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错误句子1： Imagination is significant, we should make good use of it.
错误句子2： Imagination is significant, therefore we should make good use of it.
错误原因： 逗号“，”不能连接具有完整主谓宾的两个句子。有同学认为此时加上一个表示因果关系的词therefore就可以连接两个句子了，但是therefore是副词，同样不能连接两个完整句子（与therefore类似，thereby、hence、thus、consequently等都是副词，都不能连接两个完整句子）。
改正后的句子：
改法1: Imagination is significant; we should make good use of it.
改法2: Imagination is significant. We should make good use of it.
（分号和句号前后可以连接两个完整的句子。但原句想要表达的因果关系并没有被凸显，因此不如下面两种改法）
改法3: Imagination is significant, so we should make good use of it.
改法4: Since/Because imagination is significant, we should make good use of it.
（so、since、because都是连词，都可以连接两个完整的句子，而且也凸显了原文的因果关系，比较妥帖）
错误句子1： Great leaders should be tough. That is to say, he can stick to his own principles.
错误原因： 前一句的leaders是复数形式，而后一句却用第三人称单数形式的he和his对其进行指代，前后单复数不统一。
改正后的句子： Great leaders should be tough. That is to say, they can stick to their own principles.
错误句子2： Novelists create a considerable number of brilliant novels. They contribute greatly to the society.
错误原因： 前一句出现了novelists和novels两个复数形式的单词，因而我们不清楚后一句中的they到底指代哪一个单词。
改正后的句子： Novelists create a considerable number of brilliant novels. Those novelists/Their novels/Those novels contribute greatly to the society.
错误句子3： It is unacceptable.
错误原因： 代词无所指代。按理说，根据代词的指代，是可以回归到上文或下文中的某个词或某个概念。而学生在写作文的时候常常使用在上下文中都找不到指代的代词。（这位同学的这句话中的it确实在其上下文中都找不到指代，这里因为篇幅所限，无法详尽展示其上下文）
改正方法： 取消代词it的使用，或者在上下文中明确it的指代对象。
错误句子1： We need several evidences to demonstrate the validity of this argument.
错误原因： evidence通常用作不可数名词。要表示“一条证据”，用a piece of evidence；要表示很多证据，可以用abundant、plentiful、ample等词，也可以用a body of、a mass of等短语。
改正后的句子： We need several evidence to demonstrate the validity of this argument.
错误句子2： Book enlightens us.
错误原因： “书本启迪我们”，这里的book应该是泛指意义上的书。所以要用表示泛指意义的books或a book。
改正后的句子： Books enlighten us./ A book enlightens us.
错误句子1： The disagreement promotes innovation.
错误原因： “分歧促进创新”，这里的“分歧（disagreement）”应该表泛指，所以不需要定冠词the。
改正后的句子： Disagreement promotes innovation.
错误句子2： Disagreement of these two artists' opinions on this artwork encouraged them to delve into more thorough research.
错误原因： “这两个艺术家关于这幅艺术品的看法的分歧激励他们进行更全面的研究”，这里的“分歧（disagreement）”应该是特指这两个人对于某个艺术品的看法的分歧，所以需要用定冠词the。
改正后的句子： The disagreement of these two artists' opinions on this artwork encouraged them to delve into more thorough research.
错误句子1： Comparing to the first opinion, the second one makes more sense.
错误原因： 非谓语动词comparing的逻辑主语应该和主句主语the second one （opinion）一致。而opinion只能是“被比较”，而不能主动发出“比较”这个动作。
改正后的句子： Compared to the first opinion, the second one makes more sense.
错误句子2： The “field” in this issue is consisted of three parts: science, literature and art.
错误原因： consist of意为“由……组成”，英文释义为to be formed from/by，已然含有被动语义。通常以A consist of B这样的主动形式表示“A由B组成”。（要表示B组成A，我们可以用B constitute/make up A）
改正后的句子： The “field” in this issue consists of three parts: science, literature and art.
错误句子1： This is apparently the best solution which can change the situation.
错误原因： 定语从句修饰的先行词solution被形容词最高级the best修饰，所以定语从句应该用that引导，而非which。
改正后的句子： This is apparently the best solution that can change the situation.
错误句子2： This argument is unconvincing due to several questionable assumptions lack support.
错误原因： “几个缺少支持的令人质疑的假设让这篇argument不可信”。当先行词在定语从句中充当主语时，定语从句的引导词不能省略。
改法1： This argument is unconvincing due to several questionable assumptions that/which lack support.（补全定语从句的引导词）
改法2： This argument is unconvincing due to several questionable assumptions lacking support.
（将lack变为非谓语动词，作后置定语，修饰assumption）
错误句子3： Educators should prevent students from choosing fields which are unlikely to succeed.
错误原因： which引导的定语从句修饰先行词field，翻译成中文是“不太可能成功的领域”，我们虽然能够明白其中文句意，但放在英文中却说不通。因为succeed这个动作的发出者应该是人（people），而不是领域（field）。
改正后的句子： Educators should prevent students from choosing fieldsare in which students are unlikely to succeed.（ 注意：有同学把students换成they，这就犯了“指代不明”的错误，因为句子中有educators和students两个复数概念。 ）
错误句子4： The author claims this recommendation will work well and this company will make more money.
错误原因： that引导并列宾语从句时，第一个that可以省略，第二个及以后的that都不可以省略。
改正后的句子： The author claims that this recommendation will work well and that this company will make more money.
错误句子5： The reason why leaders should listen to the public is because leaders are selected by the public.
错误原因： the reason is because搭配错误。当reason作主语时，表语从句的引导词是that而不是because。
改正后的句子： The reason why leaders should listen to the public is that leaders are selected by the public.
错误句子6： No matter who has the courage to break the old rules is likely to succeed.
错误原因： no matter who只能引导让步状语从句，而whoever既可以引导让步状语从句，也可以引导名词性从句（whatever、however、wherever等同理）。这句话中，has the courage前缺少主语，因此我们需要主语从句的引导词whoever。
改正后的句子： Whoever has the courage to break the old rules is likely to succeed.
错误句子7： We should always doubt that whether the authority is right.
错误原因： doubt后可以跟宾语从句，但宾语从句的引导词只需要一个。因此该句子中that是多余的。
改正后的句子： We should always doubt whether the authority is right.
错误句子8： Despite the author provides several evidence, this argument is questionable.
错误原因： despite后面只能跟名词性成分，而不能跟句子（与之类似的还有in spite of）。
改法1： Although the author provides several evidence, this argument is questionable.
（although是连词，后面可以跟完整句子充当让步状语从句）
改法2： Despite the evidence the author provides, this argument is questionable.
（将原句中despite之后的句子改成名词性成分）
错误句子9： Plausible as appears this argument, it is unconvincing.
错误原因： as作“虽然”讲时可以引导倒装的让步状语从句，但同学们往往搞不清楚句子中主、谓、宾的顺序。正确的顺序应该是“adj. / adv. /分词/名词（要省略冠词）+ as +主语+谓语动词”。
改正后的句子： Plausible as this argument appears , it is unconvincing.
错误句子10： The government should give financial support to big cities where are the major places for culture development.
错误原因： 定语从句修饰的先行词cities在定语从句中作主语，因此定语从句的引导词应该用关系代词that或者which。而如果先行词在定语从句中作状语，则应该用关系副词where、 when等引导定语从句，如改法2的句子。
改法1： The government should give financial support to big cities that are the major places for culture development.
改法2： The government should give financial support to big cities where culture develops/flourishes.
错误句子11： It is in big cities where artists can do whatever they want.
错误原因： 这句话的错误比较难以发现。很多同学认为where引导定语从句修饰big cities，但如果按照这种思路，我们会发现big cities前面的It is in的意思无从解释。其实，这句话是混淆了定语从句和强调句型。作者真正想表达的意思是“艺术家 只有在大城市 才能够做他们想做的事情”（强调“大城市”）。
改正后的句子： It is in big cities that artists can do whatever they want.
错误句子12： One may ask: is this quality that an effective leader should have?
错误原因： 这句话的错误比较难看出来。很多同学都认为that引导的定语从句修饰先行词quality，但如果我们按照这种思路把原句换成陈述句的语序，则错误就显而易见了：this quality that an effective leader should have is。我们可以发现，is后面缺少表语，句子不完整。因此我们需要添加表语使得句子完整。
改正后的句子： One may ask: is this quality the one that an effective leader should have?
由于花了大工夫在GRE单词的背诵上，因此会有同学存在一种不把它们用出来就不甘心的冲动。于是，就有了以下一些错误：
错误句子1： This argument is unconvincing due to its numerous logic flaws.
错误原因： numerous意为“极其多的，数不胜数的”，程度非常深。而argument当中所谓的“逻辑错误”虽然不少，但离“数不胜数”还有相当的距离。故numerous用在这里不妥。
改正后的句子： This argument is unconvincing due to several logic flaws.
错误句子2： In this way the conclusion of this argument is vandalized.
错误原因： 虽然我们在背单词的时候可能会简单地把vandalize记作“破坏”，但在真实使用中，vandalize常指“对公物的蓄意破坏”，用在这里显然不合适。
改正后的句子： In this way the conclusion of this argument is undermined .
错误句子3： Therefore the author's conclusion is preposterous.
错误原因： 我们可能在背诵GRE词汇的时候，出于便利将preposterous记成“错误的”。但这个词的程度很深，而且极具负面的感情色彩，可以翻译成“荒谬绝伦的”，或“岂有此理的”，用在这里太过偏激。
改正后的句子： Therefore the author's conclusion is unconvincing/questionable .
错误句子4： To draw a conclusion, while this policy might bring about some benefits, I have to argue that it is abysmal.
错误原因： abysmal的意思类似于terrible，程度极深，甚至可以夸张地翻译为“无底洞般得差劲”。而原句明明一定程度上肯定了this policy，所以用abysmal就显得很不妥。
改正后的句子： To draw a conclusion, while this policy might bring about some benefits, I have to argue that in most cases it is harmful . （harmful的程度不如abysmal深，再加上一个in most cases使得原句逻辑更加严谨）
错误句子5： Clearly, she gets a sanguine opinion so she can ignore so many difficulties.
错误原因： 作者本身希望表达的意思可能是“很明显，是她的乐观让她能够克服这许多的困难”。但是，sanguine这个词是非常正式的书面语，用在这句话中和作者的gets、ignore等不太准确的表达显得格格不入。
改法1： Clearly, she has been very optimistic , so she could overcome so many difficulties.
（舍弃sanguine，让整句话更加平实但不失准确）
改法2： Clearly, it is her sanguine attitude that enabled her to surmount all the difficulties.
（保留sanguine，但同时也对句式和表达做一些改写，让句子更加凝练且重点突出。这句话可能会比改法1更为正式，或者“高大上”，但不是说我们就应该追求改法2这样的句子。在GRE中，我们追求的只是“准确”。）
错误句子6： Though there are so many attractions, we should be ascetic to have a healthy value of life.
错误原因： 大家对ascetic这个词应该很熟悉，因为它出现在单词书的A打头的那一章。事实上，这个词很少用在一般的作文中。因为它往往指西方宗教里所倡导的为达到精神救赎而对诸般欲望的禁锢，“六根清净”这个词也许能比较好地传达其意思。
改正后的句子： Though there are so many attractions, to form a healthy value of life, we should better abstain/refrain/keep away from some of them.
综上所述，GRE单词还真不是我们想用就能用的。就现阶段来看，盲目使用GRE词汇至少可能会存在以下问题：
1. 拼不对。GRE词汇大多不短，考场上不一定能拼对。
2. 意思用错。GRE词汇的意思往往很窄，很容易用错。
3. 很多GRE词汇非常学术化，这就有可能和大家作文中的一些比较口语化的表达冲突，从而让文章的整体风格显得比较别扭。
附：清华外教致中国英语考生的一些话
在本书的40篇文章全部完成之后，我们有幸请到了清华大学外文系负责学术英语教学和商务英语教学的外教Cassandra Woloschuk女士为这40篇文章修改润色。当聊到彼此所见到的中国考生的写作短板时，我们不谋而合地提到了“乱用大词”“语义不明”等问题。在下面的几段话中，Cassandra总结了中国考生在写作时的几个典型问题，这和本章“考生常犯错误”各自从宏观和微观两个层面为大家提供了修改自己文章的指导性建议。
另外，我们还附上了外教对我们文章修改的范例。“好文章是改出来的”，在经过自我修改、同事老师互改、学生阅读反馈等环节之后，本书的40篇文章依然需要更加专业权威的人士进行批评指教，Cassandra在这方面给予了我们很大的帮助。当大家进入研究生院进行正式的学术写作并需要发表论文时，数十遍乃至几十遍的修改是在所难免的。希望大家从现在起就养成改文章的好习惯，真正为自己的笔头文字负责。
外教寄语：
It has been a pleasure reading and editing these responses. Their succinctness and simplicity should be the goal of any Chinese student hoping to write like a foreigner.
Teaching in China has given me new insight about how Chinese students approach the mechanics of writing. Because the immediate task facing you is to improve writing skills, I want to highlight a couple of problematic tendencies among Chinese writing in English.
Many students deliberately write long, complicated passages because they believe this makes their writing more sophisticated. Unfortunately, this practice erodes writing quality. The best writing is clear and concise. Using three words when one will do often obscures meaning. It does not matter how good an idea is if the author does not explain it clearly. Instead of sacrificing clarity, enhance your writing by focusing on coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy.
Passive writing is another tendency among Chinese students—as well as in English translations throughout China. I have seen many signs that are longer than they need to be due to this passive voice preference. Writing in the passive voice may be clear but it contains redundancies that the active voice eliminates. The ability to write in the active voice is essential in academia. Writing in the passive voice damages the authoritative tone academic writing requires.
Writing is an art. Never fall into the trap of believing your first draft cannot be improved upon. Editing is a crucial process so write your first draft with your heart and your second draft with your head. By this I mean that you should first write what you feel is important then clean up the writing in the second draft. If you become attached to a particular phrase or sentence you will have difficulty editing it if necessary in a subsequent draft.
I hope that you will find the essays in this volume helpful as you strive to improve your own writing.
Cassandra Woloschuk
外教修改样例：
Laws should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
Laws dictate what we can and cannot do govern our actions and play a key role in maintaining the order of our modern society. Some people suggest that laws be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places. While this proposal seems to be reasonable and can lead to certain benefits to individuals benefit individuals , I cannot fully agree with this recommendation for two reasons. First, laws should be fair and just to all, and the flexibility of laws creates opportunities for someone who break breaks the laws to evade punishment. Second, in reality from a practical point of view, it is very time-consuming and resource-exhausting for the legal system to determine each case and apply the flexible laws.
To begin with, I agree to a certain extent that if laws can be flexible enough to take different situations into account, on an individual level this is a commendable policy from an individual perspective, this is a commendable policy . The reason is that if laws are too rigid, individuals' reasonable actions may be punished hastily and unjustifiably. To understand why this is the case, we need to keep in mind that consider that society today, as well as one's actions, is very complex. Hence, when one's action is seemingly against the law there might be justifiable reasons behind it. For instance, blood for blood and an eye for an eye have been some of the simplest rules governing our social behavior. Thus, murder is considered one of the most serious crimes and in many countries is punishable by death sentence , punishable by the death penalty in many countries . However, if a law simply stipulates that those who kill another person shall be executed, then it fails to take killing during self-defense into account. To be more specific, the laws here do not consider the motivation behind the action of killing. When one's own life is threatened by the aggressor, his or her defensive action leading to the death of the aggressor should not be considered a crime. In this scenario, the specificity of the action of killing should be taken into account. Indeed, in modern laws, self-defense is a valid reason for justifying killing another person.
However, if a law becomes too flexible there will be two serious issues that are detrimental to the society as a whole. The first problem is that an over-flexible law could create loopholes for those who really commit a crime to escape the punishment they deserve. This is because one's action, no matter regardless of how unlawful it may be, could always find certain excuses to shift the blame justifications . If the case of justifiable killing mentioned above is a scenario where one is tested false positive for committing a crime falsely accused of committing a crime , the issue being discussed here concerns false negativity. That is, one should be punished by laws but with the laws being too flexible when the laws are too flexible , their action remains unchallenged in court. For example, speeding should certainly be considered as an offense against traffic laws, but if such laws contain several extenuating clauses that can absolve speeders from getting punished, then the foreseeable outcome is that anyone speeding will try to justify their unlawful action by citing those clauses as their reason for speeding. The ultimate consequence would be that the traffic laws will be very hard to implement.
Of course, some may argue against my reasoning above, citing for example that the speeders will eventually be punished because our legal system is capable of effectively evaluating the case of speeding, just like the fact that trials pertaining to murder and manslaughter are always heavily scrutinized. This counter-argument is certainly built upon some valid grounds, but it is somewhat over-simplistic and too idealistic overly simplistic and idealistic . In other words, we may not have the resources to explore each and every case thoroughly investigate every case . In reality, it takes time and effort for the legal system to get to the bottom of most cases; moreover, the truth of some cases is actually not known despite efforts to shed light on them. As a result, from a practical point of view, our legal system would be challenged with a tremendous amount of burden if we were required to evaluate all cases and then apply corresponding laws to them. Admittedly, for some serious cases such as murder, our legal system should indeed be extra cautious, but for a speeding case, we should not over-spend the resources of our legal system on them. This is perhaps the reason why in reality speeding is often met with a ticket without much room for consideration.
To summarize, it should be acknowledged that in some cases laws should be flexible enough to fully investigate the nature of the crime before reaching a monumental critical decision, especially severe punishments. However, if all laws become flexile, there will be loopholes that people will take advantage of and commit a crime. What's more, despite the theoretical possibility that our legal system could commit a vast amount of time and manpower to prevent those fraudsters, in reality doing so would require tremendous resources and is not socially economical. Given these considerations, I largely stand against the proposal that laws should be flexible enough.