers and writers in Unites Kindom once remarked that knowledge is power.

*Colonel Harlan Sanders
KFC

*Confucius
treat all students equally

*Johan Straus
"Blue Danube":patriotic enthusiasm

*Beethoven
"Fate Symphony":strong will of shaking off the shackles of fate

*John Lennon
"Give peace a chance":anti-war idea

*Michael Jackson
"Heal the world":hope for peace

*Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson is born in a poor single parent family. Because of his small stature which is only 1.83 meters, many people looked down upon him. N

evertheless, he spent most of his time and enerfy in practicing.
With his great efforts, as the first pick in the 1996 NBA Draft for the Philadelphia 76ers, Iverson became one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history. His career scoring average of 27.7 points per game is third all-time behind Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Iverson was also the 2000-2001 NBA Most Valuable Player and lead the 76ers to the NBA Finals that post-season. Therefore, Iverson' s high incomes actually are rewards for his hard work.

*Maggie Cheung
Maggie Cheung is a Cannes Best Actress winner from Hong Kong, she was chosen as the spokeperson for Olay. And she was paid millions of dollars as a result. The reason why the company paid her so much is Maggie has millions of fans all over the world and her charisma and influence can boost the scales of products of the company.

*Kevin Rudd
中国通

*Condoleezza Rice
美国前国务卿 俄国通

*Ban ki-moon
When he was in Harvard University, Ban ki-moon studied many courses about foreign culture which enables him to be proficient in Japanese, German, English, as well as French. The knowledge of multi-culture that Ban ki-moon accunulated provides him enormous help to achieve great seccess in his work in foreign affairs. Finally he became an outstanding diplomat of the South Korea. And now he even turned out to be the United Nation Secretary General. There is no doubt that those courses about foreign culture Ban ki-moon took in colledge play an important role in his success.


*Zhou enlai
*Henry Kissinger
Excellent s[eaking ability can help people to clean up misunderstanding and resolve contradictions.

*Martin Luther King
*Barack Obama
Outstanding speaking ability is beneficial foe people' s success of career.

*Pablo Picasso
*Tom Hanks
comedy-ronance movie-action movie

*Arnold Schwarzeneggar
athlete-movie actor-governor

*Deng Xiaoping
reform and opening-up policy

*Steven Paul Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs is the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. In the late 1970s, Jobs' company created on of the first commercially successful personer computers. However, he resigned from Apple in1985,took only five of its employees with him and founded Next new company platform development company.
One year later,Jobs took another risk, he purchased Pixar, an animation firm. Under the leadership of Jobs.Pixar soon became the leading company in xomputer animation and produced the first computer animation film which is named "Toy Story" . As the result of the enormous success of the movie, Jobs took the company public which made him bilionaire. Through the spirit of taking new challedge, now Steven Paul Jobs is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries.

*Forrest Gump
Persistence helps many people achieve huge success in their life. A good example of this is Forrest Gump, who is character in the Hollywood blockbuster named "Forrest Gump". Born in Alabama in the ear

ly fifties, Forrest Gump had a poor and difficult childhood. As a boy, his low intelligence and disabled feet made him the buff of many jokes. However, after surmounting his physical handicap, Forrest Gump successfully played for a football team. Several years later, he went on to become a Vietnam War hero, and even a millionaire. Then, what is Gump's key to the success? When you finish watching, you will find that it is his persistence which helped him achieve his goals. From this, you can understand that if one is persistent, he can accomplish anything.

*Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is one of the most seccessful investors in the world. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. Buffett has a contry mansion, runs a yacht, and owns several private aircrafts.

*Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn chose to live in a small and peaceful in Switzerland in her old age, she also committed herself to philanthropy.

*Jacky Chen
*Kobe Bryant
*Song Hye Kyo
frace commercial advertisement

*John Forbas Nash
John Forbas Nash is a mathemetician and a winner of the Nobel prize for Economic Science in 1994.

*Achilles's heel

*Tale Napolean
Tale Napolean is a military leader and stateman.

*the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
政府应该集中保护环境还是发展经济
新托福写作中有一道环境类名题：Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:Governments should focus on the preservation of the environment than on the economic development.
其实目前正在美国引起轩然大波（is causing quite a stir)的墨西哥湾漏油事件（the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill / BP Oil Spill)就是最新也最扣题的好例子。
小奥不仅在和Larry King的访谈中高喊“我已经出离愤怒（I'm furious!）"，而且昨天第三次亲赴漏油地点视察，超过了他访问民主党支持者们最关心的阿富汗战区的次数。
更重要的是，由于漏油还在不断漂浮并且已经影响到渔业（fishing industry)和旅游业(tourism)等多个产业，最终给美国经济带来的损失很可能将超过500亿美元。如果大家觉得500亿对美国来说没什么，请想想美国经济目前并未企稳（remain highly volatile)，再想想500亿USD可就是3000多亿RMB。
解决环境问题对于发展经济的重要性，在墨西哥湾漏油事件中得到了最残酷但也是最真实(harsh but factual)的证明。

*Synthia
科学家是否应该对其研究结果负责
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
最近在美国，被人们谈论得最多的有争议科学研究却已经不再是human cloning, 而是Dr. Craig Venter和人类历史上第一个人工生命 Synthia（严格来说Synthia并不是一个人造儿童，只是the first cell with a synthetic genome, 但从理论上讲这种cell已经完全具有“长大成人”的潜力了）。
美语里有一个很地道的俗语叫play God，就是指那种对他人的命运指

手画脚的行为，而这一次Dr. Craig Venter是实实在在的扮演了一次上帝造物的角色，在美国甚至已经有人提出他应该被授予明年的诺贝尔生物学奖。全人类都将密切关注the first cell with a synthetic genome将带来的革命或灾难。

*Mark McGuire
我们是否应该相信媒体报导
曾在很长时间内被认为是“美国历史上最伟大的棒球手之一”的Mark McGuire 终于承认了自己长期服用兴奋剂的事实，成为2010年美国第一个爆出丑闻的体育明星。
很久以来一直有传闻说Mark McGuire服用过performance-enhancing drugs(用来提高比赛表现的违禁药品，在美语中也常用doping或者steroid use表示类似的意思）。但这个马克很会通过媒体进行表演，每次被采访到关于这个话题的时候，他都一脸委屈，甚至还经常带着自己的儿子一起上各种媒体访谈，刻意塑造“新好男人”形象。美国媒体替马克圆谎达20年之久，可信度实在未能起到其作为 the conscience of society 应该起的作用。

*Earth Hour：The Sydney Morning Herald 报社
个人是否可以为解决环境问题做贡献
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: As individuals, we cannot make contributions to solving environmental problems. 是一道经常出现的考题。能不能举出有时代感的崭新北美例子呢？The answer must be a resounding YES!今晚,在北美将会有近1亿人为保护环境而turn off our lights for Earth Hour,这充分说明每个人作为an individual都可以为环保做贡献。Pat作为一个从小就不乱扔香蕉皮的好孩子今晚也会坚定地加入到这一行动中。而且只要再看看下面的事实：在短短的三年前（2007年），Earth Hour还只是澳洲The Sydney Morning Herald 报社的几个“小编”的设想，而今天它却已经成为the biggest climate awareness campaign in the world,我们就会更感叹individuals其实可以为改善环境做出多么巨大的贡献了！

*The Obama Health Bill Rally in Virginia
是否应该充分准备之后再采取行动？
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
It is better to get fully prepared and avoid mistakes than to do something first and then accept mistakes.
本周日，美国将面临一个重大抉择：Congress将对Barack Obama的Health Bill进行投票。如果能够获得通过那么至少3000万目前还没有医保的美国人将从中受益。虽然美国民调一再显示越来越多的公众认为小奥是一个socialist, 但白发日渐增加的小奥却似乎已经对讨论“姓社还是姓资”的问题失去了兴趣。今天电视上每个台都在不停播放他在Virginia向着数千Health Bill的支持者高喊，“I know this will be a difficult journey. I know this will be a tough vote..."
可是，统计分析却清晰表明：即使Health (Care) Bill真的获得通过，仍将有大量美国人无法获

得免费的family physicians（家庭医生）的定期检查。因为与专科医生相比family physicians收入偏低，所以医学院毕业生多数并不愿意选择作family physicians，而且家庭医生短缺的状况很可能还将随着新增的3000万免费医保享受者加入而进一步被恶化。

*How Americans Are Getting Geared up for Daylight Saving Time
科技让生活更简单还是更复杂 ?
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
Technology is making our lives simpler rather than more complicated than before.
本周一(3月15日）零点开始，整个北美（包括Mexico)都将进入夏时制（Daylight Saving Time /DST)。
在过去，每到这个周一，健忘的美国人就将进入一种thoroughly and completely chaotic的状态：会有人错过重要的appointment, 也会有人以火箭速度冲入早已totally packed的纽约地铁，更会有无数大学生早晨9：30才鱼贯进入8：30就已开始的课堂中......
然而,今年情况却将变得不同。根据CBS的一项最新调查，美国公众对于今年的夏时制将格外放松(laid-back)，这一切都是因为Technology has been constantly upgrading and updating itself. CBS的调查清晰显示：今年美国人生活里的大量必备用品都将自动根据夏时制的到来调整时间，比如laptops, cell phones, GPS直到比较低端的iPod Shuffle里的built-in alarm ......

*Charles Moore：Moore拍摄的警犬袭击黑人示威者的著名照片
是否应该通过不同媒体获得真相
To what extent do you agree or disagree: There are so many sources of information today. People should get information from different sources in order to know the facts.是一道比较抽象的题目，用“经典例子”很难论证。
如果您听说过美国著名的摄影师Charles Moore，那么这道题的例子就将变得非常“美国”。Moore是黑人民权运动时代最著名的白人摄影师，他不顾个人安危拍摄了大量美国南方黑人被迫害的真实照片，包括Martin Luther King,Jr.被警察强行抓捕的照片。Moore的报导与当时美国白人主流媒体对大量事件的报导直接冲突，引发了很多主张平权的北方民众南下去寻找事实真相。
上周四，Charles Moore在他的家中去世，导致在美国的主流媒体再次引发了Charles Moore热。但这一次，却没有一个人反对他。大家一致公认：Moore拍的照片才是真正的"facts"。
America definitely has come a long way ...

*Hurt Locker & Inglourious Basterds & Avatar
电影应该严肃还是娱乐？
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Serious movies are better than entertaining movies.
上周末获得6项奥斯卡大奖，特别是Best Picture（最佳电影）和Best Director(最佳导演）两个重量级奖项的Hurt Locker其实就是写这篇作文最新的例子。作为一个资深影迷，Pat体验过美国1-3线城市几乎所有的大电影

院，而且无论大片还是票房毒药几乎场场必到，但老实说，这部Hurt Locker我还是真的没看过。而且不仅本人，我身边的所有骨灰级影迷在奥斯卡之夜后的早晨互问的第一个问题全都是，“Hey, did you watch Hurt Locker before?"
根本原因,就是这部Hurt Locker的战争题材过于严肃，导致它远离了美国大众，所以虽然它早在2008年就已经首映，而且专业人士一再叫好（critically acclaimed)，甚至被一些影评人说成“the best war movie ever made", 但票房却一直十分惨淡。而且更关键的是在它一口气拿了这么多奥斯卡奖之后，我身边的朋友们还是没有一个想去看这部电影的。
相比之下，2009年夏天在美国和加拿大火得不行的Inglourious Basterds，虽然也是war movie, 但因为娱乐性极强，反倒净赚了4亿多美金。
当然，票房并不是衡量一部电影的唯一指标。但James Cameron虽然并没有拿到最佳导演，这实在让美国公众大跌眼镜，但在美国民众心目中，他的Avatar才是当之无愧的2009-2010年北美最成功的电影。

*Snowless Winter Olympics
谁还敢说没有温室效应？！一些顽固的学究们还在为全球是否在变暖争吵不休，今年冬天新英格兰的雪也确实不少。
但请看看来自Vancouver的最新消息吧：马上要开的2010 Winter Olympics正面临很多venues会无雪可用的巨大难题，这也是冬奥会历史上的第一次。

*什么因素造就了好老师？
最近一期的北美the Atlantic杂志对新托福作文常考题：
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is more important for a teacher to help students gain self-confidence than to teach specific knowledge.
文章很长但却写得很浅显，完全是新托福独立写作满分范文加长版。最后的结论是：Knowledge matters, but not in every case. Teachers who scored high in life satisfaction—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their lessatisfied colleagues. These teachers may be more adept at engaging their s pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students.

*新闻与小说的界限
美国新闻界有句行话：Sometimes news is even stranger than fiction. 今天早晨打开NBC(三大电视公司里比较亲华的一个），德州又上新闻了，而且这次比过去的那些cult members更有创意：一个叫Joe Stack的开飞机撞IRS(Internal Revenue Service，其实就是美国的税务局)，而且这哥们儿还专门留了个note谴责美国的社会制度。这条新闻因为三个原因而超级适合当作小说情节：一是因为Joe这个名字本身就挺戏剧的，Joe在美国口语中经常用来泛指男性（美语里还有个average Joe的说法也很常用）。连average Joe都已经开始谴责美国的社会制度了，看来这个制度真的是出

问题了（最近在美国还很时髦辩论Obama到底是不是一个socialist,结果是73%的美国人认为是而只有29%的人认为不是）；二是Joe撞的是税务局大楼，但德州却是美国仅有的不收州税的7个州中的一个，要是连对德州的收税都不满，这哥们儿要是住在纽约这个千税之城那肯定更受不了；三是现在美国媒体对德州的这个“tax terrorist"到底属于left wing还是属于right wing始终争执不下，这在过去也相当少见。要说他是左翼吧，他的行为又如此极端；要说他是右翼吧，他又对资本主义制度如此不满......
税：federal tax

*Toyota：Six Miles of Interstate Terror
广告让我们买不需要的东西么？
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Advertising makes consumers buy things that they do not need.
目前正在美国展开密集advertising campaign的是哪家公司呢？是Toyota.在faulty brake和sticky accelerator被一连串曝光后，Toyota却并没有像大家预期那样暂时保持低调等事情过去，反而咬着牙同时推出了至少7个不同版本的TV commercials（这在美国广告史上也属罕见）。其中最搞笑的一个广告是一位老先生很深沉地对年轻人们讲:“Good companies fix their mistakes but great companies learn from their mistakes！”
但是,美国公众却并没有忘记已经导致19人丧生的“丰田门”事件。Pat身边的电视上NBC就正在现场直播一位叫Rhonda Smith的女士在国会山参加congressional hearing的实况。Mrs.Smith的Lexus曾突然加速到100英里（160公里），而且在完全失控的状态下连续狂奔6英里。

*J.D.Salinger：a recluse but not hermit近日去世
The Catcher in the Rye《麦田守望者》
一个还有真正的antihero的年代：1951
这就是为什么直到2009年，在他躲开媒体的聚光灯，隐居了将近50年之后，The Catcher in the Rye 在一年中仍然有a quarter million的读者。

*Scott Brown
1月在麻省的最热门人物无疑是Scott Brown.身为Republican的Scott居然能在一直是Democrats一统天下的麻省红得如此彻底，让很多人感到了Democrats，或者更具体的说：奥巴马，在上任一年后遇到的困境。
Scott Brown也成长于单亲家庭，也和祖父母生活过一段时间，也在Boston拿到学位(the Law School of Boston College，比奥巴马的Harvard Law School稍差一点)，但他22岁就赢得了Cosmopolitan杂志的The Sexiest Man in America的称号，这点上又比奥巴马胜出了。再次证明新托福作文的“好的外表与着装对成功的重要性”多么有的可写。

*John D. Rockerfeller:
The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find out what it is that interets you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it — every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.

*Karl Malone
Hard paid off

*Bruce Lee

If you are doing a list of action movies, Bruce Lee is considered at the top. Opinions vary as to which is the best of his few films, but Fist of Fury combines is the most intense and tragic of Bruce's films, the one where everything works together to create a beautiful, sublime vision of physical poetry.

*Gaudi
Visitors to the Catalan city, Barcelona, will be welcomed with Gaudi and the epitome of European style.

*Dubai, UAE
A shopping meccca that emerged from the Middle Eastern desert.

*Victor Hugo:French Shakespeare
Toleration is the best religion. ----Hugo

*Brody:the headmaster of Johns Hopkins
Doing well by doing good

*Socrates
In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. Triple Filter Test