cet4级每道题分值（八种常考题型之缩写和摘要写作）

缩写和摘要写作

缩写和摘要都是对较长的原文内容的简要陈述。两者既有相同之处，又存在很大差异。相同的是缩写和摘要都必须语言简洁、文字精炼，而且在内容上防止避重就轻，只能包括原文的主要内容。不同的是：摘要必须严格遵照原文的叙述顺序，而缩写则比较自由，作者可根据自己对原文的理解作一些变动；另外，摘要一般由原文中的关键词语构成，而缩写必须用作者自己的话语表述；还有一点就是，摘要是对原文内容的重述，缩写则是作者对原文内容的注解，作者可借题发挥，发表一点自己的意见。当然，无论是写缩写，还是写摘要，考生必须认真阅读原文，只有在完全理解原文的基础上才能对原文进行再创作。

我们先看一篇缩写写作的例子：

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to read the following passage about A Third Kind of Thinking and then write a summary of no more than 100 words. Remember to use your own words.

A Third Kind of Thinking

A third kind of thinking is stimulated when anyone questions our beliefs and opinions. We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told that we are wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are deal to us, but our self-esteem, which is threatened. We are by nature stubbornly pledged to defend our own from attack, whether it be our person, our family, our property, or our opinion. We may surrender, but rarely confess ourselves vanquished. In the intellectual world at least, peace is without victory.

Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to doing so. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is, cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

【范文】

A Third Kind of Thinking

A third kind of thinking occurs when we are told that our beliefs and opinions are wrong. We may have been heedless in their formations, but our self-esteem will not permit us to change. We may have to give up, but we are not convinced. We do not study the origin of our beliefs, we believe as we have been accustomed to believe, and we seek arguments for continuing to believe as we already do.

这是一篇内容较为深奥的说明文的缩写。通过阅读，我们可以知道原文的主要内容就是讲述为什么我们在别人指出自己的缺点时不愿改正。全文都是围绕这个中心展开，讲了两个原因：一是我们的自尊受到了伤害，二是我们很少去找寻自己的想法的根源。写缩写时，只需要用自己的话把这些内容表达清楚就够了。

需要指出的一点是对于这样的说明性文体，用词一般较为孤僻，在缩写中，一定要理解其意思，用浅显易懂的词汇表达，千万不要对关键词进行摘抄。

我们再看一篇摘要写作的例子：

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to read the following passage about: The Price of Living in Mechanical Age, and then write a summary of about 120 words.

The Price of Living in a Mechanical Age

I vividly recall my first visit, as a boy of twelve, to a big town. I had hardly been outside the confines of the village where I was born and I had met and talked to no more than a few hundred people; but those few hundred I knew very well. Of course we did sometimes see a strange face, but visitors from the outside world, whose coming always aroused great excitement, were few and far between. When I reached the town that I mentioned I was first overcome by the striking change from the slow and quiet life I had been used to. Surely those swiftly moving vehicles must inevitably collide with each other—or with us—at any moment, and those tall buildings collapse and crush us all! But I soon forgot those fears and began to notice something even more amazing—the crowds of people on the pavements who were hurrying past each other without a smile. It gradually dawned on me that not only were they not interested in one another; they were strangers, and apparently quite content to remain so. It was the lack of friendliness among them which most deeply distressed me.

I know that if we are to profit from the innumerable mechanical inventions of this scientific age it is necessary for us to live together in large communities. We are thus enabled to provide and enjoy material benefits which are rarely available in small villages—such amenities as good sanitation, cheap transport, well—stocked shops—and in addition the very fact of our living together in large numbers makes it possible for us to live a richer social and cultural life. Yet it seems to me that the mechanical inventions demand from ordinary men and women so much of their time and attention that they have none left for their fellow human beings. When I think of those crowded pavements and of those thousands of people hurrying to and fro apparently with no thought for others, I cannot help wondering whether the so-called benefits of civilization in a mechanical age are not being purchased at too high a price.

【范文】

The Price of Living in a Mechanical Age

The writer first visited a big town in boyhood spent previously in the limited, well-known society of his native village, with rare visitors to provide excitement. His never-forgotten impressions were first the speed and noise of town, and his fears that the vehicles must collide and the high buildings collapse; then the distressing realization that townsfolk neither knew nor apparently cared to know each other.

The amenities provided by science, rarely available in villages, benefit most those living in large communities, where life could be richer socially and culturally. But the writer, fearing that townsfolk were too preoccupied with mechanical inventions to think of their fellows, wondered if the so-called benefits of modern civilization were not too expensive.

本文是一篇缩写的范文。作者结合原文的内容并按照缩写的要求，首先以实例说明在机械化高度发达的地区人们的担心和恐惧以及人与人之间的冷漠。在第二段，作者又进一步指出科技文明在给人们带来利益的同时也使人们彼此之间疏远——这种代价也实在太大了。本文作者采用例证法将原文中的大段论述缩写成了百余词的小短文，简明扼要，但说理充分，读来叫人信服。

资料来源：李华田主编《四级写作》，新大学英语四、六级考点透视丛书/李华田主编，武汉大学出版社，2006