11.17

　A) Meg is a lawyer-mom in suburban Washington, D. C., where lawyer-moms are thick on theground. Her son Doug is one of several hundred thousand high-school seniors who had apainful fall. The deadline for applying to his favorite college was Nov. 1, and by early October hehad yet to fill out the application. More to the point, he had yet to settle on a subject for thepersonal essay accompanying the application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essayhas the power to seduce(诱惑) an admissions committee. "He wanted to do one thing at a time,"Meg says, explaining her son's delay. "But really, my son is a huge procrastinator(拖延者). Theessay is the hardest thing to do, so he's put it off the longest." Friends and other veterans ofthe process have warned Meg that the back and forth between editing parent and writingstudent can be traumatic(痛苦的).

　　B) Back in the good old days-say, two years ago. when the last of my children suffered theordeal(折磨)--a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to NewYear's Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering(烦扰).But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions. The recent trend towardearly decision and early action among selective colleges and universities has pushed thetraditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.

　　C) If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panicremains what it has always been. And it's not the application itself. A college application is arelatively straightforward questionnaire asking for the basics: name, address, family history,employment history. It would all be innocent enough-20 minutes of busy work-except itcomes attached to a personal essay.

D) "There are good reasons it causes such anxiety," says Lisa Sohmer, director of collegecounseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights. N. Y. "It's not just the actual writing. Bynow everything else is already set. Your course load is set, your grades are set, your testscores are set. But the essay is something you can still control, and it's open-ended. So thetemptation is to write and rewrite and rewrite." Or stall and stall and stall.

　　E) The application essay, along with its mythical importance, is a recent invention. In the1930s, when only one in 10 Americans had a degree from a four-year college, an admissionscommittee was content to ask for a sample of applicants' school papers to assess their writingability. By the 1950s, most schools required a brief personal statement of why the student hadchosen to apply to one school over another.

　　F) Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year and four-year institutions. Even apart from the increased competition, the kids enter a process that hasbeen utterly transformed from the one baby boomers knew. Nearly all application materialsare submitted online, and the Common Application provides a one-size-fits form accepted bymore than 400 schools, including the nation's most selective.

　　G) Those schools usually require essays of their own, but the longest essay, 500 wordsmaximum, is generally attached to the Common Application. Students choose one of sixquestions. Applicants are asked to describe an ethical dilemma they've faced and its impacton them, or discuss a public issue of special concern to them, or tell of a fictional character orcreative work that has profoundly influenced them. Another question invites them to writeabout the importance (to them, again) of diversity-a word that has assumed magic power inAmerican higher education. The most popular option: write on a topic of your choice.

　　H) "Boys in particular look at the other questions and say. 'Oh, that's too much work,'" saysJohn Boshoven, a counselor in the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools. "They think if they do atopic of their choice, 'I'll just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire andturn it into a first-person application essay!' And they end up producing something utterlyridiculous."

　　I) Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of "don'ts" inessay writing is much longer than the "dos." "No book reports, no history papers, no characterstudies." says Sohmer.

　　J) "It drives you crazy, how easily kids slip into clichés(老生常谈)," says Boshoven. "They don'trealize how typical their experiences are. 'I scored the winning goal in soccer against our arch-rival.' 'My grandfather served in World War II, and I hope to be just like him someday.' Thatmay mean a lot to that particular kid. But in the world of the application essay, it's nothing.You'll lose the reader in the first paragraph."

　　K) "The greatest strength you bring to this essay." says the College Board's how-to book, "is17 years or so of familiarity with the topic: YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and bestof all, you are the world-class expert on the subject of YOU ... It has been the subject of yourclose scrutiny every morning since you were tall enough to see into the bathroom mirror." Thekey word in the Common Application prompts is "you."

　　L) The college admission essay contains the grandest American themes-status anxiety,parental piety(孝顺) intellectual standards-and so it is only a matter of time before it becomesinfected by the country's culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question isostensibly(表面上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or solve aproblem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topie: what is its impacton YOU?

　　M) "For all the anxiety the essay causes," says Bill MeClintick of Mercersburg Academy inPennsylvania, "it's a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. Isaw kids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it issimply not a big variable in the college's decision-making process."

　　N) Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application,including the essay. According to a recent survey of admissions officers, only one in fourprivate colleges say the essay is of "considerable importance" in judging an application.Among public colleges and universities, the number drops to roughly one in 10. By contrast, 86 percent place "considerable importance" on an applicant's grades, 70 percent on "strengthof curriculum."

　　O) Still, at the most selective schools, where thousands of candidates may submit identicallyhigh grades and test scores, a marginal item like the essay may serve as a tie-breaker betweentwo equally qualified candidates. The thought is certainly enough to keep the pot boiling underparents like Meg, the lawyer-mom, as she tries to help her son choose an essay topic. For amoment the other day, she thought she might have hit on a good one. "His father's fromFrance," she says. "I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes youdifferent. You know: half French, half American. I said, 'You could write about your identityissues. ' He said, ' I don't have any identity issues!' And he's right. He's a well-adjusted,normal kid. But that doesn't make for a good essay, does it?"

　　注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2 上作答。

　　46. Today many universities require their applicants to write an essay of up to five hundredwords.

　　47. One recent change in college admissions is that selective colleges and universities havemoved the traditional deadline to earlier dates.

　　48. Applicants and their parents are said to believe that the personal essay can sway theadmissions committee.

　　49. Applicants are usually better off if they can write an essay that distinguishes them from therest.

　　50. Not only is the competition getting more intense, the application process today is alsototally different from what baby boomers knew.

　　51. In writing about their own experiences many applicants slip into clichés, thus failing toengage the reader.

　　52. According to a recent survey, most public colleges and universities consider an applicant'sgrades highly important.

　　53. Although the application essay causes lots of anxiety, it does not play so important a rolein the college's decision-making process.

　　54. The question you are supposed to write about may seem outside the self, but the theme ofthe essay should center around its impact on you.

　　55. In the old days, applicants only had to submit a sample of their school papers to showtheir writing ability.

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