4. What is the difference between the newspapers and the magazines?
报纸和杂志都是最为传统的获得信息的方式。此题要求考生比较报纸和杂志的不同点，当然也需要提及共同点，而且暗含了需要比较两者的优缺点。比较两者可以从价格、内容、及时性等各个层次进行分析。考生可发挥的余地比较多，可以穿插自己的观点，即自己更喜欢读报纸还是杂志，并说明原因。

Candidate 1: As we all know, newspapers and magazines are all printed media which report news by text and images, but there are also some differences between them.

In my opinion, firstly, newspapers' timeliness(及时性) is better than magazines.

Secondly, newspapers' audience is usually the general public while magazines targets at the specific fixed society groups.

Thirdly, from the scope of the reported incident, the newspaper is more comprehensive.

Fourthly, the newspaper's income is mainly from advertising revenue(exception for some weeklies), but the magazine depends on the revenue of issue(发行收入) more.

Candidate 2: In our daily life, you may know that some people like reading newspapers while some others who prefer magazines. We live in a world filled with all kinds of newspapers and magazines, but do you know the differences between the newspapers and magazines?

As you can see, most of the newspapers are more comprehensive, while many kinds of magazines are more profesional. As for newspapers, for example, in the China Daily and the New York Times, you can read news divided into many sections(版面) such as international events, business, life, sports, science, entertainment, literature and so on. Regarding magazines, however, you will enjoy many articles just about one area. Maybe for this reason, more people prefer reading newspapers every day.

The timeliness of newspapers is better than magazines. Daily paper is just a piece of cake for us. Newspapers provide the latest news which is always brief(简明的). On the contrary, magazines will supply details for us. We can not ignore the fact that magazines are always designed more beautifully, which leads to their higher price.

Candidate 3: Nowadays, newspapers and magazines are both the main media. They give people much convenience in daily life. They both provide people with necessary information, but there are also differences between them as following:

Firstly, newspapers are published more often than magazines. Newspapers are often published every one or two days while magazines are published once half a month at least.

Secondly, the information in the newspapers is fresher. This difference can be explained apprantly(明显地) by the first. We can always read the latest news in the newspapers.

Finally, the keeping time is also different. Newspapers are always thrown away after being looked through while magazines are kept for a longer time, maybe all the life time.

In a word, newspapers and magazines are different from each other in some aspects. But both of them are important for man's life.

Candidate 1回答比较简单，从四个方面指出了其不同，仔细看来，考生前三点回答的是报纸相对杂志的优点，即及时性、大众化、内容丰富，最后点明其收入来源的不同，报纸依赖于广告收入而杂志主要靠发行收入。如再多论述下一杂志的优点就更加完整了；Candidate 2首先以一个问句自然引出自己的话题，接着指出报纸和杂志的一点不同，即报纸内容比较丰富而杂志专业性较强，这是为什么大众偏爱于报纸的原因；Candidate 3也是从及时性、存储时间等来论述。