Sentence Variety (多样性)

　　Sentence writing is the basis for composition. If the basis is weak, however hard you try, your writing is inevitably (不可避免地) poor. Here is an example of a poorly-written paragraph:

　　When I was a student in Lanzhou University, there were only 4000 students. The chemistry department was the largest department. The department had about 600 students. The physics department was the second largest department. The department had about 500 students. The foreign language department had only 150 students. The department was the least department.

　　The biggest problem shown in the paragraph above is that the sentences are too choppy (零碎), that is, too many short sentences. If we combine (合并) the related simple sentences into compound (并列句) or complex (复合句) sentences, we will have a far better paragraph. The following is a much better one:

　　When I was a student in Lanzhou University, there were only around 4000 students. The chemistry department was the largest department, which had about 600 students. The second largest department was the physics department with around 500 students. The foreign language department, with only about 150 students, was the smallest one at that time.

　　So remember, writing a composition is like writing a piece of musical work. We must have a rhythm, meaning we have to vary sentence patterns. Otherwise, the one who reads your composition will be bored to death.

Exercise:

　　Read the following paragraph, and decide on whether it has achieved sentence variety.

　　Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. He was an Italian painter. He lived during the Renaissance. The woman in the painting is smiling; there has been talk about the meaning of her smile for centuries.

Now rewrite this paragraph by linking up the related simple sentences.