tailieunhanh - Peterson’s master toefl writing skills part 21

You probably enjoy eating in restaurants and at home, depending on your mood, your work schedule, or your diet. However, do not write an essay that says that sometimes you like eating in a restaurant and sometimes at home. You must choose one or the other if you want to write an essay that answers the question correctly. | Style OVERVIEW Voice Parallelism Wordiness Substandard Usage Words often confused group I Words often confused group II Words often confused group III Correlative conjunctions Subject verb agreement Parts of speech Prepositions general use Prepositions in combinations Summing it up VOICE In English the active voice is more common than the passive voice although the passive voice is acceptable and even preferred at times. 1. The passive voice is preferred when the actor is unknown or unimportant. PASSIVE The cure for cancer will probably be discovered by some unknown scientist in a laboratory. PASSIVE That church was built in 1549. Who built the church is unimportant and not mentioned. 2. The passive voice is often used when discussing history. PASSIVE The war was fought over gold. 129 chapter 7 130 PART III TOEFL Writing Review 3. Use the active voice when the actor is more important than the action. ACTORS ACTIVE The children ate spaghetti for dinner. ACTORS ACTIVE We watched the news. 4. Avoid using active and passive in the same sentence if possible. PASSIVE PASSIVE The flowers were planted and the trees were trimmed. ACTIVE ACTIVE Susan cooked the dinner and washed the dishes. 5. Use one verb instead of two when possible. Rita enjoys good food and music. Not Rita enjoys good food and music is also enjoyed by her. Error Examples In the following examples we cannot say that the first sentence is absolutely wrong. In certain contexts it may even be preferred. However generally speaking the corrected sentence the second sentence is preferable. We are calling the first sentence AWKWARD and the second sentence BETTER. AWKWARD Ice cream was eaten at the party by the children. BETTER The children ate ice cream at the party. AWKWARD Workers built the pyramids about 5 000 years ago. BETTER The pyramids were built about 5 000 years ago. AWKWARD Some people painted pictures of animals on ancient cave walls. BETTER Pictures of animals were painted on ancient cave walls. .