英语四六级阅读技巧解析:轻松搞定各类文章(2)
网络资源 Freekaoyan.com/2008-04-09
预测能力与难文
碰到难读的短文,首先要确立自信,冷静地读下去,要充分利用短文中上下句的互释作用,不必为个别晦涩的难词、难句或概念所束缚,可通过对上下文(特别是下文)的理解来领悟个别难词、难句的大意从而获得对有关概念的理解。同时要充分运用阅读理解的微技能和意流层次分析等技巧,在阅读中积极预测、及时归纳、分析层次、各个击破。
其次,了解难文的类型,也有助于我们对症下药攻克难关,短文难读不外乎以下几种原因:
1短文涉及的题材专业性强,话题生疏;
2短文的话题涉及比较虚玄的人文科学,读来费解;
3短文的体裁较难,结构错综,层次复杂;
4短文中多为结构复杂的长句,理不清句子基本结构;
5短文中有许多生僻词和成语,等等。
六级考试中阅读时一定要善于在理解已知信息的基础上对随之可能出现的信息进行积极预测。预测时,应学会借助主题句、关联词语等篇章信息来提高预测的准确性。
如,有一篇短文以这样一句开头:
Many people believe the glare from snow causes snowblindness. Yet…这里根据表示转折的关联词Yet,预测到下面可能出现的是主题句,又必然要否定本句中许多人的观点,即snowblindness(雪盲)可能由glare from snow以外的其它原因引起。原文紧接着的是:Yet,dark glasses or not,they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes,and even snowblindness,when exposed to several hours of “snow light”.
据此主题,我们可以比较有把握地预测到下文将着墨于引起“雪盲”的真正原因,原文如下:
The United States Army has now determined that glare from snow does not cause snowblindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather,a man’s eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of barren snow-covered terrain. So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing hour after hour,the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature offsets this irritation by producing more and more fluid which covers the eyeball. The fluid covers the eyeball in increasing quantity until vision blurs,then is obscured,and the result is total,even though temporary,snowblindness.
[专家点拨]预测不一定总是正确,它需要在继续阅读中予以肯定、否定或修正。上例中下文的内容与预测相近,表示理解过程正确。如预测与下文不一致,则有两种可能:①对前面内容的理解有偏差;②据以预测的那部分语言信息可能有多种不同理解,因而可据以作出多种不同的预测。无论是哪一种情况,都有必要重新审阅前文,或纠正理解偏差、或领悟其中特殊含义,调整理解思路。
预测有顺向预测和逆向预测两种,如上例。所谓逆向预测,实为预测的一种特殊形式,应用于已知下文要推知上文的场合。
