Issue 194

"The best preparation for life or a career is not learning to be competitive, but learning to be cooperative."

学生原稿

Almost every people want to have a happy life and a successful career. We try our best to realize our dreams. It is impossible for us to live only on ourselves. To be cooperative is very important in such a complex society. However, to be competitive is as important as to be cooperative. The later is not better than the former, thereby learning to be cooperative alone is not the best way to prepare either for life or a career.

I agree with that to be cooperative is indispensable in our life. People have learned how important cooperation is since human beings appeared on the earth. They went out in groups to protect themselves from attacking of ferocious beasts. In our daily life, to be cooperative brings us harmonious relationships with our family numbers, neighbors and friends. Under a friendly atmosphere, people relax themselves. That is necessary to cultivate an optimistic attitude, which is a key ingredient to live a happy life.

Learning to be cooperative is surely helpful in studying knowledge and finishing a job. In modern society, there are many more for people to learn even in a narrow area than in previous years. A single person is incapable of mastering all skills in finishing his jobs. Even if a person has sufficient abilities to single-handedly do a job, he lacks sufficient energy to make it possible. He needs colleagues to help him. In order to collect and send electric mails smoothly, a hardheaded chief executive officer needs a computer engineer to maintain a good computer system. In order to obtain choice materials, a fashion company also counts on fabric industries. Good relationships with other companies are crucial for a group to succeed in business. Anyone who is going to develop a successful career should have a good sense of cooperation and a capability of cooperating with others.

Nevertheless, to be competitive is equally important. On the one hand, awareness of competition inspires a person’s potentials and impels people to work hard to achieve a more comfortable life. He will work actively instead of passively. A perfunctory worker seldom makes creative success. Learning to be competitive can exploit a person’s talents to the utmost extent. We must learn how to compete in preparing ourselves. On the other hand, a complex society forces people to be competitive. Competition is employed to assign quotas.Population grows dramatically, and people become more and more talented due to education. We find out that it is much more difficult to get opportunities both to enter famous universities and to obtain an ideal position in prestigious companies than in previous years. Even though a person luckily receives a job offer, he not only needs to compete with his colleagues to get promotion, but to help his company to compete with other corporations as well in the future. If a person does not have a good sense of competition, he will nether get a position nor succeed in the future. Under such circumstances, he must learn how to compete with others and distinguish himself.

Admittedly, some people may complain that competitions exhaust their energy, and make them anxious. But it is not the competition itself that makes people unhappy. They lack healthy ideas that what competitions are and how to adjust themselves during the course of competing with others. Some issues may argue that to be competitive will make people aggressive. It is true that sometimes people go extremely in competitions. However, to be aggressive and to be competitive are totally different. All these show that these people lack correct cognition of competition and do not know how to be really competitive. Therefore, learning to be competitive is entirely necessary.

In sum, to be competitive is not less crucial than to be cooperative. These two are complementary in preparing people’s life and careers. We should learn to be both competitive and cooperative. These two are just like two legs of a person to keep balance when he walks. It is absurd to claim which one is better.

嘉文博译修改稿

Almost every people want to have a happy life and a successful career. We try our best to realize our dreams. It is impossible for us to live only on ourselves(to “live on” means “to sustain life on the basis of …” which is inappropriate here. You should use “live only by ourselves”). To be cooperative is very important in such a complex society(please qualify why our society is a complex one). However, to be competitive is as important as to be cooperative, if not more important. The later is not better than the former, thereby learning(delete this part) Learning to be cooperative alone is not the best way to prepare either for life or a career and learning to be competitive is also a quality we must try to develop.

I agree with that(after the preposition “with”, you can never use ‘that” to introduce a sentence. You must either delete “with” or add “the assertion” between “with” and “that”) to be cooperative is indispensable in our life. People have learned how important cooperation is since human beings appeared on the earth. They went out in groups to protect themselves from attacking (the attacks) of ferocious beasts. In our daily life, to be cooperative brings us harmonious relationships(relationship is the total sum of relations and relationship is usually in singular form) with our family numbers (changed to “members”; there is a world of difference between “numbers” and “members”), neighbors and friends. Under a friendly atmosphere, people relax themselves. That is necessary to cultivate (changed to “Cooperation is necessary in cultivating) an optimistic attitude, which is a key ingredient to live(changed to “in living”) a happy life.

Learning to be cooperative is surely helpful in studying knowledge and finishing a job. In modern society, there are many more for people to learn even in a narrow area than in previous years (changed to “decades” or “eras’). A single person is incapable of mastering all skills in finishing his jobs. Even if a person has sufficient abilities to single-handedly do(replace with “undertake” or “complete”) a job, he lacks sufficient energy to make it(changed to “that”) possible. He needs colleagues to help him. In order to collect and send electric mails(changed to “electronic mail” and “mail” is an uncountable noun.) smoothly, a hardheaded(what do you mean?) chief executive officer needs a computer engineer to maintain a good computer system. In order to obtain choice materials, a fashion company also counts on fabric industries. Good relationships with other companies are (is) crucial for a group to succeed in business. Anyone who is going to develop a successful career should have a good sense of cooperation and a capability of cooperating with others.

Nevertheless, to be competitive is equally important. On the(delete) one hand, awareness of competition inspires a person’s potentials(changed to “inspires a person to maximize his potentials”) and impels people(changed to “the person”) to work hard to achieve a more comfortable life. He will work actively instead of passively. A perfunctory worker seldom makes creative success. Learning to be competitive can exploit a person’s talents to the utmost extent. We must learn how to compete in preparing ourselves for our life or careers. On the other hand, a complex society forces people to be competitive (changed to “we have to be competitive because our highly complex society requires us to be so”). Competition is employed to assign quotas( what do you mean? this sentence is hard to understand).Population grows dramatically, and people become more and more talented due to improved education. We find out(delete) that it is much more difficult to get opportunities both to enter famous universities and to obtain an ideal position in prestigious companies now than in previous years(changed to “in the past”). Even though a person luckily receives a job offer, he not only needs to compete with his colleagues to get promotion, but to help his company to(delete) compete with other corporations as well in the future. If a person does not have a good sense of competition, he will nether(misspelling! You should use “neither”) get a position nor succeed in the future. Under such circumstances, he must learn how to compete with others and distinguish himself(please rephrase like this “only when he becomes more competitive and more distinguished will it be possible for him to get that position or to succeed”).

Admittedly, some people may complain that competitions exhaust their energy and make them anxious(changed to “overanxious”). But it is not the competition itself that makes people unhappy. They lack healthy ideas that(changed to “about”; you can never use “that” and “what” together to introduce a sentence) what competitions are and how to adjust themselves during the course of(changed to “when”) competing with others. Some issues(what do you mean by “issues”? You should perhaps use “people” or “individuals”) may argue that to be competitive will make people aggressive. It is true that sometimes people go extremely(Wrong expression! You should say “go to extremes” instead) in competitions. However, to be aggressive and to be competitive are totally different. All these show that these people lack correct recognition of competition and do not know how to be really competitive. Therefore, learning to be competitive is entirely necessary.

In sum, to be competitive is not(changed to “no”) less crucial than to be cooperative. These two are complementary in preparing people’s life and careers. We should learn to be both competitive and cooperative. These two are just like two legs of a person to keep balance when he walks. It is absurd to claim which one is better.

钱老师点评修改稿

1.　本篇Issue文章比上一次的有了二个层次而不是一个层次的提高，结构上组织得很好，内容也言之有物。

2.　在第一段文章首先概述你全部主要论点时仍不流畅。既然你在competitive和cooperative之间保持平衡的态度，你在第一段中就不能有任何偏废其中一个的暗示。第一段以“>However……”开始至最后，尤其是“the latter is not better than the former”给人的感觉是你在偏废“cooperative”这方面的内容，而文章的主体中却并非这样。总之，此处表述有点混乱，话没能全部说清说完。

3.　在论证cooperative的重要性时，你提出了若干个立论。这些立论都能站得住脚。但流于平凡。Issue类文章的最高境界是论点要insightful(有洞见)以及compelling。若立论的境界更高则更佳。

4.　在论述cooperative的重要性时，还有一点需要注意。你应该使你的议论更详尽深刻一点儿，篇幅可更长一点，例子画龙点睛地略举一二便可。你现在是举例过多，议论部分缺乏深度。

5.　第四段在论述competitive重要性时，以“On one hand”引导的第一个立论及例子尚可，但以“on the other hand”引导的第二个立论及展开的论述有些混乱不清。个别句子费解。

6.　第五段你原本想讨论与competition相关的负面作用。这样做，如果你有很好的立论和有说服力的论述则很好。但现在读上去有点不知所云的感觉，例如，你说“to be aggressive and to be competitive are totally different,”但你没说明为什么”they two are different,” 这不符合英语写作习惯。该段文章你能写得好，则好。写不好，不要也罢，因为你主要应论证为什么”to be competitive”是重要的。

7.　从语气上看，你想扭转题目中重cooperative轻competitive的语气，所以你应该更多侧重于competitive的重要性，但你论述competitive的篇幅不如论述cooperative的篇幅。