托福寫作：其實你一直在錯用spend

　　spend something on something

　　spend something in doing something(這里的in可以省略)

　　但在長期的教學實踐中，我發(fā)現(xiàn)有不少小伙伴仍然在用spend something on doing something，如

　　In order to get good grades, we should spend a massive amount of time on studying our subjects. ×

　　這顯然是把on something和in doing something混用了，有“司馬光砸光(缸)”之嫌。盡管有極少數(shù)詞典說spend something on doing something也正確，但是絕大多數(shù)詞典或權威教材不這么認為。所以，為了保險起見，還是應該堅持用spend something on something或spend something in doing something，來看兩個例子：

　　【例】spend a lot of time on a project 花很多時間進行某項目/spend a lot of time (in) explaining a plan 花很多時間解釋某方案

　　(例句來源：Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary)

　　所以，剛才的句子應該這樣寫：

　　In order to get good grades, we should spend a massive amount of time on our subjects. √

　　或

　　In order to get good grades, we should spend a massive amount of time in studying our subjects. √

　　若一篇文章中spend出現(xiàn)的次數(shù)較多，那么可以用expend來替換，expend和spend基本同義，使用方法也基本相同，但比spend更加正式，會使用的考生也較少，如果使用得當，可以給自己的文章增添一點高大上的氣息。來看兩個例句：

　　【例】We’ve already expended too much energy on this project. 我們已經(jīng)在這個工程上耗費了太多的精力。

　　(例句來源：MacMillan English Dictionary – American)

　　【例】Manufacturers have expended a lot of time and effort trying to improve computer security. 制造商們已經(jīng)花費了很多時間和精力來盡力改善計算機安全。

　　(例句來源：Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)