1 . How might you drag a good writer’s work down to a bad one? Try the spell-check button. A study at the University of Pittsburgh indicates spell-check software may shorten the gap between people with different levels of language skills, hampering (妨碍) the work of writers and editors who place too much trust in the software.
In the study, 33 undergraduate students were asked to correct a one-page business letter, half of them using Microsoft Word with red and green lines underlining potential errors. The other half did it the old-fashioned way, using only their heads. Without grammar or spelling software, students with higher SAT verbal scores made, on average, five errors, compared with 12.3 errors for students with lower scores. Using the software, students with higher verbal scores reading the same page made, on average, 16 errors, compared with 17 errors for students with lower scores.
Dennis Galletta, a professor of information systems at the Katz Business School, said spell-checking software is so sophisticated that some have come to trust it too thoroughly. “It’s not a software problem, it’s a person behavior problem,” he said. Microsoft technical specialist Tim Pash said grammar and spelling technology is meant to help writers and editors, not to solve all their problems. The study found the software helped students find and correct errors in the letter, but in some cases they also changed phrases or sentences underlined by the software as grammatically suspicious, even though they were correct.
1. On whom might spell-check software have a bad influence?A.Authors who have age gaps. | B.People with lower language levels. |
C.Writers having too much faith in it. | D.Editors seldom taking advantage of it. |
A.Using spell-check software helps reduce the mistakes. |
B.Spell-check software causes students to make more mistakes. |
C.There is no obvious difference after using spell-check software. |
D.Spell-check software has advantages over the old-fashioned way. |
A.Advanced. | B.Complicated. | C.Difficult. | D.Cheap. |
A.Spell-check restricts writers’ creativity. |
B.Spell-check software can make writing worse. |
C.The advantages and disadvantages of softwares. |
D.The reasons for people’s abandoning spell-check software. |
2 . Life has a way of shaping us. Life can make you doubt or question your purpose.
Poetry prepared me for my purpose. I did not see this initially, so I tried taking a different direction.
In my journey towards purpose, poetry became my safety net. Poetry was my outlet from bullying by peers, which gave me low self-esteem.
However, writing poetry lacks financial stability.
Where you are is preparing you for your purpose. Your purpose is waiting for you!
A.I pursued teaching instead |
B.I started writing poems at age 5 |
C.My original plan never worked out |
D.The only person standing in your way is you |
E.It showed me how to make sense of the world |
F.Poetry is my voice to be seen, heard and known |
G.However, when you live out your purpose, you are unstoppable |