GRE写作例子：礼节和典礼

　　Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are.

　　礼节和典礼有助于定义一个文化。如果没有这些，社会或者团体就会逐渐地迷失自我。

　　正文：

　　Admittedly, rituals and ceremonies are very significant for a culture in that they can help define a culture. However, a culture’s essence lies not in some specific ceremony or ritual, which are just symbols yet can not stand for the whole, but in common people' daily life, though which one can have more profound and comprehensive understanding concerning a culture and a nation.

　　It is the fact that ceremonies and rituals are necessary for a nation or culture to distinguish itself from others. People display and pass down their important customs and traditions though ceremonies. The Spring Festival in China is just a case in point.The Spring Festival is the most important ceremony for most Chinese, even those who have settled in foreign countries. In our minds, this ceremony is a paramount symbol for our nation and culture. Though in this rapid-pace life, people would not spend a whole month to celebrate the ritual, most of them would choose to go home to stay several days with their families and friends. And for western countries, it is undeniable that the most important ceremony is Christmas, which is also the mark of their culture.Santa-Clause, Christmas trees, presents in socks, all of them help to define their culture. In a word, different rituals and ceremonies are symbols for different cultures and nations, though which people in the culture would have a clearer sense of who they are and people outside the culture would have a basic understanding of that culture, especially the positive aspects.

　　Yet the ceremonies and rituals are not the whole of a culture or nation. culture is a matter involved many facets and is not easy to have an accurate definition from only one or two events, say important ceremonies and rituals. To further understand and define a culture requires careful observation and deep thinking of people's daily behaviors in that specific culture. For example, how do people eat, dress, study, and make friends, all of which may be trivial things in some one's eyes, but they have essential functions to define a culture or nation. However, sometimes they can not display themselves very clearly in ceremonies and rituals. Therefore, if people wants to define their own culture, they much do deep and careful investigation with respect to people's behaviors in their daily life. Moreover, in ceremonies and rituals, we always see the positive sides of a culture; but in fact, every culture has negative aspects as well. So, for individuals who want to have an all-round sense of who are they, they must possess a kind of objective and sharp mind which can see through the superficial phenomena in order to get the real nature, whatever positive or negative. For example,some art works, such as movies, novels, function as revealers of a culture's negative aspects. Simply put, one should receive as much information as possible to help him or her to define a culture.

　　To conclude, culture is such a complex matter that only some ceremonies and rituals can only help to distinguish one from other; and in most cases, they just show the positive aspects of a nation or culture. One who wants to define a culture objectively and have a profound and overall understanding of it should do careful and comprehensive observation with respect to the common people and think independently based on information from all sides of a culture.