要在DSE英文Paper 2中取得好分數，同學們應特別留意以下的4點：(1) relevancy/unity, (2) support, (3) coherence及(4) sentence skills。今天會先談談文章中的relevancy（相關度）的重要性。
避免離題句子
無論你寫什麼類型的文章，你都應盡量避免加入與essay的thesis statement無關係的ideas，不然的話，那文章的結構隨時變得鬆散，亦有可能誤導讀者。例如你校長要求學生會去幫助宣傳organ donation（器官捐贈）。因此，你決定寫一篇文章去化解同學們對organ donation的誤解，以下係文章的其中一段：
1. One misconception（誤解） that people have with regards to organ donation is that they think the medical practitioners will not save their lives if they are injured in accidents or if they suffer from serious illnesses. 2. They believe that by registering in the centralised organ donation register（中央器官捐贈登記名冊）, they automatically give consent to all doctors to rank "their lives" to a lower priority. 3. A closer examination of this idea will let us see that assertions like these will stand only if all doctors are unethical and if all doctors have no respect for human lives. 4. Some doctors might be so unethical that they harvest organs for money. 5. However, the truth is that all doctors have to adhere to a code of professional conducts, which indicates that saving life is the responsibility and top priority of every healthcare professional. 6. Put another way, the doctors will not deprive people's rights of living simply because some other patients are waiting for organ donations.
上文下理須嚴密
以上的段落包括首先列舉misconception（sentence 1），接着導出那misconception其實建基於認為所有醫護人員都是不道德及不尊重生命之上（sentence 3），最後才說出所有醫護人員都要遵守a code of professional conducts（sentence 5），用以反駁大衆的misconception。你會發現sentence 4其實與上文下理沒有什麼關係，因此應被刪除。
Exercise
Identify the irrelevant sentence/clause.
1. The presumption of innocence is a legal principle stating that a person is considered innocent unless proven guilty. 2. Although it is a fundamental value to our legal system, it is very fragile and can be easily trampled on. 3. One common situation is when the media start criticizing a particular person for his or her alleged misconduct. 4. The recent alleged assault case against former nursing home head is a good example, although personally I greatly dislike the suspect and find his behaviors shameless.
Answer
...although personally I greatly dislike the suspect and find his behaviors shameless.
■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。
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