托福阅读难点剖析――推理题解法

xx阅读难点剖析——推理题解法

托福阅读部分高分关键在于推理题解法。尽管托福考试中此类题所占比例较少，但却是考生获得满分或高分的最大障碍。此类题特点在于原文中未明确说明，其含义在其中（implied），也就是说，要考生通过适当的理解并运用推理、判断、归纳等方式，找出文中某个词或句子的特殊含义，或者判断出句子与句子之间或段落与段落之间关系。有些考生对此类题往往不知从何入手，凭一般感觉解题，这样虽然可以解对几题，但获得全对可能性极小。下面根据本人多年托福阅读教学经验，对此类题进行具体论述。

一、推理模式

其特点是利用文中某个词汇、词组、句子含义进行外延及相关性引伸。如根据“teacher”——教师，可推现教师经常上课，应保护嗓子，或根据舞蹈演员推理出身体灵活等。此类题关键在于文中关键词汇的合理引伸，一般寻找此类引伸方法可以用如下图形表达：

具体、抽象中心词来源

方式、内容中心词应用场合

语气强、弱主客观转换

人物、关系

例1：After the administration of lighthouses was taken over in 1852by the United States Lighthouse Board,an agency of the Treasury Department, the keeper corp gradually became highly professional.

It can be inferred from the passage that the Treasury Department,after assuming controlof the lighthouses, improved which of the following?

(A)The traing of the lighthouse

(B)The sturdiness of the lighthouses

(C)The visibility of the lights

(D)The locations of the lighthouses

提示：

原文中提到在1852 the United States Lighthouse Board接管灯塔管理之后，看灯人就日趋专业化。

推理：

从专业化到看灯人的培训得到改善，因而答案为（A）。

例2：Marths Graham’s territory of innumerable dances a nd a self-sufficient dance technique are a vast but closed territory, since to create and art out of one’s experience alone is ultimately a self-limiting act.According to the passage,which of the following most influenced Martha Graham’s dances and techniq ues?

(A)Her own experiences

(B)Exotic and idyllic themes

(C)Familiar classical stories

(D)The works of St. Denis

提示：

通过因果关系表明(since)，既然只源于自己经验产生的艺术是自我限制的行为，Martha Grahama的舞蹈领域自然就是封闭的，进而表明Martha Grahama的舞蹈源于自己的经验。答案为（A）。

二、图式推理模式

其特点是根据文章作者写作意图，通盘考虑整个文章写作框图架，然后判断出文章中某个词或句的内在含义，该种题型较有隐蔽性，极难对付。

例3：Each advance in microscopic technique has provided scientists with new perspectives on the function of living organisms and the nature of matter itself. The invention of the visible-light microscope late in the sixteenth century introduced a previously unknown realm of single-celled plants and animals. In the twentieth

century,electron microscope have provided direct views of viruses and minuscule surface structures. Now another type of microscope, one that utilizes X rays rather than light or electrons, offers a different way of examing tiny details;it should extend human perception still farther into the natural world.

Why does the author mention the visible-light microscope in the first paragraph?(A)To begin a discussion of sixteenth-century discoveries

(B)To put the X-ray microscope in a historical perspective

(C)To show how limited its uses are

(D)To explain how it functioned

提示：

本段文章中讲了各种显微镜的特征，且从早期一直至现代的显微镜(X ray 型)。作者这样写作，目的在于将显微镜放在历史角度上叙述一下。换一句话说，作者讲述了显微镜历史。而题目问“作者为什么提到可视显微镜”那说明解应为（B）。（C）可能文章也讲过，但并非是作者的目的所在。

总结：

本题关键在于解题角度与解题切入点的合理性，因此，读者应引起足够注意。三、归纳推理模式

通常是原文用很具体事例，让考生归纳出一个或几个词来，对原文内容进行总结与归纳，下面先举下个简单例子。

The author implies that students of the Civil War usually concentrate on the

(A)home front

(B)battlefield

(C)government

(D)economy

提示：

枪炮的隆隆声、军队的运动、号角声，徒手格斗的场面，无不表明了战场(battlefield)，也即体出他们之间的general与specific的关系。答案为（Ｂ）

总结：

该种题目有一个技巧，就是解往往是带有归纳、抽象性词汇或带有主观评判性词汇。

例５：With Robert Laurent and William Zorach, direct carving enters into the story of modern sculpture in the United States. Direct carving-in which the sculptors themselves carve stone or wood with mallet and chisel-must be recognized as something more than just a technique.Implicit in it is an aesthetic principle as well:

that the medium has certain qualities of beauty and expressiveness with which sculptors must bring their own aesthetic sensibilities into harmony.For

example,sometimes the shape or veing in a piece of stone or wood suggests, perhaps even dictates, not only the ultimate form, but even the subject matter.

What is one of the fundamental principles of direct carving?

(A)Asculptor must work with talented assistants.

(B)The subject of a sculpture should be derived from classical stories.

(C)The material is an important element in a sculpture.

(D)Designing a sculpture is a more creative activity than carving it.

提示：

本段文章关键在于讲述艺术家进行现代雕塑的方法与过程。根据文章后半部分可知，他们使用各种各样东西进行工作。并且把这些东西的美显示出来，根据这里语气可知。材料极为重要。所以解为（Ｃ）。本题（Ｃ）中important 极为醒目。

四、反向推理模式

(B)Their divers refused to work for the railroads.

(C)They began to specialize in transporting goods.

(D)They were not used as much as before.

提示：

文章中讲到火车发明并进行使用，铁路延伸到密苏里河，这样马车等就成为了火车运输的补充。由此可分析出火车出现后马车从原来主要运输工具变成了辅助。因此可知本题解为（Ｄ）。

总结：

该种题型在最近托福考试中较多，望考生掌握。

五、引用语推理模式

其形式：

The author used the phrase “”to illustrate “”?本种题型解法可根据这个词组的上下文，再综合词组本文进行推断，但不要从词组表面含义推理。

例７：By than time, three giant figures who had invented the new twentieth-century dance were dead:

Sergei Diaghilev,Anna Pavlova,and Isadora Duncan.Their era ended with them,and their dance values nearly disappeared. Their colleagues Michel Fokine and Ruth St. Denis lived on in America like whales on the beach.

In lines the above sentence,the author uses the phrase “like whales on the beach”to indicate that Fokine and St. Denis we re .

(A)good swimmers

(B)physically large

(C)out of place

(D)very sick

答案：

（Ｃ）

提示：

词组的表面意思是“象躺在沙滩上的鲸鱼”这时你可能会联想鲸鱼冲上海滩自杀的情景，推断如果只到这一步，而脱离原文的话，答题就很可能错，选项Ｄ正是这类干扰项，因此，你还得结合上下文进行分析才能正确。前文说：

随着二十世纪舞蹈的三位创始人的辞世，他们时代也随之而结束，那么他们舞伴搭档失去了舞伴而无法施展他们的才结，像鲸鱼躺在沙滩一样，奄奄一息。

（未完待续）