2015年3月28日托福考试写作范文

While we were taught from a young age that efficiency means multi-tasking, certain projects should be completed one at a time. Such practice ensures the quality of the final product and prevents from one having to redo certain parts of a long process. It also ensures the safety of those who will ultimately be the users of the final product.

A person has a limited attention span, and a sole stress of efficiency often results in a compromise of quality. In projects that are highly detailed and require a lot of careful attention, a person must devote his full attention to the task in order to not make any careless mistakes. Take, for example, a biology project involving the genetic engineering of a human cell line. A lot of initial planning is involved in selecting the right cells suitable for growing in a laboratory and capable of modification. The cells must then be carefully monitored in a controlled environment to keep them alive. The genes to be altered are analyzed before there are delivered in a viral vector to the desired cells. All of steps toward achieving the final product are laboriously planned out and executed. Any small mishaps along the way can easily force the scientist to start the process all over again and waste months of previous work.

Some projects are assigned with specific instructions for those involved to not take on any other projects. Such projects often involve products that will affect the safety of a large number of individuals. In the field of architectural design, a public structure to be used by thousands, even millions, of people every day will require that the initial project be carried out with care. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a public infrastructure completed in 1950 along the Puget Sound that was considered a monumental feat of engineering in its day. The twin suspension bridge, spanning 5,400 feet, took years of planning and construction by teams of architects, engineers, and construction workers. However, because the Department of Pacific Northwest Transportation was taking on several projects at the time and couldn’t simply focus on the bridge, the group of engineers failed to take the aerodynamics of the bridge into consideration during the design process. The gusts of wind along the Tacoma Narrows brought the structure to a collapse within months of the bridge’s opening, resulting in a catastrophe that is still remembered to this day as a classic example of failure of engineering.

As the two examples show, the projects of certain highly skilled professions require careful attention to detail and must be completed one at a time. Trying to couple several projects simultaneously will only result in one having to redo a lot of work due to careless errors or worse, a devastating loss of lives.