2008年北京大学考博英语写作题目与参考范文
Quite a few teachers complain about students reading fewer books than before. In fact, students nowadays spend more time surfing on the internet and watching movies on DVD's. Naturally they spend less time reading books.
Do you think that students today are less knowledgeable because they read fewer books?
参考范文：
There is a frequent complaint among teachers today that students read fewer books than before and that they are less knowledgeable as a result. At first sight, this argument seems reasonable. However, a careful inspection at it reveals how flimsy it is. In my view, students today are generally more knowledgeable than the elder generations.
Truly, students now spend less time reading paper books, but they spend more time surfing the internet and watching movies on DVDs. It is, as I see it, just a change in the means of acquiring knowledge.
Actually, there is a far larger amount of information on the internet than contained by traditional books. On line you can not only be provided with the most detailed and latest reports on what is happening around the world, but can also learn about the history of an event by linking to related web pages. Besides, the so-called e-books are not a bit inferior to paper books either in amount or in content. A lot of classical works can now be read on line. Last but not least, thanks to the net, students today can communicate with people in almost any corner of the world, which can considerably expand their horizons and enrich their knowledge.
DVDs are another important means for young people today to master knowledge. Compared with paper books, this new kind of device is far more vivid and alive. Besides, almost all information in traditional books can be conveyed in the form of DVD: classical novels can be made into movies and played, poems can be read aloud
and accompanied by pictures, and even courses in school can be made into videos.
To sum up, reading fewer books by no means render modern students less knowledgeable. Instead, they are exposed to a lot more knowledge than previous generations.
