文书点评：自动铅笔（Mechanical Pencils）

[Prompt: Please discuss your interest in the field of engineering and discuss your interest in a specific engineering discipline.]

A city bus pulls into the Beijing station. The folded doors creak open, and a six-year-old boy hops off, followed by his mom. The boy will begin school in a week, and they are shopping for school supplies. As the boy and the mother stroll past the store counters, the mother suddenly says, "Lele, let’s get you a mechanical pencil." I was fascinated as soon as I saw the round plastic barrel and pointed tip -- a piece of engineering brilliance.

My first pencil box contained four wooden pencils, a razor, and a strip of sandpaper used to sharpen the lead. Living in the last years of pre-modernized China, I had never seen a mechanical pencil before. I don't remember the trip home from the store, for the only thing on my mind was the yolk-colored barrel. As soon as I got home, I tried to open the pencil to see the magic behind a button that, when pressed at one end, advanced the lead at the other end. After many wasted lead fragments and a bent barrel, the pencil was ripped out of my hand, and I was scolded for not valuing goods. Respect for my elders stopped me from further exploration of the pencil, and so ended my first encounter with engineering; but my fascination with "how does it work?" was unleashed. The following years were full of long, intense stares at moving bicycle gears, adventurous peeks inside my grandfather’s typewriter, and temporary blindness from prolonged examinations of burning light bulbs.

When I arrived in the United States, I had to put my curiosity on hold for a year. With only a basic knowledge of the alphabet and the lyrics to "B-I-N-G-O, " I devoted all my time to learning English, completing the English as a Second Language program two years ahead of schedule. But my fascination with the mechanics of objects around me soon resurfaced. My meager collection of McDonald's Happy Meal toys soon dwindled, as I began prying open poor Simba to see the gears and wheels inside. A few years later, I found myself covered with motor oil as I lay next to my father under our car, learning how to change the oil filter. Watching the black fluid pouring smoothly out of the engine, I knew then that I would become a disciple of engineering.

At the same time as I discovered my love of engineering, I also realized what a large field it is. What kind of engineering would I choose -- electrical, mechanical, chemical? One day, sitting in my AP Biology class, a diagram comparing the electron pumps of a cell to turbines in a dam appeared before me. Suddenly, it all connected under the light of the projector: the gears in Simba’s stomach, the burnt memory cards of my computer, the fascinating science of biology all came into union under the bioengineering field. I had found my calling, and all because of a little mechanical pencil.

点评：

文章从买自动笔这件很小的事情出发，循序渐进，生动的描述了作者自己由小小的自动笔引发的对工程学的浓厚兴趣。很明显的表达出了自己从童年时代到大学时代一直都对工程学极其痴迷：从对铅笔的研究到拆卸自行车零件再到偷窥祖父打印机结构到最后和父亲一起研究汽油滤过器，这些事例无一不说明了工程学对作者的吸引力，从侧面表达出了作者申请这份专业的坚定性。

在文章的最后一段，作者对为什么选择生物工程学的原因做了简单却能说服审核者的解释，从很普通的角度入手，达到的却是非常好的效果。再次表达出自己的原因：兴趣。自己在兴趣之中又找到了完美的结合点，又能侧面体现出自己具有比较强的逻辑分析能力。

整篇文章作者完全没有空泛的话，每个自己所具有的优点都是由具体的事例来引出，因而具有很强的说服力，这点非常符合ESSAY写作的重点：证据的说明。而且紧扣题目的要求：描述自己为什么会对工程学感兴趣以及为什么会对相应的领域感兴趣。可以说是一篇非常成功的ESSAY。

译文：

自动铅笔

［命题要求：描述为什么会对工程学感兴趣的原因以及对工程学感兴趣的理由。］

一辆公车在在北京站停了下来。车门缓缓打开，一个6岁的男孩跳了下来,后面跟着他的妈妈。孩子这周就要上学，他们是来购买文具用品的。正在母子逛商场的时候，母亲突然说：“乐乐，先买你的自动铅。”当我看到自动铅那塑料笔身和笔尖的时候我立刻被吸引了，这分明就是工程学的体现。

我的第一个文具盒里有4只木质铅笔，一把小刀还有一张磨铅笔的砂纸。过去的几年，在现代化前期的中国，我从来都没有见过自动铅笔。所以我都不记得是怎么回家的，脑子里唯一的东西就是自动铅那黄色的笔身。一到家我就试图拆开他研究铅笔帽后面的秘密：为什么每按一次笔帽，就回出现一截铅芯。在浪费了好多的铅芯之后，我放弃了，找不出更有价值的东西。幸亏我的长辈阻止了我对铅笔的继续研究，同时也结束了我和工程学的第一次接触，但是我心中“它到底是怎么运作的”的疑问却没有减少丝毫。接下来的几年是在无止尽的拆卸自行车零件和大胆的偷窥祖父的打字机和由于总想探究点燃着的灯泡而造成的暂时停电中度过的。

当我来到美国，一年里，我需要控制我的好奇心。由于只掌握了基础的语言知识，我不得不将我所有的时间都防到对英语的学习上面，比原计划提前两年完成语言学习。但是我对周围物体的机械的着迷很快又显现出来了。我从麦当劳搜集的就餐赠品快速的减少，因为我经常用他们撬起门来观察门轴里螺丝的运转方式。几年之后，我和爸爸躺在汽车下面，弄的满身是油就是为了研究汽油过滤器。看着汽油缓缓从过滤器中流出来，那时我就知道，我会成为工程学的忠实追随者。

在我发现什么是我所爱的同时，我也发现工程学是如此之大的一个领域。那么选择一个什么样的领域呢？电学，机械，还是化学。一天，在AP生物课上，一个关于电水泵和叶轮机的比较图出现在我面前。突然激发了我这个设计者的灵感，SIMBA 里面的螺丝让我想起了电脑里储藏的图片，对生物和工程的着迷在生物工程学上找到了完美的结合点。我找到了我想要的，而这些，仅仅是源于一只小小的自动铅。