Examples of responses to this writing question：
RESPONSE BY STUDENT 1 Word count:169
Irrigation, the artificial watering of land for agriculture, has a high use of water. Water for irrigation comes from several sources, such as direct rainfall, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Some irrigation methods use a lot of water, such as flooding large fields. According to the reading, flooding is widely used because of low cost and long tradition. However, the lecture casts doubt on this point by stating that surface methods are not efficient.
The water that is used for irrigation can’t be used for other purposes. With surface irrigation, some of the water goes to the plants; however, a lot of water evaporates or passes down into the ground. This wastes a lot of water because the water is not available for other purposes such as drinking.
The surface method of flooding large fields requires a lot of water. Some of the water evaporates when it collects into ponds on the field. Sprinkler systems are a more efficient type of surface irrigation, but they also lose water to evaporation.
RESPONSE BY STUDENT 2 Word count: 210
The professor made the point that the use of water for irrigation is very high. In general, agriculture uses a lot of water, and the water for irrigation cannot be used for other purposes. For example, it cannot be the water supply for homes and industry. The reading does not discuss this point.
Another important point is that some irrigation methods are not efficient in using water. For example, surface methods of irrigation use a lot of water. Surface methods deliver water to a field directly from a canal, well, of ditch. Examples are flooding, border irrigation, and basin irrigation. Surface methods are not efficient because they waste a lot of water. For example, the surface technique of flooding large fields requires a large amount of water. However, half of the water is used by the crop, and the rest is lost to evaporation. In general, surface methods of irrigation are not efficient, but the reading does not discuss this point.
Finally, the professor stated that some technology is more efficient than flooding. An example is the sprinkler method, which sprays crops with water. However, sprinklers are a surface method, and some water is wasted. In general, the professor discusses problems with surface irrigation that the reading dies not include.
例2 ：
Read the passage and then listen to the recording. Read the integrated writing question and the five responses that follow. Evaluate each response according to the descriptions of the five levels. Assign each response a score of 5,4,3,2 or 1.
Reading Time – 3 minutes
The discovery of penicillin and other antibiotic drugs is the most dramatic medical development of the twentieth century. These new drugs quickly became known as “wonder drugs” because they saved so many lives that were threatened by major forms of infection. The research that led to their development rested on the belief that chemicals could be found that would destroy specific microorganisms without injuring the human body at the same time. Advances in chemistry and in the knowledge of bacteria quickened the discovery of such chemicals.
In 1933, the first of the sulfa drugs, prontosil, was tested clinically on humans and was found to cure blood infections that would otherwise have been fatal. In 1941, the first successful human tests of penicillin were conducted on cases of streptococcus infections. The discovery of penicillin laid the foundation for even more powerful weapons against specific diseases. Within the next decade, researchers identified some 200 antibiotic substances that were effective against one or another type of bacteria. One of the most important was streptomycin, found to be potent against tuberculosis and other infections that were not affected by penicillin.
Antibiotics gave the medical profession powerful tools that could directly fight a very wide range of specific diseases. They made possible the survival of patients during and after surgery. No longer was it necessary to depend largely on the body’s own immune system to fight off major infections; these infections could be attacked directly with drugs. Among the most spectacular effects of antibiotics were reductions in the number of deaths from pneumonia and tuberculosis.
Now listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.
As soon as we developed antibiotics, new strains of bacteria appeared that were resistant to some or all of the drugs. Hospitals started using antibiotics regularly in the 1950s, but resistance started appearing within a few years. Today, one-third of the patients in hospitals are on antibiotics, but antibiotic resistance is increasing the danger of hospital infections—to the point where people are almost safer staying home than going to a hospital.
In the forties, penicillin really was a wonder drug. Back then, you could give a patient with bacterial pneumonia ten thousand units of penicillin four times a day and cure the disease. Today, you could give 24 million units of penicillin a day, but the patient might still die. Why? Well, in a way, bacteria are smarter than us. They evolve to counteract any drug we attack them with. A lot of bacteria are now completely resistant to penicillin.
Bacteria can evolve very effective weapons against antibiotics. Some of them develop enzymes to match every antibiotic we throw at them. All these weapons and counter-weapons match one another—just like the weapons in real military warfare. So, no matter what antibiotic we use, the bacteria will come up with a way to make it useless.
How does this happen? Well, if you douse a colony of bacteria with an antibiotic the colony will be killed—that is, all except for a few cells. A few cells will survive because they carry a resistance gene for that particular antibiotic. The surviving cells quickly multiply and they pass along this lucky gene to their offspring. And soon you have a new strain of bacteria that’s resistant to that drug.
One consequence of antibiotic resistance is the reappearance of tuberculosis as a major illness. Twenty years ago, doctors thought tuberculosis was a defeated disease. Since then, however, new cases of tuberculosis have increased by 20 percent. And several strains of the disease are resistant to any drug we can attack them with.
Summarize the main points made in the lecture, explaining how they differ from points made in the reading.
Summarize the main points made in the lecture, explaining how they differ from points made in the reading.