在多数的英语阅读考试中,都会碰到的一个共同难题就是:时间太短,文章太长。多数同学不把文章全部读完就不死心,但怎样才能高效阅读文章,用最短的时间把握文章的主旨呢?
雅托邦小编今天就带大家看看如何抓住段落的中心点,话不多说,跟随小编的步伐一起来看看吧!
雅思阅读解析中心点
段落主题句出现得最多的位置就是段首。英语文章中最多的就是演绎型的写法,因为西方人喜欢开门见山,所以他们常常在每一段的第一句话就先交代出这段话的主旨。这是最简单的,也是最常见的主题句位置,如下面这个例子:
As a child grows up, he learns how to behave in ways that is appropriate tothe society into which he is born. That is to say, he acquires the patterns ofbehavior that are accepted as normal in his society. This process of sociallearning is generally referred to as socialization. By socialization, then, wemean the process whereby individuals learn the rules, values and practices ofthe society in which they live.
上面这段话中的第一句就是对整体段落大意的一个介绍;从第二句话中的“That is tosay”可以看出来,第二句话是对第一句话的解释;第三句话中的“Thisprocess”也是代指的前一句话中的学习,成熟过程。而最后一句话也是对社会化的一个解释,所以也可以确定第一句话就是段落的主题句。
但是在我们语文学习的过程中,我们还听过两个很熟悉的词,叫‘欲扬先抑’或者反过来,‘欲抑先扬’。英文也是这样,段落中如果有大写的转折词(However, But, Yet),那么转折后面的句子才是段落的主旨。另一个需要引起注意的是段首的问句。想想我们写作文时,段首写一个问句是真的希望读者回答这个问题吗?我们只是希望引起读者的兴趣,以及我们要在后面来回答这个问题。比如剑7 Making Every Drop Count这篇文章的G段:
What explains this remarkable turn of events? Two factors: people have figured out how to use water more efficiently, and communities are rethinking their priorities for water use. Throughout the first three-quarters of the 20th century, the quantity of freshwater consumed per person doubled on average; in the USA, water withdrawals increased tenfold while the population quadrupled. But since 1980, the amount of water consumed per person has actually decreased, thanks to a range of new technologies that help to conserve water in homes and industry. In 1965, for instance, Japan used approximately 13 million gallons* of water to produce $1 million of commercial output; by 1989 this had dropped to 3.5 million gallons (even accounting for inflation) - almost a quadrupling of water productivity. In the USA, water withdrawals have fallen by more than 20% from their peak in 1980.
这是段落中比较长的一段,但我们并不需要完整读完全段才能抓住主旨,只需要看一下段首问句:What explains this remarkable turn of events? 我们就可以非常确定,这一整段是要回答这个问题:造成这个转变(用水减少)的原因是什么?所以,快速读文章是有诀窍的,最重要的是学会抓主旨。主旨通常在什么位置?就是我们上文提到的:段落首尾句,转折句,以及段首的问句。
雅思阅读解析中心点
除了第一句之外,主题句也可能出现在段首位置的第二句。那什么时候会出现这种情况呢?分成三种情况:当首句是问句时;当首句是过渡句时;当次句为转折句时。在这些情况下,第二句话都会比第一句话更重要,所以主题句也更可能出现在第二句话中。例如下面这句话:
What then makes people left-handed if it is not simply genetic? Otherfactors must be at work and researchers have turned to the brain for clues. Inthe 1860s the French surgeon and anthropologist, Dr Paul Broca, made theremarkable finding that patients who had lost their powers of speech as a resultof a stroke (a blood clot(凝结) in the brain) had paralysis(麻痹) of the right halfof their body. He noted that since the left hemisphere of the brain controls theright half of the body, and vice versa(反之亦然), the brain damage must have been inthe brain’s left hemisphere, Psychologists now believe that among right handedpeople, probably 95 percent have their language centre in the left hemisphere,while 5 percent have right-sided language.
第一句话提问:“如果不仅是基因让人们习惯于用左手,那还有什么原因呢?”我们能预测出,接下来这段话应该就会给我们介绍除了基因以外的其他原因。正好第二句话说:“其他的因素也起到了作用,研究者将线索转向人类大脑方面。”所以能确定,所谓的“其他原因”就是指的“人类大脑”,所以主题句也就是第二句话。
另外一个常出现段落主题句的位置则是段尾。这种现象常出现在归纳型的文章里。所谓归纳型,则是先陈述现象,最后总结规律。因此这类的文章通常会出现一些总结性的词:Therefore/ Hence/Thus/ So/ Consequently/ Accordingly/ As a result/ As aconsequence;或者会出现一些研究报告类的词组The research findings/ the study/ the investigation/the analysis/ the evidences show/ reveal/ imply/ indicate/ suggest/ demonstrate/ prove that…;甚至有的会直接出现总结型主题句:In short/ In general/ All in all/ To sum up/ Insummary/ On the whole…我们一起分析下面这个例句:
The only species which demonstrated(证明,证实) near normal productivity(生产力)was Cassin’s Auklet(卡森的海雀), in which the value for 1998 exceeded the long-termmean by 16 percent. However, given that very few Cassin’s Auklets attempted tobreed(生产,繁衍), island-wide offspring(后代) production was extremely low. In short,these observations were quite similar, with slight variations, to observationsmade on the Farallon(法拉龙) seabird community in other severe E1 Nino years.
在这段话的第一句中,我们就发现了刚刚总结过的一个关键词“demonstrated”,但是我们不难发现,这个地方是“demonstrated”是属于which这个定语从句中的,所以不是对整段话,甚至整篇文章的总结。所以排除了第一句话是主题句的可能性。第二句出现了转折,那我们又知道转折句后面的肯定比前面重要,所以接着往下看这句话。但是,看完这句话之后,我们不难发现,最后一句话用了一个总结型的句子:“Inshort”,所以一下就能确定该段话的主题句就是最后一句话。
以上就是雅托邦小编给大家奉上的本篇参考内容,望大家参考有所收获,有什么问题欢迎来和小编讨论哦!
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