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在前幾期與讀者分享了如何處理paper 1的部分常見題目，今期想轉換一下話題，探討一下香港考生在paper 2常犯的通病--文章冗長多餘。本文也會簡述一下應如何令文章變得簡潔（concise）。
日改百試卷眼酸
在paper 2 (writing)，大部分同學會認為要奪取好分數都離不開logical的內容，良好的organization和文法，以及恰當的生字，因而忽略了簡潔的重要性。簡潔是指不用多餘的字去表達意見。Conciseness其實比同學想像中更加重要。試想想，每個閱卷員要在有限的時間內批改大量的試卷，而大部分考生的文章都冗長，倘若你的文章能寫得較簡潔，它必定較其他考生的作品為之突出。
勿囉嗦多連接詞
要文章顯得較精簡，同學應盡量避免以下的情況：
1. 不必要的重複。倘若同學已提及某意見，便沒有必要再在往後的段落重述（除了在conclusion外)。
2. 運用大量的conjunctions和transitional words（連接詞）。無可否認，適當地運用transitional words如moreover、besides等字的確可提升文章的cohesion，但用得過多時卻令你整篇文章變得unnatural（不自然）和artificial（堆砌）。
以下的段落顯示了濫用transitional words的問題：
Indeed, the falling English standard has been a serious issue in Hong Kong. In my opinion, I think it has much to do with the local government's policies (or lack of policies) to deal with the issue. As a matter of fact, our local government lacks sincerity in implementing any genuine policy of bilingualism. From my point of view, the lessening appearance of English in the official context is closely connected with the lowering of English standard among Hong Kongers.
在以上短短的paragraph中，作者總共運用多句transitional phrases和conjunctions，整段文字不但內容空洞和重複，更令整段文字變得artificial。
3. 過多運用there或here。（之一）
Practice
Please remove the redundant words to make the following sentences more concise.
1. As a matter of fact, Mary has just apologized for her unintentional mistakes.
2. Indeed, the actual fact is that he didn't check the past record in a careful manner.
Answers
1. Mary has apologized for her mistakes.
2. The fact is that he didn't check the record./ He didn't check the record carefully.
■Dr. A Chan
哲學博士，哲學碩士，英語講師。熟悉公開考試之出題模式與評分準則，任教英語。
隔星期三見報
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