综合写作：
ETS TOEFL
Writing | Question 1 of 2
Directions: You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your writing should be 150 – 225 words in length. Your response will be judged on how well it presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage.
Question: Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific solutions proposed in the reading passage.
Millions of olive trees in Italy are suffering from a contagious bacterial disease that threatens to kill them by causing their branches and leaves to dry up. The bacterium is carried from tree to tree by insects; once trees grow sick, the disease is difficult to treat. Several methods have been proposed to stop the disease from spreading to other trees in Italy and neighboring countries.
One proposal is to cut down and remove the diseased olive trees. While this method would involve destroying millions of valuable olive trees, it could keep healthy olive trees from becoming infected. The insects that spread the bacterium do so by hopping from tree to tree. If enough diseased olive trees are removed, the insects will not be able to reach uninfected olive trees. Healthy olive trees that are not visited by insects carrying the bacterium will not get the disease. So removal of diseased trees could spare many of Italy’s olive groves.
Second, scientists observed that among the olive trees infected by the bacterium, some trees became ill while others remained healthy. Some scientists proposed that a certain parasitic fungus was crucial in making the trees sensitive to the bacterium. According to their theory, the trees that became ill carried the fungus, while the trees that remained healthy were fungus – free. The scientists proposed that if the fungus were removed from all the olive trees, all the trees would resist the bacterial disease and the disease would stop spreading.
Third, some countries near Italy, such as France, have made it illegal to import any type of plant from Italy that is capable of carrying the disease – causing bacterium. In this way, it is hoped that the bacterium will be unable to spread to olive trees and other vulnerable plants in countries near Italy.
学术写作：
Your professor is teaching a class on business management. Write a post responding to the professor’s question.
In your response, you should do the following.
- Express and support your opinion.
- Make a contribution to the discussion in your own words.
An effective response will contain at least 100 words.
Dr. Achebe:
Around the world, urban areas need to deal with the problem of city – center traffic. Often, too many vehicles use the roads, and the roads have extremely high traffic at certain times of the day. Some city governments are trying to decrease traffic congestion by introducing congestion pricing: drivers will be charged a substantial fee for driving their vehicles into the city center during busy times of the day. Do you think that congestion pricing is a good idea? Why or why not?
Andrew:
If congestion pricing is imposed, then some drivers will avoid visiting the city center during busy times. Businesses there will suffer because they will lose customers. And since businesses pay taxes, cities may lose more money than they would gain by charging the traffic congestion fee.
Claire:
I think congestion pricing is a good idea because if people have to pay extra to drive into the city center, maybe they will share rides to split the cost of the fee. What leads to traffic congestion is the fact that so many people are driving alone in a car when they could be carpooling.
