2018“外研社·国才杯”全国英语阅读大赛落下帷幕，阅读大赛以“Read and Know”, “Read and Reason”, “Read and Question”, “Read and Create”四个模块架设比赛结构，匠心独运、层层递进，启迪选手智慧、引导选手思考。
       为让大家深入了解决赛赛题及选手表现，今天特地奉上赛题Part IV及冠军作品展示，以小见大，重现选手风采！

Part IV Read and Create

       In Part IV, you will read two passages and then write a short essay according to them. You should write with clarity and logic.
       Directions: Read the following two passages. Write a short essay according to the passages.

Passage A

       On one occasion when a disciple of Confucius was sent on a public mission to a foreign State, he left his mother at home unprovided for. Another disciple then asked Confucius to provide her with grain. "Give her," said Confucius, "so much," naming a certain quantity.
       The disciple asked for more. Confucius then named a larger quantity. Finally the disciple gave her a larger quantity than the quantity which Confucius named.
       When Confucius came to know of it, he remarked, "When that woman's son left on his mission he drove in a carriage with fine horses and was clothed with costly furs. Now I believe a wise and good man reserves his charity for the really needy; he does not help the well-to-do and rich."
       On another occasion, when another disciple was appointed the chief magistrate of a town, Confucius appointed his salary at nine hundred measures of grain. The disciple declined it as being too much.
       "Do not decline it," said Confucius to him, "If that is more than necessary for your own wants, cannot you share what you do not want with your relatives and neighbors at home?"
       Source: The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius.

Passage B

       …with respect to acting in the face of danger, courage is a mean between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of cowardice; with respect to the enjoyment of pleasures, temperance is a mean between the excess of intemperance and the deficiency of insensibility; with respect to spending money, generosity is a mean between the excess of wastefulness and the deficiency of stinginess; with respect to relations with strangers, being friendly is a mean between the excess of being ingratiating and the deficiency of being surly…
       Source: Aristotle: Ethics and the Virtues

       41. Write a short essay of about 300 words based on your understanding of the two passages. Remember to write in your OWN words. Your essay should respond to the following questions:
       1) In the first story, what was Confucius' attitude toward his disciple?
       2) How did Confucius behave differently to his second disciple? And why?
       3) Compare Confucius and Aristotle in their understanding of generosity. Please support your opinion with the information from the given passages.

选手答题思路
王清波 湖北大学（指导教师：曾靓婧老师）
2018“外研社·国才杯”全国英语阅读大赛冠军

       通常的阅读主观题要求选手要对文章有或批判或赞成的态度，而这次的题目重在对于题目信息的提取，即便是最后一问也只是要求选手比较孔子和亚里士多德对于generosity 的理解，而没有让选手表达自己认为谁的理解更好。因此，在完成这道题的时候主要将精力放在理解文章和paraphrase上，我认为写作的目的是传达观点和交流，因此不过分纠结语言的华丽，尽量选用平实、简单的词汇表达观点。
       关于审题的问题，我注意到赛后部分选手反映纠结第一问的disciple到底是哪个disciple，其实我觉得完全没必要，因为这三个题目的设置本质上就是让选手用自己的话说出这两篇文章的内容，所以我认为前两问只要表达出“孔子对于第一个学生擅自给独居的母亲那么多grain非常不满，却给了第二个当上官的学生非常高的工资，因为孔子认为君子就是应该资助穷人，而不应该去管富人”就OK了。而第三问要求比较孔子和亚里士多德对generosity的理解，他们的不同之处比较明显，基本看完文章就可总结出来：孔子只帮助穷人不帮助富人，因此他对于要帮助的人是有一个自己的判断的，而亚里士多德就是中庸之道，花钱就应该不多不少，不管帮谁都是一样的标准。
       确认文章大意理解充分后，我给三个问题分配了不同的篇幅。前两问我个人认为一两句话就可以回答，因此用第一个段落回答前两个问题，后面的所有内容都是回答第三问。此外，我习惯在每一段的开头清晰地说明这一段将要说什么，方便阅卷老师很快把握我的思路。

选手作品展示

       （为真实展示选手赛场上的写作风貌，文章为从iTEST 大学外语测试与训练系统中摘出的原生作品，仅供学习分享使用。）

       In the first story, Confucius had a negative attitude towards his first disciple's decision to give more grain than he allotted to the woman. In contrast, he gave the second disciple who was appointed magistrate much more than he actually needed as his salary, because he followed his principle of helping people that most urgently need help and thought his second disciple fit into the criteria.
       There are nuances of differences between Confucius and Aristotle's understanding of generosity. Confucius believed that generosity was about refraining from helping the rich and saving all the money for people who are really in need, whereas Aristotle was convinced that generosity was in the middle between the two ends of the spectrum of spending money--- wasting it and not spending anything. When Confucius found that the lonely woman's son was luxurious in his outfits as he left on the mission, he classified the family into financially capable ones and played down the sum of grains that the disciple asked to give to the woman. Then he gave much more salary than necessary for that position of the magistrate and encouraged the appointed disciple to give the amount that he did not need to his family and neighbors. Clearly Confucius had a clear priority in helping people, which was reflected in his behaviour---he was stingy to the rich and extremely generous to the poor.
       As regards Aristotle,he preferred the middle ground of spending. In his view, you should never spend too much which he labeled as "wasteful" and too little which he labeled as "stingy". This means that Aristotle didn't really categorize and judge the people whom he wanted to spend money on. People should be indiscriminate in their spending and refrain from having different treatments in different circumstances.
       The term "generosity" was interpreted differently by the two great masters. Confucius might be able to give more help to people in need, and Aristotle might be able to be objective in his spending, which could rule out the possibility of unfair judgement and unfair categorization when helping the poor.

专家点评

田朝霞教授 南京师范大学

2018“外研社·国才杯”全国英语阅读大赛评委

       文学博士，剑桥大学、伦敦大学学院、墨尔本文法学校访问学者。南京师范大学“教学十佳”及“教书育人”奖获得者。
       2001年起指导学生参加各类英语赛事，多次获国家和省级奖项。自2015年起，多次担任写作、阅读大赛评委，《“外研社杯”全国英语写作大赛官方指南》作者及阅读大赛学术总顾问。
阅读大赛的Read and Create部分旨在考查选手对给定文本的阅读理解能力、分析能力以及语言的组织及表达能力，也侧面考查选手的知识储备、思维和视野。
 
       2018年的阅读大赛选取了两段文本。Passage A是指定书目《论语》（辜鸿铭英译版）中“雍也”中的一小节，讲述了两个小故事。第一个故事中，孔子的弟子（子华）出使齐国期间，其母生活拮据，另一个弟子（冉有）请求孔子给予子华母亲帮助，并擅做主张，给予了更多，孔子对此举表现出不赞赏。第二个故事中，贫穷弟子（原先）任职期间，孔子赋予厚禄，弟子推辞，孔子坚持，并鼓励其将结余送于乡里。Passage B为亚里士多德阐述有关“generosity”的一句话。要求学生完成一篇作文，阐述和分析孔子在不同场合对其子弟的态度，并对比孔子和亚里士多德对“generosity”的理解。

       这位选手总体表现较好。
       第一，文本理解较为准确，直击要点。
       这位选手在第一段干净利落地指出，孔子对实施慷慨之举的弟子不赞赏，而对第二个故事中的弟子非常慷慨，并指出，两个举动皆出自孔子“周急不济富”的原则。在对比孔子和亚里士多德对“慷慨”的理解时，选手能够清楚地陈述两者的“细微”差别，指出亚里士多德提倡的慷慨，在“不及”和“过度”之间，既不过度浪费，也不过度吝啬。这位选手的可贵之处在于，指出了亚里士多德采取一种较为客观的态度，并不涉及对受益者的人品进行评判和归类。
       第二，分析细致，有理有据。
       多数选手在回应问题时，采用重述故事的方式，但理据和观点之间的逻辑关系，梳理得不够细致；在对比孔子与亚里士多德的态度和观点时，也多草草一两句，或止于对原文的paraphrase。这位选手在对比两位大师时，能够以文本中的材料为依据，对自己的理解和判断进行详细阐述。
       第三，作文的“主线”意识较强，语言表述尚好。
       多数选手将重点放在回答问题上，对全文语篇的内部联系考虑较少，给人中心不够突出、逻辑松散的感觉。这位选手别出心裁，以故事为引子，以两位大师的对比为主线展开，并能够将文本的主要信息巧妙地嵌入其中。虽然写作任务并未强求选手突出一个主线，但能够做到这一点并同时能够回应问题，也属难得。
 
       当然，这一份答卷也有令人遗憾之处。
       较为明显的瑕疵是对于语言细节的关注度不够——多处拼写错误，多处小语法错误，个别标点符号不规范。从选手的语言运用能力来看，不应该频繁出错。若真是“文如其人”，那么这份答卷可能给部分读者不够沉着、不够细心的印象。
       其次，在对比孔子和亚里士多德时，细谈了两者的差别，但并未明确说出两者的相似之处，对题目中要求的“Compare”回应不够。从所给材料可以看出，两位大师在这一点上是一致的：并非给的钱越多，就越慷慨。亚里士多德明确指出这一点，而在孔子的第一个故事中，其对施与慷慨的弟子的态度也可见一斑。
       第三，背景知识掌握有限，视野有望再拓展。两位大师是中西文化的重要代表人物，《论语》更是所列出的必读书目之一。所选取两段文本均是两位大师核心哲学思想的体现。例如，Passage A的两个故事突出体现了儒家思想中的“仁”和“礼”。孔子主张对穷人给予帮助，这是“仁”的表现。虽不赞赏帮助富裕弟子（子华）之母，但被求助时，孔子仍能基于“礼”做出回应；孔子侧面指责富裕弟子不遵孝道，也是基于“礼”的标准；欲帮助贫穷弟子，但并不用施舍方式，而是以增加俸禄的方式，更是其“礼”和“仁”的表现。另一方面，亚里士多德的这段话（包括对“慷慨”的理解）是其“中道”哲学思想的突出表现，中庸伦理观是亚里士多德伦理学的核心和灵魂。亚里士多德认为，过度与不及都是恶的特点，而适度则是德性（virtue）的体现。如果有选手能够从对virtue的理解角度去对比两位大师的思想，也会很精彩。虽然，完成这个Read and Create的任务，不一定非要如此深挖，但是能够站在更高的高度，以更广的视野来分析文本，则必定脱颖而出。
 
       总体来说，这位选手的答卷还不错。但是，我们更希望通过Read and Create以及整个阅读大赛，同学们能够求知若渴，博览群书，汲取世界文化与思想的精华，从而在面对纷繁多变的世界时，能够更冷静、更睿智、更无畏。