GRE考试Issue写作经典范例(二)_GRE写作

GRE考试Issue写作经典范例(二)

　　Born in 1954 to unmarried parents, Winfrey was raised by her grandmother on a farm with no indoor plumbing in Kosciusko, Miss. By age 3 she was reading the Bible and reciting in church. At 6 she moved to her mothers home in Milwaukee, Wis.; later, to her fathers in Nashville, Tenn. A lonely child, she found solace in books. When a seventh-grade teacher noticed the young girl reading during lunch, he got her a scholarship to a better school. Winfreys talent for public performance and spontaneity in answering questions helped her win beauty contests and get her first taste of public attention.

　　Crowned Miss Fire Prevention in Nashville at 17, Winfrey visited a local radio station, where she was invited to read copy for a lark and was hired to read news on the air. Two rs later, while a sophomore at Tennessee State University, she was hired as Nashvilles first female and first black TV-news anchor. After graduation, she took an anchor position in Baltimore, Md., but lacked the detachment to be a reporter. She cried when a story was sad, laughed when she misread a word. Instead, she was given an early-morning talk show. She had found her medium.

　　In 1984 she moved on to be the host of A.M. Chicago, which became The Oprah Winfrey Show. It was syndicated in 1986 when Winfrey was 32 and soon overtook Donahue as the nations top-rated talk show.

　　Women, especially, listen to Winfrey because they feel as if shes a friend. Although Phil Donahue pioneered the format she uses , his show was mostly what I call report-talk, which often typifies mens conversation. The overt focus is on information. Winfrey transformed the format into what I call rapport-talk, the back-and-forth conversation that is the basis of female friendship, with its emphasis on self-revealing intimacies. She turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues. Girls and womens friendships are often built on trading secrets. Winfreys power is that she tells her own, divulging that she once ate a package of hot-dog buns drenched in maple syrup, that she had smoked cocaine, even that she had been raped as a child. With Winfrey, the talk show became more immediate, more confessional, more personal. When a guests story moves her, she cries and spreads her arms for a hug.