Joy English · Level C2 · Artikel fiturjoy-english.com

Artikel fitur tentang lenyapnya ketenangan

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Tulis fitur majalah dengan pembuka yang membangun suasana, suara yang dikutip, bahasa kiasan, dan gambaran penutup.

Listening for the last quiet places

At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, the botanist Imre Valk stands at the edge of a drained reservoir and does nothing at all. For eleven minutes he listens. A distant tractor, a wren, the faint tick of cooling stones: that, he says, is as good as it gets.

Valk has spent the best part of a decade mapping what he calls acoustic refuges, places where no human-made sound intrudes for a quarter of an hour at a stretch. When he began, he expected to find them in the remoter reaches of the country. Instead he found that they were vanishing everywhere, shrinking like ice at the edge of a warming sea. Of the three hundred sites he surveyed, fewer than forty still qualify.

The causes are unglamorous: ring roads, delivery drones, the ceaseless hum of ventilation plants. But Valk is more interested in the consequences, which are subtler than mere irritation. Studies he cites suggest that sustained noise nudges up stress hormones even in people who claim to have grown accustomed to it. Habituation, he argues, is not the same as immunity; we simply stop reporting a cost that we continue to pay.

Not everyone is persuaded. Critics point out that cities have always been noisy, and that the clatter of a nineteenth-century street would make a modern commuter wince. Valk concedes the point with a shrug. "Noise is not new," he says. "What is new is that there is no longer anywhere to retreat to."

That, perhaps, is the heart of the matter. Silence has become a scarce resource and, like most scarce resources, it is beginning to be sold. Hotels advertise rooms free of electronic hum; some retreats charge a small fortune for the privilege of being told to say nothing. It is a curious irony that something once available to anyone with a field and a free afternoon should now come with a price tag.

Valk has little patience for such enterprises. His own modest campaign aims to have a handful of the surviving refuges protected, much as ancient woodland is. Whether it succeeds is hard to say. As the light strengthens over the reservoir, a car door slams somewhere beyond the trees, and his eleven minutes are over. He writes the time in his notebook and, with the air of a man making a modest entry in a ledger, closes it.

Nada, citraan, dan efek

Pilih opsi yang terbaik.

Which opening is best suited to a magazine feature?
- a) This article discusses the problem of noise in cities.
- b) Noise is a problem for many people nowadays.
- c) At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, a botanist stands at the edge of a reservoir and does nothing at all.
"Shrinking like ice at the edge of a warming sea" is an example of which device?
- a) metaphor
- b) personification
- c) litotes
- d) simile
"Habituation is not the same as immunity." What does the writer imply?
- a) People who stop noticing noise are still affected by it.
- b) Noise protects people from stress.
- c) People never get used to noise.
- d) Noise has no effect on health.
"Valk concedes the point with a shrug." What does the shrug suggest?
- a) He is angry with his critics.
- b) He accepts the point without feeling threatened by it.
- c) He has no interest in his own research.
- d) He is unable to answer the criticism.
Silence has become a ___ resource.
- a) sparse
- b) scarce
- c) meagre
- d) slender
Which ending is most effective for a feature article?
- a) In conclusion, noise is a serious problem.
- b) Therefore, more research is needed.
- c) He writes the time in his notebook and closes it, like a man making an entry in a ledger.
Which phrase attributes a claim most cautiously?
- a) Everyone knows that
- b) Studies he cites suggest that
- c) It has been proved beyond doubt that
- d) There can be no question that

Lengkapi kalimat

Ketik satu kata, atau bentuk dalam tanda kurung, untuk melengkapi setiap kalimat.

Valk has spent the best part ___ a decade mapping acoustic refuges.
Valk has little patience ___ such enterprises.
Of the three hundred sites he surveyed, fewer ___ forty still qualify.
It is a curious irony that something once available ___ anyone with a free afternoon should now cost money.
Critics point ___ that cities have always been noisy.
He wants a few refuges protected, much ___ ancient woodland is.
The refuges were vanishing everywhere, ___ like ice at the edge of a warming sea. (shrink)

Tugas menulis

Tulis artikel fitur untuk majalah tentang kerajinan, tempat, atau tradisi yang perlahan menghilang. Mulailah dengan sebuah adegan, sertakan minimal satu kutipan dari orang yang kamu rekayasa, gunakan minimal satu simile atau metafora, akui pandangan yang skeptis, dan akhiri dengan sebuah gambaran.

280–340 kata

Periksa tulisanmu

Pembuka saya adalah adegan yang konkret, bukan pernyataan topik.
Saya menyertakan kutipan yang singkat dan terdengar alami dengan kata kerja pembingkai.
Saya menggunakan minimal satu simile atau metafora yang dipilih dengan baik dan tidak menjelaskannya berlebihan.
Saya mengakui pandangan yang skeptis atau berlawanan dengan adil.
Saya memvariasikan panjang kalimat dan menghindari frasa perangkum seperti in conclusion.
Saya mengakhiri dengan gambaran atau gestur yang menggemakan pembuka.

Kunci jawaban

Nada, citraan, dan efek

c) At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, a botanist stands at the edge of a reservoir and does nothing at all.Adegan konkret dengan detail yang mengejutkan menarik pembaca masuk. Pembuka lainnya hanya mengumumkan atau menyatakan topik.
d) simileKata like membuat perbandingan langsung, jadi ini adalah simile. Metafora akan mengatakan bahwa tempat-tempat perlindungan itu adalah es.
a) People who stop noticing noise are still affected by it.Intinya, terbiasa dengan sesuatu tidak menghilangkan bahayanya.
b) He accepts the point without feeling threatened by it.Sebuah shrug di sini menunjukkan penerimaan yang santai: poinnya benar tetapi tidak merusak argumennya.
b) scarceScarce resource adalah kolokasi tetap untuk sesuatu yang menjadi langka. Sparse menggambarkan hal yang tersebar tipis, sedangkan meagre dan slender menggambarkan jumlah kecil yang dimiliki seseorang (meagre resources), bukan sesuatu yang menjadi sulit ditemukan.
c) He writes the time in his notebook and closes it, like a man making an entry in a ledger.Artikel fitur sering ditutup dengan gambaran atau gestur. Penutup lainnya meringkas atau menyatakan kesimpulan secara mekanis.
b) Studies he cites suggest thatSuggest menjaga klaim tetap proporsional dan menyandarkannya pada sebuah sumber. Frasa lainnya melebih-lebihkan kepastian.

Lengkapi kalimat

ofThe best part of berarti sebagian besar dari.
for / withPatience for atau with sesuatu, keduanya benar.
thanFewer than adalah bentuk komparatif dengan angka.
toAvailable to someone adalah pola yang biasa dipakai.
outTo point out berarti menarik perhatian pada suatu fakta.
asMuch as berarti dengan cara yang sama seperti.
shrinkingParticiple shrinking menggambarkan bagaimana tempat-tempat perlindungan itu lenyap.

Contoh jawaban

On the second floor of a building with no lift, above a shop that sells only buttons, Dalia Reyes bends over a torn map of the Aldermoor hills and begins, very gently, to mend it.

Reyes is one of perhaps a dozen people in the country who repair paper maps by hand. She learned the trade from a retired surveyor, who paid her in tea and sharp criticism. Her tools are few: a bone folder, a jar of wheat paste, tissue so thin that it clings to the air. "You are not fixing the map," she says. "You are persuading it to forget it was ever damaged."

The work is slow. A single fold, worn through after decades in a coat pocket, may take an afternoon. Customers are mostly walkers and the families of the recently deceased, who arrive carrying an atlas annotated in a hand that nobody else will recognise. Reyes treats such pencil notes as sacred, working around them as a gardener works around a seedling.

The difficulty, of course, is that nobody needs her any more. A phone can show the same hills, in real time, and with a blue dot to say where you are standing. Reyes does not disagree. "A screen tells you where you are," she admits. "A map tells you where you might go, and who went there before you." It is a fine line, and one that few of her customers could articulate, but they feel it in the hands.

Her business survives, narrowly, thanks to a small number of loyal clients and a waiting list that she suspects is mostly sentimental. She has taken on one apprentice, a nervous student who, for the first month, was not allowed to touch the paste.

By late afternoon the Aldermoor map lies flat and almost whole, a faint seam running across its highest ridge. Reyes holds it to the window, and the light passes through the hills like a thought.