很多學生在練習英文作文時，認為長句、難句或復雜句能夠提升文章的語言質量，展示自己“深厚”的語言功底，并因此獲得更高的分數。他們在備考復習時也花了很多精力在長句的練習上，考試時也會盡量使用長句。這種想法確實有一定的道理，因為很多考試如新托福的寫作科目評分標準中確實有從語法或用詞的多樣性等角度考察語言質量的評分項目，考生如果能夠熟練地運用各種句式寫出精彩的長句，確實能給文章增色不少。

　　然而，朗閣雅思專家認為：一味地追求句子的長度有時反而會犧牲句子的“可讀性”，特別是對一些基礎一般的學生來說，有時生硬地追求長句反而破壞了句子的句法準確性。下面我們就來看一些例子，體會一些寫得并不成功的長句和如何修改的建議：

　　建議一：避免空洞的單詞和詞組

　　1. 一些空洞的單詞或詞組根本不能為句子帶來任何相關的或重要的信息，完全可以被刪掉。比如下面的句子：

　　When all things are considered, young adults of today live more satisfying lives than those of their parents, in my opinion.

　　這句話當中的“when all things are considered”和“in my opinion”都顯得多余。完全可以去掉。改為：

　　Young adults of today live more satisfying lives than their parents.

　　2. 有些空洞和繁瑣的表達方式可以進行替換，例如：

　　Due to the fact that our grandparents were under an obligation to help their parents, they did not have the options that young people have at this point in time.

　　“due to the fact that”就是一個很典型的繁瑣的表達方式的例子，可以替換，簡化為下面的表達方式：

　　Because our grandparents were obligated to help their parents, they did not have the options that young people have now.

　　建議二： 避免重復

　　1. 盡量避免重復使用同樣的詞匯。或者有的時候雖然詞匯沒有重復，但意思卻有重復。這時候可以做一些簡化的工作。例如下面這個例子：

　　The farm my grandfather grew up on was large in size.

　　large 對一個farm來說就是size方面的large，所以in size可以去掉，改為：

　　The farm my grandfather grew up on was large.

　　更簡潔的表達方式為：

　　My grandfather grew up on a large farm.

　　2. 有時一個詞組可以用一個更簡單的單詞來替換，例如：

　　My grandfather has said over and over again that he had to work on his parents' farm.

　　這里的over and over again就可以改為repeatedly，顯得更為簡潔：

　　My grandfather has said repeatedly that he had to work on his parents' farm.