考研英语阅读的文章来源于国外期刊或杂志。众所周知这些文章浸染了西方式的写作传统——观点鲜明，逻辑严密，全文只有一个主题思想。而这种主题思想是以核心概念的形式体现出来的。我们在阅读文章时，若能有意识地寻找核心概念，就会提高解题速度和准确率。

　　一、什么是核心概念？

　　文章的核心概念，即全文论述的中心，又名中心词，通常以名词或名词短语的形式出现。核心概念不一定是一个，有时是两个，此时要注意两个概念之间的区别和联系。

　　二、如何找核心概念？

　　一般来说，文章的每一自然段都会含文章的核心概念，抓住出现频率最高的名词或名词短语即可。有时，这个名词会以同义词、指代关系的形式出现，需要引起我们的注意。

　　三、核心概念的形式？

　　分为文章的核心概念和段落的核心概念两种。文章的核心概念遍布全文，段落的核心概念属于每一自然段内部的核心论述对象。

　　四、核心概念的作用？

　　找出文章的核心概念会提示主旨题(问main idea)的答案。文章与段落的核心概念并用，也会提示大部分事实细节题和例证题(问example)的答案；对比四个选项，含有核心概念的通常为正确答案。

　　我们以2007年考研英语真题阅读理解Text 4为例：

　　(文章的核心概念用黑体表示，段落的核心概念用下划线表示)

　　It never rains but it pours. Just as bosses and boards have finally sorted out their worst accounting and compliance troubles, and improved their feeble corporation governance, a new problem threatens to earn them – especially in America – the sort of nasty headlines that inevitably lead to heads rolling in the executive suite: data insecurity. Left, until now, to odd, low-level IT staff to put right, and seen as a concern only of data-rich industries such as banking, telecoms and air travel, information protection is now high on the boss’s agenda in businesses of every variety。

　　Several massive leakages of customer and employee data this year – from organizations as diverse as Time Warner, the American defense contractor Science Applications International Corp and even the University of California, Berkeley – have left managers hurriedly peering into their intricate IT systems and business processes in search of potential vulnerabilities。

　　“Data is becoming an asset which needs to be guarded as much as any other asset,” says Haim Mendelson of Stanford University’s business school. “The ability to guard customer data is the key to market value, which the board is responsible for on behalf of shareholders。” Indeed, just as there is the concept of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)， perhaps it is time for GASP, Generally Accepted Security Practices, suggested Eli Noam of New York’s Columbia Business School. “Setting the proper investment level for security, redundancy, and recovery is a management issue, not a technical one,” he says。

　　The mystery is that this should come as a surprise to any boss. Surely it should be obvious to the dimmest executive that trust, that most valuable of economic assets, is easily destroyed and hugely expensive to restore – and that few things are more likely to destroy trust than a company letting sensitive personal data get into the wrong hands。