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Toefl 5lb 1ed Chapter35 PDF
Toefl 5lb 1ed Chapter35 PDF
Writing questions test your ability to comprehend written or spoken material and to respond in written
form. You will have to type your essay into the computer. There are two different writing tasks. Writing
Task 1 is an “integrated” task. You will first read a short passage on an academic topic. Next, you will listen
to a short lecture that adds information about the same topic. The lecture will agree or disagree with the
passage in various ways (it will often disagree). Finally, you will be asked to summarize information from
both the lecture and the reading passage. (Usually, you will be asked to explain how the lecturer agrees or
disagrees with the passage, using the same examples given by the lecturer.) You will be able to reread the
passage while you write your essay, but you will not be able to replay any part of the lecture. You will have
20 minutes to write your essay.
Writing questions test your ability to understand spoken and written information and to summarize and
express opinions about that information. They also test your ability to respond in writing to specific questions,
including your grammar and spelling, your vocabulary, and the logical organization of your ideas.
How should you use this chapter? Here are some recommendations, according to the level you’ve reached in
TOEFL Writing:
0. Everyone! Hold yourself to the time limits whenever practicing Writing tasks. Don’t write by hand. Use
Microsoft Word or other word processing software, but turn off both spell-check and grammar-check.
1. Fundamentals. Start with whichever essay type is a little easier for you. Try one question and then
check your response against the sample answer. Fix any errors and think carefully about the
principles at work. If you think you can do a better job, rewrite your essay. Articulate what you want
to do differently the next time you write this type of essay.
2. Fixes. Do one Writing task, examine the results, learn your lessons, then try the other type of
Writing task. Be sure to keep to the time limits. When you’re ready, graduate to doing a set of the
two different Writing tasks in a row.
3. Tweaks. Confirm your mastery by doing a set of the two different Writing tasks in a row under
timed conditions.
Good luck on Writing!
35.1
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
For some, owning one’s own business is the essence of the American dream. However, many paths to
owning a business are fraught with financial danger. Starting a new business, or buying an existing
business, is a risky proposition. The amount of investment required is often more than people can afford to
lose, so the failure of a business could result in financial ruin.
There is a solution that can help tremendously: licensing a product or technology from another company,
and using that license to build products or provide services for sale. Under licensing, one business pays a fee
for permission to sell another business’s products. This allows new business owners to avoid many common
expenses, such as research and development, developing intellectual property protection, legal expenses, etc.
By licensing an established product or service that consumers already recognize, the licensee can quickly
begin filling a preexisting demand. This can be crucial for small businesses that have neither the money nor
the time to develop a full-fledged marketing campaign for their new products. Many such small businesses
need to earn a profit quickly in order to survive, while a marketing campaign can take a long time to yield
benefits.
Another significant advantage of licensing is the flexibility it provides. For a small company with multiple
licenses, it is usually fairly easy to increase production on products or services that are selling well and to
35 decrease or abandon poorly selling products or services. Also, when license terms expire, the licensee can
choose whether to keep the license based on whether it has been profitable thus far. If a product is not
profitable, the licensee has only lost the cost of the license, not the much larger cost of developing the
product or service in the first place.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.2
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
Around four to five thousand years ago, the monument known today as Stonehenge was built in
Southwestern England. It consists of a series of standing stones, arranged in a ring and surrounded by a
“henge,” or earthen layout. The henge consists of a roughly circular border surrounding a lower, flat
area—a ditch—that is also circular. The entire monument is about 100 meters in diameter, while the
standing stone arrangement spans only about 35 meters.
Archaeologists have been trying to determine the purpose of Stonehenge for centuries. Some things are
known for certain. Human bone has been found in numerous locations at the site, suggesting that
Stonehenge was a burial ground. Also, construction of the monument took place not over years or decades,
but over several centuries. Carbon dating traces the earliest components of Stonehenge to around 3000 BC,
but some of the pieces were placed over 1,000 years later.
Otherwise, much of Stonehenge’s origin is open for debate. Thousands of stone circles from the pre-
Christian era have been discovered in the British Isles and Northwest France, spanning several millennia.
In most cases, it is believed that these stone circles were used in some form of ceremony. Therefore, one
theory is that Stonehenge was a site for burial ceremonies.
Another theory is that Stonehenge was a destination for people suffering from some ailment—a
“pilgrimage site,” where sufferers went to seek healing. There is evidence to support this view: Among the 35
human skeletal remains excavated at the site, many show evidence of trauma or disfigurement. Also, an
account from a Greek historian tells of “a magnificent precinct sacred to Apollo and a notable spherical
temple” located on an island north of France, where Stonehenge is located. Since Apollo was the Greek
god of medicine and healing, this account adds support to the theory.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose
the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.3
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
A 3-million-year-old fossilized skeleton of a human ancestor, named Lucy, has been the subject of intense
speculation since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1974. This speculation has included theories about how Lucy
died as well as how she lived. Recent research suggests that Lucy may have perished as the result of injuries
sustained during a fall from a tree.
Researchers took digital CT scans of her bones to map out all of the breaks as well as to see any invisible
cracks or other defects inside the bone. They discovered that her right humerus, the bone that runs from
the elbow to the shoulder, suffered from compression fractures and contained tiny slivers of bone fragments
inside the bone. This is unusual for a fossil. Similar fractures were also found in Lucy’s left arm, as well as
her right ankle, left knee, and pelvis. The ankle fracture was a Pilon fracture, a type of fracture often found
in falls or auto accidents. Finally, all of the fractures showed no signs of healing, indicating that they took
place near Lucy’s time of death.
Compression fractures commonly result from falls. Researchers postulate that Lucy was more than 40 feet
up in a tree, perhaps to remain safe from predators, when she plummeted down. Her feet would have hit
the ground first, resulting in the various leg fractures, and then she would have instinctively thrown out her
arms to brace herself, resulting in the fractures to her arms and shoulders. She also fractured a rib, possibly
35 puncturing a vital organ and causing her to bleed to death as she lay at the base of the tree.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt
on the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.4
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
The Voynich Manuscript has long proven to be a puzzle for historians, cryptographers, and linguists.
Written in the early fifteenth century, it consists of a bound, illustrated book written in an unknown code
or language. The text follows a regular pattern, but thus far, nobody has been able to decode it. Therefore,
many people have believed that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax, and that the text is simply meaningless
scribbling. However, close analysis suggests that it is actually an early text on medicine, one that is written
in a language or code that has not yet been deciphered.
The illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript are amateurishly drawn, but they can be understood in a
consistent way. Many of the illustrations consist of plants and flowers, which played a large role in early
medicine. At the time, identifying medicinal herbs would have been a critical element of medical treatment,
so documenting the appearance of these herbs in an illustrated medical book would have been useful.
Although other illustrations do not obviously depict herbs, they depict other things that were once closely
related to medicine. For instance, the manuscript includes a number of images of stars and constellations.
In the fifteenth century, there would have been a close tie between astrology (the study of constellations)
and medicine. There are also a number of nude human figures among the illustrations, and, curiously, other
diagrams showing chemical or alchemical equipment such as pipes and tubes. It is possible that these
illustrations, along with the text, were meant to depict human anatomy. Illustrations of alchemical 35
equipment could have been meant to help early physicians create medicines. Although alchemy is a pre-
modern science and has been disproven, at the time, readers of the manuscript would have seen it as an
important part of medicine.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.5
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
All-male high schools offer a number of advantages for young men compared to schools that enroll both
boys and girls.
In the presence of their female counterparts, teenage boys tend to manifest stereotypically masculine
behavior—often in grossly exaggerated ways. Without a doubt, everyone is familiar with the “tough guy”
attitude, posturing, and pretense that tend to appear among young men whenever young women are
around. In the frenzy of perceived distraction and competition over girls, the more gentle, understanding,
and empathetic side of boys’ friendships is often lost. In an all-male school, on the other hand, boys have
much more freedom to develop well-rounded character traits. They are less likely to perceive other boys as
their competition and more likely to be caring or nurturing, especially toward their juniors. In addition,
they are open to possibilities that are unavailable or taboo in coeducational environments, such as playing
female roles in theatrical productions.
A common objection is that boys who are deprived of a female perspective during their school years will
lack empathy for women as adults. And if young men really did have no contact with girls or women
during their school years, this could indeed be a major issue. But, of course, that is nowhere close to true.
Even if they have no female classmates, boys obviously still spend the rest of their time in contact with both
35 men and women. Moreover, with gender differences set aside during the school day, boys can more fully
explore other types of diversity among their own lives and personalities.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose
the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.6
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
Malingering refers to a phenomenon in which a person pretends to be ill in hopes of personal gain. The
malingering patient might be seeking attention or sympathy from family members or doctors. Malingering
can also be motivated by financial gain. A person might feign illness or injury in hopes of winning
compensation in a lawsuit against whomever supposedly injured them. There have been many cases of
malingering in order to avoid work or military service. Malingering can be a significant burden on doctors
and hospitals, who are obligated to provide medical care for anybody who appears to have a medical issue.
Therefore, it is important to accurately recognize and discharge patients faking illness, so that resources can
be freed up for the treatment of those who are genuinely ill.
Malingering can take a number of different forms, some of which are difficult to distinguish from genuine
medical problems. For instance, a patient might feign a seizure, and their movements might look like
seizure activity. However, the patient’s brain activity might not match the activity that appears in people
with genuine seizures, revealing that the patient is faking the seizure-like movements. Another example is
the patient who appears to suffer from sudden, unexplained blindness. After ruling out medical causes of
blindness, a doctor might notice that even though the patient claims that he cannot see at all, his eyes
follow objects as they move around the room. When questioned, the patient may not admit to malingering,
but through careful testing, it is possible to determine that the medical issue is a deliberate falsehood.
35
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt
on the specific points made in the reading passage.
35.7
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
Some companies have begun to use a more nonhierarchical approach to managing the company. Employees
do not report to a specific manager—in fact, there are no “managers” at all. Each employee decides the best
way to carry out his or her necessary tasks. If an employee needs the help of others, he can approach
whomever is best able to help, regardless of that person’s job description, department, or rank.
A nonhierarchical approach has many benefits. Larger companies typically have several layers of middle
management—managers oversee a group of employees and then other, higher-level managers oversee those
managers, and so on. Removing some layers of management allows a company to operate more flexibly, as a
smaller company can. Individual workers spend less time in meetings or waiting for someone else to decide
what they should do, so they can get more done. It is never the case that one manager tells an employee to
do something in a certain way and then, later, another manager gives conflicting directions, making it
impossible for the employee to meet both sets of expectations.
A nonhierarchical structure also gives employees the chance to have more impact on the direction of the
company. Every employee has access to the CEO and the other members of the executive team. If an
employee has an idea for a new product or a change in process, she can present her idea directly to the
executive team. If her idea is accepted, she will then run the project, rallying her fellow employees and
35 gaining valuable leadership skills. A lower-level employee would be unlikely to have such an opportunity in
a more traditional company—even if she had a great idea, chances are high that a more experienced
manager would be chosen to run the project.
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.
Comments
The student summarizes the main points made by the lecturer. She shows that she generally has a
good grasp of the main arguments. Her very last sentence (“This could be even more expensive… “)
is misplaced. The lecturer talks about this in the context of fixed costs (addressed in the student’s
second paragraph). Despite these flaws (and a few typos), her response is effective.
10
lecturer argues, because it was not known that that historian had ever been to Britain and the climate
described by the historian did not match the climate of Britain. This reasoning weakens the idea that
Stonehenge was a special pilgrimmage location for the ill.
Comments
The student’s response is well-organized. He summarizes the passage concisely. Then he clearly
lays out the lecturer’s arguments against the passage. He does have a few errors and some
unidiomatic constructions—but not very many.
11
not sufficient evidence to support the theory. Last, the professor poitns out that other features of the fossil
were left unexplained, simply because they did not fit the theory presented in the passage. A comprehensive
theory takes into account all of the available evidence.
Comments
The student begins by stating the main idea of the passage and summarizing the professor’s main
criticism of the passage. He then provides detail from the lecture to illustrate the professor’s
criticisms. He could improve his response by leaving himself time to reread and correct typos.
12
However, a close study of certain elements shows that the text probably never served a practical purpose.
Take for instance the plants: they are not illustrations of actual plants but drawings of a mix of elements
from various plants Some scholars suggest that the pipes and “alchemical” equipment looks more
fantastical than functional. The pipes could be a rendering of a sewer system or just an abstract image. In
fact, since there is reason to suspect none of the renderings depict real plants or functional equipment, some
consider the text to be an illustration, art, or a hoax. If this is the case, it is probably true that the people
who believe the manuscript was a text to document the medicinal practices of the time are incorrect in
their interpretation They are just trying to find a way for the text to be useful or sensical.
Comments
The reading passage is still visible to you while you’re writing your response. This student takes
advantage of that fact to write a good summary of the issues. Note that he does not directly copy
sentences, or even parts of sentences, but he does reuse the vocabulary. At the end of his r esponse,
he provides his own opinion about the lecturer’s argument. This is not necessary—and it is usually
safer not to do so. Concentrate on summarizing the lecturer’s response to the passage.
13
The passage said that boys are comptetive but only when women are present, which the lecturer does not agree
with. If boys are competitive by nature, then it doesn’t matter who they’re surrounded by – they still will act
competitive and of course, this could worsen when everyone else around them is just as competitive as they are.
The passage also stated that in an all-male high schools there’s a lot of mentoring that happens, espcially
from older boys to younger ones. The lecturer disagrees and says this definitely happens in all-female high
schools but not in all-male ones. And even iif mentoring does occur, it’s not done by popular or influential
boys, and those types of relationships can really help break down the barriers between students.
The lecturer also states that if young men are not exposed to women, their view of women could forever be
fundamentally distorted. While the passage states that this won’t happen because they will be exposed to
women outside of school, the lecture explains that the norm for these boys will to be to learn stereotypes
about women, and secondhand stories. Their experience of women will be locker-room talk so they will
likely have issues seeing women as whole people.
Comments
The student addresses all of the major points made by the lecturer. She also explains how each
point argues against what the passage claimed. She could perhaps improve her response by
varying the beginning of sentences more (“The lecturer states”… “The lecture explains”… “The
passage says”… “The passage also stated”… “The lecturer also states”).
14
Comments
The student shows that she fully understands the lecturer’s objections to the passage. She also
demonstrates a good vocabulary. However, she has a number of typos. She could improve her
response by giving herself a minute or two at the end to reread and correct these types of errors.
15
Comments
The student addresses all of the main points made by the professor. He demonstrates a strong
understanding of the professor's examples. He needs to be careful about writing very long
sentences. Some of his long sentences are more difficult to understand or are run-on sentences.
35
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