GRE考试阅读部分各项技能分析

能力3-5都涉及对文章主旨的理解和把握，由于篇幅限制，这三条的内部区别我们暂且不论。很多考试都涉及文章中心思想的把握，我们从小学开始的阅读教育中，老师们也要求我们提炼文章的中心思想。然而，在过去的考试当中，我们面对的文章中心思想相对较简单，经常中心句在文章开头或结尾明确给出，或者至少文章会有一个明确的中心句。然而，在GRE考试当中，难度偏高的文章通常根本就不会明确指出它所表达的主旨是什么，而需要作为读者的我们主动的思考文章的主要目的是什么。比如：

Some archaeologists speculate that the Americas might have been initially colonized between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago. However, to support this theory it is necessary to explain the absence of generally accepted habitation sites for that time interval in what is now the United States. Australia, which has a smaller land area than the United States, has many such sites, supporting the generally accepted claim that the continent was colonized by humans at least 40,000 years ago. Australia is less densely populated (resulting in lower chances of discovering sites) and with its overall greater aridity would have presented conditions less favorable for hunter-gatherer occupation. Proportionally, at least as much land area has been lost from the coastal regions of Australia because of postglacial sea-level rise as in the United States, so any coastal archaeological record in Australia should have been depleted about as much as a coastal record in the United States. Since there are so many resource-rich rivers leading inland from the United States coastlines, it seems implausible that a growing population of humans would have confined itself to coasts for thousands of years. If inhabitants were present 25,000 years ago, the chances of their appearing in the archaeological record would seem to be greater than for Australia.

The passage is primarily concerned with doing which of the following?

A. Presenting an objection to a claim

B. Accounting for an apparent anomaly

C. Outlining an alternative interpretation

D. Correcting a particular misconception

E. Questioning the validity of a comparison

答案：A

在这篇文章中，一开始指出考古学家认为如今的美国地区最初被人类所居住是在4万到2万5千年前。但是，作者说，考古学家需要解释为什么找不到那个时期人类居住的痕迹。接着，一系列细节让作者得出了一个判断，即假如考古学家的观点为真的话，他们理应能够找到考古遗迹才对。所有这些信息指向一个最终的目的，即考古学家的观点是不靠谱的。然而，这个观点从头到尾作者都没有直接说出，而需要由我们自己从文章信息中推断出来。其论证过程是由前提(考古学家观点若为真 → 能找到遗址)，加前提(没找到遗址)，推断出结论(考古学家观点不为真)，符合逻辑学基本定理modus tollens，即前提(p → q)加前提~q可以推出结论~p。我们都希望一篇否定他人观点的文章以如下明确的方式表达态度，比如“某人认为XXX是对的。但是，很显然，他的观点没有道理的。”可是，在GRE偏难的文章中，我们很难期待作者把话说得这么直接，而题目恰恰就会考察我们能否把文章隐藏的目的推敲出来的能力。显然，如同先前几条能力所要求，GRE考试对文章的主旨考察也需要我们主动的介入文本，而不是被动的接受文章的字面意思。

能力6、7两条能力点考察的是从文章中推出隐藏信息、缺失信息的能力。与3-5的区别在于，文章的缺失信息不一定是主旨没有说明，而是很多细节部分有信息的隐藏。比如：

Most seismologists assume that following a major earthquake and its aftershocks, the fault (a break in Earth’s crust where pressure can trigger an earthquake) will remain quiet until stresses have time to rebuild, typically over hundreds or thousands of years. Recent evidence of subtle interactions between earthquakes may overturn this assumption, however. According to the stress-triggering hypothesis, faults are unexpectedly responsive to subtle stresses they acquire as neighboring faults shift. Rather than simply dissipating, stress relieved during an earthquake travels along the fault, concentrating in sites nearby; even the smallest additional stresses may then trigger another quake along the fault or on a nearby fault. Although scientists have long viewed such subtle interactions as nonexistent, the hypothesis has explained the location and frequency of earthquakes following several destructive quakes in California, Japan, and Turkey.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

The passage suggests that most seismologists believe which of the following about fault stresses?

A. They are dissipated when they result in an earthquake.

B. They are transferred between neighboring faults.

C. They will not cause a major earthquake along the same fault in the space of a few years.

答案：AC

GRE的推断题是GRE阅读方式精髓的体现。比如在这道题当中，主流观点认为XXX，然而，新观点可能会颠覆这个想法。新观点认为，地震之后的能量，非但不会dissipate，然而会……很多学生在读完这句话之后，很可能只记住了新观点认为能量不会dissipate，却不能立刻意识到，旧观点一定认为地震之后的能量会dissipate，而题目最终恰恰考到了这一点。能不能做到这一点就体现了是否真的掌握了主动阅读的精髓。和日常生活的对话不同，在日常生活当中，当我们听别人说的话是，我们不会默认别人说的是对的，相反，我们会评估对方的论证的合理性。然而，在GRE阅读考试当中，由于题目都是在问我们文章的观点，或者哪些信息符合文章的看法，则显然，题目要求我们默认文章的合理性。可是，文章之合理，不仅仅在于我们要当文章的每一条独立信息本身为真，更重要的是，我们要认定文章所使用的逻辑必然合理。因此，主动阅读是日常阅读的反向，我们假设作者的逻辑成立的基础上，反思还需要哪些额外的信息才能使得原文的逻辑成立。这些额外的信息即是推断题的考点。比如，“Mary非常努力学习，但是Mary却从来都得不到别人的尊重”。如果以上这句话是合理的，则作者必定认为“努力的人通常得到别人的尊重”。再比如，“与过去的理论不同，新观点并不认为地震后的能力会dissipate”。显然，如果以上这句话的逻辑成立，则作者必定认为过去的理论认为“地震后的能量会dissipate”。这种主动性的反思作者逻辑的隐藏前提的能力，决定了我们在GRE考场上推断题的准确率和效率。

能力8聚焦在理解文章结构，理解信息之间关系的考察上。两种核心题型涉及这种能力，即论证结构题(organization of passage)以及信息功能题(function of text)。

Having a larger assortment to choose from increases consumers’ expectations about matching their preferences. The heightened expectations seem logical, since assortments containing more or more varied items should increase the degree to which preferences can be matched. In practice, however, as assortment size increases, the degree to which consumers realize better preference matches often rises relatively little. Larger assortments may not actually offer more variety, the market may simply not supply an envisioned offering, or in the absence of sophisticated search tools, consumers may miss a better preference match even if it is available. Therefore, larger assortments can increase the likelihood that expectations will not be met, leaving consumers less satisfied with options chosen from larger rather than smaller assortments.

Which of the following best describes the function of the first sentence in the author’s argument as a whole?

A. It states a premise on which the author’s conclusion is based

B. It provides information to support the inference made in the following sentence

C. It introduces a concept that the author proves is illogical

D. It summarizes a position that the author proceeds to dispute

E. It presents the phenomenon the argument is intended to explain

答案：A

这道题无数考生选择了C。C看起来太合理了，第一句话确实引出了一个概念，即人们在某种情况下期待的增高，然后确实说了这种期待的增高看似合理，然后其实不合理。因此C选项所说的是完全正确的。然而，这种信息功能题型所需要的，并不是去就事论事的选择一个说得对的选项。一条信息在文章中可以起到的作用可能有多个，可以传递的信息也可以有多个，信息功能题所需要的答案是在各种可能起到的功能当中对文章目标的实现最有帮助的功能。很显然，在以上文章当中，作者想真正证明的是“更多选择会更有可能带来消费者的不满”(最后一句后半句)。这个结论需要哪些前提呢?有两条，“更多选择增高消费者的期望”(第一句)，以及“更多选择带来期望值无法实现”(最后一句前半句)。换句话说，为什么不满，因为期望值高了，而期望值无法实现。所以，第一句话的最根本作用是去支持最后一句话当中的结论，即第一句充当了文章结论的前提条件。

能力9是一个在过去阅读考试当中几乎从未被涉及到的能力点，然而却是阅读最基本的能力点，即对不同视角的区分。这个能力对于事实信息类题目、主旨类题目，以及信息功能类题目都有决定性作用。比如：

Historian Colin Calloway argues that in the late colonial period preceding the American Revolution (1775-1783), the British government sought to seal off territory west of the Appalachian Mountains from the encroachment of land-hungry White settlers, to negotiate with Native American peoples as independent foreign states, and to guarantee the integrity of traditional Native American hunting grounds. By contrast, White Americans, released by the outbreak of the Revolution from the constraints of Britain’s allegedly benevolent policies, are portrayed by Calloway as ruthless land-grabbers whose new national government endorsed their rapacity. Bernard Bailyn argues, however, that the “Americans” who encroached on Native American land during the Revolution had been British only a few years before. When, during and after the Revolution, White Americans seized Native American land by any available means, they were continuing a tradition dating back to the earliest years of English settlement in North America. And, according to Bailyn, the British government’s prewar efforts to preserve the trans-Appalachian west for Native Americans resulted not from humanitarian virtue or ethnic tolerance but from British merchants’ desire to maintain their lucrative trade with Native Americans and the government’s desire to control immigration and avoid costly conflict between Whites and Native Americans over land.

The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. suggest that two different arguments about a particular historical period are both questionable

B. present historical evidence that undermines a widely accepted viewpoint

C. defend a revisionist historian’s thesis against traditionalist criticism

D. outline opposing interpretations of a particular historical phenomenon

E. resolve a dispute among historians over a controversial historical episode

答案：D

这道题应该是秒选。为什么呢?原文结构是：CC说了某些东西，然而BB不同意，BB说了某些东西。A错在suggest，B错在undermine，C错在defend，E错在resolve。因为，所有这些词如果是作者的主旨，则文章当中作者必须持有明确态度，而这篇文章作者是没有立场的，他只是纯粹引用了CC和BB不同的观点，没有倾向，而选项中只有D表现的是引用。刚才的分析体现的就是区分视角的能力。一篇文章，只有三种可能的最终视角类型，即提出作者自己的观点，引用别人的观点，以及作者对别人的观点发出评论。任何一个句子，也只可能是这三种作用。这个简单的思维习惯，即随时判断观点发出者，对GRE题目选项的快速排除有着极其重要的价值。

GRE的阅读考试中还有一种特殊的题目类型，即人们常称为逻辑单题的题目。这类题目在一篇文章之后只出一道题(其它每篇阅读文章之后都是2-4道题)，而这篇文章通常语言难度远低于其它阅读文章。这道题仅仅考察学生的逻辑思维能力，而几乎不对我们的语言能力本身有任何高的要求。能力10-13都是针对这种题型的。比如“登山器材变安全了，但是登山受伤的人多了。”这篇短文后，题目问“能否给出以上现象的可能解释”。这个题目就是考逻辑的。这种题型与阅读题目的做法区别是，我们在阅读中默认作者的逻辑是合理的，成立的，而在逻辑题目当中，它考察的恰恰是作者的论证如何被加强、削弱，则显然，我们又回归了日常思维模式，不默认作者的合理性，而是去评估其合理性。

细心的读者读到这里，不难发现，GRE考试声称自己考察的是理性思维能力“critical thinking”，可以说并不是夸大其词。和过去语言类阅读考试考查句意理解词义理解的形式不同，整个GRE考试几乎没有多少题目是直接看懂原文语句字面意思本身可以直接解决的。所以，这种考试要求读者提高主动性阅读的能力，而非被动接受字面信息。ETS官方建议考生：

Try to distinguish main ideas from supporting ideas or evidence.

Try to distinguish ideas that the author is advancing from those he or she is merely reporting.

Similarly, try to distinguish ideas that the author is strongly committed to from those he or she advances as hypothetical or speculative.

Try to identify the main transitions from one idea to the next.

Try to identify the relationship between different ideas.

用中文重述，即我们要在阅读文章时：

1. 区分观点本身与观点的背后的理由与证据;

2. 区分作者支持的观点与作者仅仅是在引述的观点;

3. 区分作者赞同的观点与作者只是作为可能性提出的观点;

4. 留意文章是否出现了观点的推进，即从一个观点转向了新的观点;

5. 辨识不同观点之间的关系。

希望勤奋的你在认真读完以上信息之后能够意识到自己过去阅读习惯和GRE考试所需要的阅读习惯之间的差距，能够在未来的努力当中逐渐修正自己的阅读方式，早日走向人生的巅峰。

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