本次1月份寫作部分的閱讀文章原文選自美國前第一夫人Laura Bush的“A New Wave of National Parks”,也是一篇環保話題的文章。下面為大家分享寫作閱讀原文和寫作思路。

  文章原文：
  1、Our first national park was named not after a mountain or forest but for a mighty river: Yellowstone. For centuries, the world’s waters have connected us. Explorers, traders, scientists and fishermen have traveled our oceans and rivers in search of new resources and a greater understanding of the world. This Wednesday, as we mark World Oceans Day, we must intensify our efforts to better understand, manage and conserve our waters and marine habitats if they are to remain a vibrant source of life for future generations.
  2、Great progress has been made in protecting our environment over the past several decades, but too little of that progress addresses 70% of the world’s surface—our oceans. Less than one-half of 1% of the world’s oceans are protected in ways that will ensure they stay wild. Too often overharvesting depletes what should be a lasting bounty of fish. In some parts of the oceans today up to 90% of large fish are gone from natural ecosystems.
  3、Our oceans are also where much of our trash and pollution end up. Plastics and other pollutants difficult to break down are killing fish, turtles and birds. Currents in the Pacific have created a plastic garbage dump twice the size of Texas. A few years ago, I visited Midway Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and was shocked to find debris killing birds that could not distinguish between plastic refuse and squid.
  4、We are at risk of permanently losing vital marine resources and harming our quality of life. Overfishing and degrading our ocean waters damages the habitats needed to sustain diverse marine populations.Perhaps the most vital function our oceans serve is that of climate regulator — they produce oxygen, reduce pollution, and remove carbon dioxide. If we don’t protect our oceans, we could witness the destruction of some of the world’s most beautiful and important natural resources.
  5、Fortunately, Yellowstone offers a blue print for protecting our oceans. President Ulysses S. Grant created Yellowstone National Park in 1872 at a time when large wild areas on the frontier were at risk. The founding of Yellowstone sparked a 50-year period during which many of the national parks we enjoy today were created. Our country began to see the value of setting aside large territories that would remain wild forever. Our national parks play an outsized role in maintaining healthy and diverse wildlife populations far beyond their boundaries. Many of the elk, deer and wolves seen throughout Western states trace their lineage to populations in Yellowstone.
  6、In the early 1970s, the U..S. established a modest program to conserve some of its most important marine areas, called the National Marine Sanctuary System. In June 2006 and again in January 2009, the U.S. expanded the concept of parkland and wilderness preserves in the sea when President Bush designated four marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean.
  7、The first of these, the Marine National Monument, encompasses a 100-mile wide area of nearly pristine habitat northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, and was named a Unesco World Heritage site in 2010. A second area, the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, includes the world’s deepest canyon and is home to some of the oldest and most resilient forms of life on the planet. The other two monuments are the Pacific Remote Islands dispersed through out the Pacific Ocean and the Rose Atoll in American Samoa.
  8、These four monuments cover more than 330,000 square miles and add up to the largest fully protected marine area in the world, larger than all of our national parks and wildlife refuges combined.They support vast numbers of fish, breathtakingly beautiful coral habitat, and a remarkable abundance of sharks—often seen as markers of an ecosystem’s health.
  9、In the coming years, protecting our oceans will be even more important. Nearly half of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of an ocean, and that percentage will rise as more people settle in coastal communities. Today there are few waters outside the reach of human exploitation. Our wild ocean frontiers are disappearing and, like we did with Yellowstone, it is up to us to conserve the most important wild areas that remain. Doing so will preserve something that is all too easy to destroy but impossible to replace: natural, undisturbed incubators of life.
  寫作考試解析：
  1.話題分類解析
  從話題方面來看，這次的source text所涉及的內容是很多小伙伴的“熟面孔了”——著實不驚也不喜。掐指一算，在最早面世的OG兩篇示范文章及四篇Practice里面的文章，就總共有三篇涉及環保話題，分別是“Plastic Bag Ban Bad for Freedom and Environment”，“Foreword to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” 以及“Let There Be Dark”。而在過去一年的考試中，環保話題也是屢屢現身，包括5月和11月份北美卷，以及6月份和11月份的亞太卷。在接下來的考試中，環保類話題和教育類話題依舊是備考的重中之重，建議各位考生集中處理和強化練習真題中的環保話題。
  2.論據分析
  常見的論據種類，小伙伴應該也是耳熟能詳的啦，包括個人經歷personal experience/anecdote，事實與例子facts and examples， 研究數據data，權威人士或機構authority。考生們可以參考以上表格，在source text原文中找到各項論據。比如說從Para2開始就使用了醒目的數字，“….but too little of that progress addresses 70% of the world's surface—our oceans”，“Less than one-half of 1% of the world's oceans are protected in ways that will ensure they stay wild”。看到各種不同論據的存在是較簡單的一個環節，但對于分析或者賞析作者手法完整的步驟來說，這也是最基礎、技術含量較低的一步。像以上所引用的數據，我們還要看到這是“一組”數據，存著驚人的對比關系——占著地球表面約70%面積的海洋，其中只有不到“one-half of 1%”得到了應該有的保護。從某種意義上來說，這樣一個戲劇性的對比，甚至可以構成一個situational irony。并且，我們也要看到句子中一些細微的內容，“…are protected in ways that will ensure they stay wild”，作者所希望海洋得到的保護絕對不是一般意義上的、泛泛的保護，而是能極大保存海洋本身原生態的保護方式。這篇source text當中除了數據，還使用了相當多的事實、例子以及權威，尤其集中在Para5-8還有Para10。
  3.文章脈絡
  這篇source text的行文比較清晰利落。如果將文章的脈絡梳理下來，可考慮這樣劃分。Para1為比較常規的introduction部分：引入主題，談論背景吸引注意力，表明態度。接下來，作者闡述本話題論證的必要性——Para2-4表明海洋面積大、得到保護有缺失、海洋對自然系統的重要性。倒數第二部分，畫風一轉，強調海洋目前得到的保護正在進步中，列舉四項里程碑事件及保護區的成立。最后的一部分，進行升華和深化——一方面強調，這是世界范圍內共同致力的事業，“great minds think alike”;另一方面，呼吁不該止步于此，雖然保護在進行，但是海洋生態環境受到威脅的可能性也并沒有隨之減弱。
  4.修辭和選詞
  各位考生可以參考表格內的歸類。遵循了許多環保類文章的熟路子，作者也動不動就去扯動讀者的神經，而這些手法也經常與選詞和平行結構結合在一起。
  如Para3 “…break down are killing fish, turtles and birds”， 又如Para4“If we don't protect our oceans, we could witness the destruction of some of the world's most beautiful and important natural resources”。作者拋上這樣一些動物的名稱來進行列舉，在讓讀者感覺言之有物的同時，也會激發他們的同情。同時，考生需要對“If”這一詞要有足夠的敏感度，通常這個句子不是在強調某一事情的后果，就是在描畫某一事物讓人憧憬的影響，那就是我們可以去分析的appealing to emotions，包括了fear恐懼的感覺、expectation期待的感覺，又或者是sense of regret遺憾的感覺等等。

請加COCO老師（微信號：shnc_2018）

百人留學備考群，名師答疑，助教監督，分享最新資訊，領取獨家資料。掃碼免費加入