20##年11月9日托福独立写作真题范文

独立写作

第一套：

Parents learn more from children than children learn from parents

范文 1：

While children open the eyes of their parents to many things, it is a specious claim to say that they are the greater teachers. Children learn more from parents than their parents could ever learn from them.

First of all, children’s brains are undeveloped sponges and more receptive to learning than their adult parents’. Physiologically, the adult brain is less able to learn new things and more set in its ways; you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. On the other hand, children can learn new languages, do better at chess and the Game of Go, because their brains are open to learning new concepts. They can think outside the box, because “the box” has not even been built yet.

Second of all, children who have educated parents speaking with wide vocabularies are more likely to be successful and to master their native tongue. A study showing that smart children help their parents be more successful would be preposterous. For example, infants and even older children cannot teach their parents’ vocabulary at the same rate as their parents can teach them, despite being able to pepper their speech with the like, totally awesome slang of the day.

At last, we must admit that experience counts for something. There is knowledge and then there is wisdom that comes from having seen and done things. Children do not have the years of accumulated experience that their parents inevitably have. These “life lessons” are the sort of thing parents want to pass on to their children. In contrast, children are not teaching their parents not to touch the hot pan or to look both ways before crossing the road—essential bits of knowledge that most of us learn from our parents.

The nascent brains of youth are more susceptible to learning from parents and we know that early childhood education has a lasting impact on children, just as we know that essential lessons are passed from parents to children not vice versa. In summation, parents are the superior teachers in this relationship.

范文 2

It seems intuitive that parents mainly teach and children mainly learn, but some believe that parents actually learn more from their kids than their kids learn from them. I agree with this counterintuitive idea.

First of all, some studies have shown that children's personalities and beliefs are determined more by their peer groups than by their parents, so parents might not be as influential on children as we think. This was certainly true for me growing up. The things I thought and did as a kid were more in line with my friends than with my mom and dad. That's not to say I didn't learn anything from my parents—my mother's sense of planning, for example, has finally rubbed off on me some ten years later—but to this day I'm still more like my free-spirited friends than my conservative parents.

Second of all, raising a kid is a life-changing experience, and kids can shape parents more strongly than we tend to imagine. My parents, for instance, loosened up considerably over the years while raising me—their far more relaxed approach to bringing up my little sister is proof of that. Whereas with me they were strict and disciplinarian, with her they were lenient and hardly resorted to things like spanking or grounding at all. They also started giving me more freedom, too. Now when I laugh with my parents about those days, they will often say things like, "Well, we tried that approach, but after a while we realized it wasn't working," or "we really grew up a lot while raising you two."

Admittedly, parents can strongly shape a child's early worldview. However, I do not think they remain the strongest force in a child's life for all that long. Once friends and teachers start coming into the equation, a child's future is molded more strongly by forces other than parents. Also, we have to remember that we remain young children for a comparatively short period of our lives. My life up to my teenage years may have been determined largely by my parents, but after that, their influence has steadily waned. This is not necessarily because I began to value their input less, but because other influences—friends, teachers, significant others, etc.—started taking up more and more of the pie. But after a certain age, number of influential people in our lives tends to grow smaller, so for parents, children become increasingly influential.

In the end, both parents and children shape each other. However, as kids grow up, they quickly develop other stronger influences in their lives like friends. Raising a child is a life-changing experience like no other, and as we get past a certain age, the important people in our lives tend to diminish. So a child's role in a parent's life only grows, while a parent's role in a child's life only lessens. Thus, our parents will likely be less educational for us than we are for them.

第二套：

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents should spend time with their children helping them with schoolwork rather than playing games and sports. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

范文三：

A child's life is full of important experiences that will come to shape and define them later on. Children need to play and be active, to explore the world physically; but they also need to begin the process of learning and acquiring knowledge, and expand their mental capacities. What role should the parent play in these areas of development? Ideally a parent should be involved in both, but in today's world, time is limited. Under these circumstances, a parent should focus on helping their child with schoolwork.

The most important reason for this is because parents should strive to discover where a child's strengths and passions lie, and then help cultivate those strengths and passions. This will make a huge impact on a child's future success—and more importantly, also their future happiness. When I was younger I was moderately interested in all subjects, but I had a particular bent for art. My parents could see how excited I was about art homework compared to my other homework. Some parents might have quashed this interest, declaring it impractical. They didn't. They encouraged me to pursue art, as long as I didn't neglect the rest of my studies. Since then, art has become an indispensable part of my life and studies, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for that.

Another significant reason for parents to involve themselves in their children’s schoolwork is the fact that job competition has grown tremendously. Helping your kids with homework is no longer optional. In order to secure a steady job, merely graduating with a bachelor's degree is no longer enough. With such a saturated job market, parents need to help their kids find their calling early on, and then support them in pursuing that calling so they have a chance to distinguish themselves among their peers. Studies have found that over half of recent university graduates are unemployed, employed only part-time, or working at a job far below their qualifications. Without proper academic advice and guidance from parents, it is easy for children to grow up feeling somewhat directionless and fall victim to these circumstances.

Finally, children will have many friends to teach them how to play, but only parents can really teach them how to work. Most children do not enjoy schoolwork. If given the choice, they will want to play games and sports. They will have plenty of opportunities to do so with their friends. It is only from parents that they can learn the importance of hard work and discipline, because it is only parents who have the benefit of life experience. Of course, children will resist. They may even resent their parents at times. But it is the parent's job to sometimes be the "bad guy," because nobody else will teach the child if the parent doesn't. Through helping children with schoolwork, parents can instill the mentality values that will allow children to successfully pursue their ambitions.

A child's development needs to be carefully balanced between play and work in order for them to find their true passion and succeed later in life. While friends can take care of the "play," it is up to parents to impart the difficult lessons of "work."