Understanding Paragraph Development (3)

描写也是段落展开的一种方法：作者通过词语把自己对人物和事物的印象呈现在读者面前，使读者对其要表达的主题有更深刻的理解。我们在阅读描写段落时，不妨问自己一下 ：“What impression of something or someone does the writer want to leave us readers?”比如下面这一段：

The inside of Pete Richard’s store was even more cluttered than his show window. Behind the counter stood Pete himself, a man not more than thirty but with hair already turning gray.

作者在描写the inside of Pete Richard’s store时，用了more cluttered than his show window；在描写Pete时，作者写道：a man not more than thirty but with hair already turning gray。这样，寥寥几笔就使读者获得了对这家小店及店主的印象。

再比如下面一段：

I stopped. The soft little voice was coming through a half-opened door. I pushed the door open and saw a young boy, about five years old, lying in his dad’s arms, hooked up to more medical equipment than I had ever seen. Mom was on the other side, along with Grandma, Grandpa and a nurse tending to the equipment.

作者描写了自己当时所看到的一个男孩的情景：about five years old, lying in his dad’s arms, hooked up to more medical equipment than I had ever seen。

13.Read the following paragraphs and answer the questions that follow.

1. I usually arrive to find about eight adults sitting waiting, plus a lot of kids. It’s always a very crowded room and the atmosphere is pretty tense. My nerves are on edge, too. The first thing I say is, “Can I take my jacket off?” and they always say, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

2. My favourite painting is of a woman, a servant in a large house, and it was painted in about 1660 in Holland by Vermeer Van Delft. The young woman is a cook and is quite tall and fairly strong. She is about 18 or 19 years old, wearing a white scarf, which completely covers her hair, a yellow blouse, a blue apron and an orange floor-length skirt. This painting gives you a good idea of what ordinary working women wore in the seventeenth century.