[Prompt: Please discuss your interest in the field of engineering and discuss your interest in a specific engineering discipline.]

A city bus pulls into the Beijing station. The folded doors creak open, and a six-year-old boy hops off, followed by his mom. The boy will begin school in a week, and they are shopping for school supplies. As the boy and the mother stroll past the store counters, the mother suddenly says, "Lele, let’s get you a mechanical pencil." I was fascinated as soon as I saw the round plastic barrel and pointed tip -- a piece of engineering brilliance.

My first pencil box contained four wooden pencils, a razor, and a strip of sandpaper used to sharpen the lead. Living in the last years of pre-modernized China, I had never seen a mechanical pencil before. I don't remember the trip home from the store, for the only thing on my mind was the yolk-colored barrel. As soon as I got home, I tried to open the pencil to see the magic behind a button that, when pressed at one end, advanced the lead at the other end. After many wasted lead fragments and a bent barrel, the pencil was ripped out of my hand, and I was scolded for not valuing goods. Respect for my elders stopped me from further exploration of the pencil, and so ended my first encounter with engineering; but my fascination with "how does it work?" was unleashed. The following years were full of long, intense stares at moving bicycle gears, adventurous peeks inside my grandfather’s typewriter, and temporary blindness from prolonged examinations of burning light bulbs.

When I arrived in the United States, I had to put my curiosity on hold for a year. With only a basic knowledge of the alphabet and the lyrics to "B-I-N-G-O, " I devoted all my time to learning English, completing the English as a Second Language program two years ahead of schedule. But my fascination with the mechanics of objects around me soon resurfaced. My meager collection of McDonald's Happy Meal toys soon dwindled, as I began prying open poor Simba to see the gears and wheels inside. A few years later, I found myself covered with motor oil as I lay next to my father under our car, learning how to change the oil filter. Watching the black fluid pouring smoothly out of the engine, I knew then that I would become a disciple of engineering.

At the same time as I discovered my love of engineering, I also realized what a large field it is. What kind of engineering would I choose -- electrical, mechanical, chemical? One day, sitting in my AP Biology class, a diagram comparing the electron pumps of a cell to turbines in a dam appeared before me. Suddenly, it all connected under the light of the projector: the gears in Simba’s stomach, the burnt memory cards of my computer, the fascinating science of biology all came into union under the bioengineering field. I had found my calling, and all because of a little mechanical pencil.

點評：

文章從買自動筆這件很小的事情出發，循序漸進，生動的描述了作者自己由小小的自動筆引發的對工程學的濃厚興趣。很明顯的表達出了自己從童年時代到大學時代一直都對工程學極其癡迷：從對鉛筆的研究到拆卸自行車零件再到偷窺祖父打印機結構到最后和父親一起研究汽油濾過器，這些事例無一不說明了工程學對作者的吸引力，從側面表達出了作者申請這份專業的堅定性。

在文章的最后一段，作者對為什么選擇生物工程學的原因做了簡單卻能說服審核者的解釋，從很普通的角度入手，達到的卻是非常好的效果。再次表達出自己的原因：興趣。自己在興趣之中又找到了完美的結合點，又能側面體現出自己具有比較強的邏輯分析能力。

整篇文章作者完全沒有空泛的話，每個自己所具有的優點都是由具體的事例來引出，因而具有很強的說服力，這點非常符合ESSAY寫作的重點：證據的說明。而且緊扣題目的要求：描述自己為什么會對工程學感興趣以及為什么會對相應的領域感興趣。可以說是一篇非常成功的ESSAY。

譯文：

自動鉛筆

［命題要求：描述為什么會對工程學感興趣的原因以及對工程學感興趣的理由。］

一輛公車在在北京站停了下來。車門緩緩打開，一個6歲的男孩跳了下來,后面跟著他的媽媽。孩子這周就要上學，他們是來購買文具用品的。正在母子逛商場的時候，母親突然說：“樂樂，先買你的自動鉛。”當我看到自動鉛那塑料筆身和筆尖的時候我立刻被吸引了，這分明就是工程學的體現。

我的第一個文具盒里有4只木質鉛筆，一把小刀還有一張磨鉛筆的砂紙。過去的幾年，在現代化前期的中國，我從來都沒有見過自動鉛筆。所以我都不記得是怎么回家的，腦子里唯一的東西就是自動鉛那黃色的筆身。一到家我就試圖拆開他研究鉛筆帽后面的秘密：為什么每按一次筆帽，就回出現一截鉛芯。在浪費了好多的鉛芯之后，我放棄了，找不出更有價值的東西。幸虧我的長輩阻止了我對鉛筆的繼續研究，同時也結束了我和工程學的第一次接觸，但是我心中“它到底是怎么運作的”的疑問卻沒有減少絲毫。接下來的幾年是在無止盡的拆卸自行車零件和大膽的偷窺祖父的打字機和由于總想探究點燃著的燈泡而造成的暫時停電中度過的。

當我來到美國，一年里，我需要控制我的好奇心。由于只掌握了基礎的語言知識，我不得不將我所有的時間都防到對英語的學習上面，比原計劃提前兩年完成語言學習。但是我對周圍物體的機械的著迷很快又顯現出來了。我從麥當勞搜集的就餐贈品快速的減少，因為我經常用他們撬起門來觀察門軸里螺絲的運轉方式。幾年之后，我和爸爸躺在汽車下面，弄的滿身是油就是為了研究汽油過濾器。看著汽油緩緩從過濾器中流出來，那時我就知道，我會成為工程學的忠實追隨者。

在我發現什么是我所愛的同時，我也發現工程學是如此之大的一個領域。那么選擇一個什么樣的領域呢？電學，機械，還是化學。一天，在AP生物課上，一個關于電水泵和葉輪機的比較圖出現在我面前。突然激發了我這個設計者的靈感，SIMBA 里面的螺絲讓我想起了電腦里儲藏的圖片，對生物和工程的著迷在生物工程學上找到了完美的結合點。我找到了我想要的，而這些，僅僅是源于一只小小的自動鉛。