Hello everyone! I think perhaps my thinking style is different from native speakers, so my GRE score about writing is poor. I don't know why. Here is an issue written by me and could you help me figure out it? Thank you in advance.

TOPIC: ISSUE136 - "The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."
WORDS: 383 TIME: 00:45:00
I agree with the speaker in the broad assertion that the circumstance of scarcity of choice is rare. But at the same time, the speaker ignored the limitations of human and the confinement of the environment, which diminish the justification of the statement to some extent.
Firstly, as the optimistic claimed, life is full of possibilities and the future lies in your hand. In other word, it means that every road leads to Roman if you can seize the opportunity .Actually, it is an opinion which is believed by all the great heroes and leaders in the world. If not, they would not have fought against the unfairness and created a new world.
Secondly, it seems that somebody who claimed having no choice but to commit a crime or drink alcohol so forth is just trying to shirk the accountabilities for his or her behavior. In fact, most of the circumstances that somebody asserts as the predicaments are generally not the cases. In stead, it reflects a kind of fear and trepidation. Since he cannot handle it well ,he pulls the responsibility to the environment.
Thirdly, while admitting that choice is often accessible, we should also notice the limitation of human's nature and ability and the confinement of the environment. In Hardy's work Tess of the d'Urbevilles, he tried to persuade the reader that one cannot get rid of the net knitted by the Almighty. Although it is some kind of fatalism which is criticized by the scholars,it is reasonable to some degree. In the fiction,Tess's personality of being tractable and susceptible accounted for a large part to her tragedy.
Furthermore,the speaker also ignore the context of this statement.I have to admit that in modern times,people are more free to do their own choice .But in the past when monarchy is the most popular form of human society,the common people didn't get so much choice as we do.Once the monarch sentenced somebody to death,no matter reasonable or unreasonable,he had no chioce but to die.
In conclusion,the speaker is on the correct side in a large degree,except for leaving out the circumstances of the time of human nature.After all,each human who is willing to live actively and happily would like to believe in this statement.But while we accept it and do things under this belief ,we should also be aware of our own limitations and try not to get to the extreme.

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Allow my soul settle in your garden,
though my body is banished.

thar seems to have said it all. I wonder if Romany will see this, as she has some experience of the interface of english and the chinese languages?

I am always grateful for thar and Romany on this forum and learn a lot from both of you. Thank you!

I have to admit that I often find non-european speakers of english seem to sacrifice content for form and style, using quite flowery language which would be put more simply by a native. Maybe it's feature of the way the language is taught? I wait for insight!

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

Intel and Thar -

Yes, I did see this, but felt that Thar had got it covered. Without taking on board the entire piece and re-constructing it line by line there was nothing I could add.

Intel:- educated Chinese is a very 'flowery' language. The structure of Chinese seems rather basic/easy to beginner learners as, instead of changing the form of a sentence to indicate present continuous or past perfect etc. one simply uses the same structure but adds a word at the end to indicate tense. Being able to make ones needs/wants understood in a basic and limited version of the language is not where the difficulty arises.

It's all the circumlocations, nuanced phrases, conventions, acceptable and unacceptable ways to broach, discuss or end a topic (not to mention the continual use of rather florid adjectives!) that is difficult. This is the basic language knowledge Chinese bring to learning English.

My biggest struggle with many students is to teach them how to be direct in their communication. The second, and intertwined struggle, comes with trying to inculcate the idea of economy of words and plain speaking.

It usually takes a long time, the constant provision of alternatives, and a lot of reading to get students to accept this: its basically a wholley different approach to language for the majority of students.

PS - I didn't mean to be 'scathing', and I hope no Chinese browsers of this forum will have thought so.(!!)Certainly all the students I've ever had are fully aware of the shortcomings of such a system. I was merely explaining the reality of the current situation, which arose because of the dearth of teachers after the Cultural Revolution.

It's an inevitability in a country which has only recently introduced universal literacy and which has the highest numbers of school-going students in the world. It's also caused because of China's historical isolation from the world of English speakers; the fact that, unlike all the Indo-Germanic languages which have common ancestors, Chinese is a wildly different form of communication; Opening and Expansion only took place 30 years ago and vast rural communities throughout the wide land remain virtually untouched by contact with the West and, ergo, Western language.

So - not being judgemental. Merely prosaic.

Intel - yes, I think this is why Chinese readers of English novels are all familiar with the 19th century writers: that rather florid style, the enormously long sentences,the circumlocation and the way language is used is very familiar to them. Unfortunately, none are familiar with contemporary English writing so they continue (as we once discussed before) to use the Brontes, Dickens, Austen, Conan Dyle as their models when writing.

Intel:- if you have a copy whose language you like then stick to it! Some of the modern translations are absolutely terrible - some appear simply to have been fed into Google Translate.

And don't get me wrong: I also love to read authors - of whatever era - who have a true facility with language and a mastery over it. (Especially Dickens). But from the point of view of L2 learners at this place and in this time, it's not helping much.

I've probably mentioned the class I had in which we were exploring adjectives to describe "woman"? I was expecting (and got) a fair sprinkling of "hot" and "sexy" - these were 23year olds. But one guy yells out "Chaste!". There was a moment of silence while one half of the class (including me) gaped wordlessly and then almost everyone fell about laughing. It was, even in China, 2009.

When we were talking later he told me he was always coming across this word in English novels and was convinced it was just some feminine attribute. Finally, when I got out of him the titles of these English novels he read, I realised they were from the pen of the (in?)famous Mrs. Radcliffe!

Students (here, at any rate) do so need to be guided in their reading. I can quite see how you may regret subject choices way back when. Still, I'd say that if you're reading books because you like the sound of the language in them, then you've done pretty well all by yourself - Lit. course or no Lit. course!