学会这一招，托福独立写作不凉凉！

很多同学在面对托福独立写作的时候有一个常见难点，就是当好不容易绞尽脑汁想出了supporting idea 以及甚至写出了topic sentence 之后不知道如何进一步展开论证。

一部分同学的解决策略就是通过举例来论证分论点，但是他们的例子往往局限于讲故事，各种故事——自己的，朋友的，亲戚的，同学的，引入例子的方式也是千篇一律的 for example，例如下面这种：

Secondly, preschool education is likely to stress young children out leading tothem losing interest in study at young age. In other words, there is no need forchildren at 4 or 5 to learn a large amount of knowledge. For example, when I was 5, my mom sent me to a preschool center where the teachers there taught me complex math as well as foreign languages and I felt annoyed and stressed because of the daunting knowledge. As some point, I felt like I resent going to school. So teaching kids too much when they are too little will make them lose the interest of studying.

不可否认，用自己的experience或身边的anecdote 来举例对于大家来说比较容易上手。很多同学也比较容易能够想到切题的实例来。

然而一篇完整的独立写作需要三个body paragraph，每一个分论点都得有效展开，而如果一致使用这种故事性例子来论证会让考官质疑我们写作的论证能力从而不能获得理想的分数。

所以在这里，我们介绍一种非常实用的例子写作技巧——Hypothetical Example 假设性举例。

假设性举例

假设性举例就是通过设想一种合理的情况来推导出我们想要的结论从而取得对论点的剖析。简而言之，就是写“条件句”，给出论证需要的条件，推理出可能出现的结果最后证明我们的观点是合理的。这种例子比起单纯的讲故事会显得说理性更强，并且更为客观。

比如 TPO40的这道独立写作：
Some parents offer their school-age children money for each high grade theyget in school. Do you think this is a good idea?

在分析完题目确定立场是“不同意”以后，某些同学可能会想到一个分论点，就是奖励孩子钱可能会让他们忽略学习的真正目的，然后就开始用自己或者身边人的例子（比如表弟）开始论证这个分论点：

For example, in order to encourage my 9-year-old cousin to demonstrate excellent performance in tests, my aunt promised my cousin that if he got a good score, he would be awarded with 50 dollars. However, later my aunt received calls from the school that my cousin was caught cheating in the test, which shocked all of us. My cousin simply thought that high scores equal money so the only goal is to increase the final score number in exam instead of gaining more knowledge to prepare himself for the future.

如果我们采用假设性论证，先给出条件——如果有一个孩子得知他在取得好成绩之后可能会获得一大笔奖励金，再推断他可能会怎么想——高分就意味着获得钱，那也许可以采取其它方法去获得高分比如作弊。

同样的一种思维，这个例子就变成了这样：

Just imagine a school boy is promised to be awarded with a sum of money afterhe got a nice score in school and he could simply come to a conclusion that to taketest is to fight for money. What he could probably do next is not to make greatefforts to prepare for tests by practicing but think of maybe cheating to help him. This is mainly because a child has no awareness of the purpose of testing.

这样，这个发生在“表弟”身上的故事就变成任何人都可能经历的事。我们来看看这种假设性举例的要素：

1. 引入方法—— 可以采用 just imagine/ just suppose/ supposing/ if 给出条件

2. 用因果关系副词“therefore”等 或者 主语从句“what would possibly happen is ...” 等给出我们推论的结果

3. 最后可以加上一个总结句点题

所以，同学们在今后写独立写作的时候，可以一段使用个人实例来论证而别的段落可以借助这种假设性举例来改写，这样我们就可以展示出不同的语言表述风格跟论证方法从而让我们的习作脱颖而出。