阅读方法论七Question Patterns (2)

II. General Understanding Questions

1. Main Idea

(1) GRE、GMAT考试

对于GRE、GMAT考试中的短文章，我们主要是学会从文章找到观点，然后根据观点的关系确定谁是最重要的观点从而确定main idea。这里我们非常重视因果关系和由demonstrative pronouns or adjectives承上启下的关系。我们来看下面这个例子（例子参看上期文章《阅读方法论七Question Patterns (1)》）

    而对于GRE、GMAT的长文章，我们主要是重视文章首段和二段的阅读。GRE、GMAT的长文章一般在结构可以分为两个大类：评论型文章（Evaluative）和说明型文章（Expository）。根据文章的写作目的，我们又可以细分为四个大类，六个小类，参看下表：

其分类标准的确立是基于ETS的一篇官方文献，具体内容如下：

“Reading comprehension passages generally rely on some kind of tension to give them difficulty. A discussion or argument that develops in a linear fashion toward a conclusion is usually too simple to support challenging items. The requisite tension can take various forms: a conflict between different or opposing arguments about something, an unexpected finding that challenges previously established ways of understanding something, a disagreement about what evidence is relevant to the solution of a particular problem, etc. But disagreement or contrast or opposition is not in itself enough to provide the tension: a passage that merely states or describes opposing positions, without discussing in much detail the reasoning behind them, will not support very many or very complex items. For example, instead of saying that Brown believed X and Smith believed Y, a passage might tell us that Brown, heavily influenced by such-and-such school of thought, tended to assume A, and therefore believed X. Smith, on the other hand, had access to information that Brown did not have, namely B and C, and this information led Smith to conclude Y. However, Smith interpreted B in such a way that it seemed logical to conclude Y, when in fact this interpretation was ill founded. The more interdependent details, the more logical twists and turns, the better. Naturally, a passage containing this kind of density can only be created from a source that provides the requisite information, and such sources are not easy to find. ”

我们在阅读GRE、GMAT长文章时，判断它是属于什么类型的文章和解决其相应的三种主旨题目，都是在文章的首段以及二段这里完成的。所以考生在文章的这两个地方一定要通过观点出现的Word Watch（观点性谓语动词，主观性判断、评价、估计，限定词，结论性标志词，强烈感情的表述）仔细挖掘观点，并分析观点间的关系，进而确定文章结构和文章中心。我们来看几个例子：

Example 1: Different Viewpoints

The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photography's fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defense of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.

Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. In the nineteenth century, photography's association with the real world placed it in an ambivalent relation to art; late in the twentieth century, an ambivalent relation exists because of the Modernist heritage in art. That important photographers are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art, shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.

通过上面文章首段、二段首句我们已经标记好的重点内容（controversies表明了其对象是这篇文章讨论的焦点，asserted是一派观点给出的标记，ironically表明将要出现第二派观点，claim是第二派观点给出的标记，that和shows表明了针对第二派观点承上启下的总结），我们可以清楚地知道，这篇文章讨论的中心是摄影和艺术之间的关系，并且存在争论，由于其中并没有出现作者自己所明确偏向的观点，所以这篇文章我们判定它为多观点争论型的文章，并且可以顺利完成下面的主旨题。

In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with

(A) defining the Modernist attitude toward art

(B) explaining how photography emerged as a fine art after the controversies of the nineteenth century

(C) explaining the attitudes of serious contemporary photographers toward photography as art and placing those attitudes in their historical context

(D) defining the various approaches that serious contemporary photographers take toward their art and assessing the value of each of those approaches

(E) identifying the ways that recent movements in painting and sculpture have influenced the techniques employed by serious photographers

因为我们已经知道争论的中心是摄影和艺术之间的关系，所以选项中的中心词只要不包含二者就是错误的选项。选项A的中心是modernist attitude toward art不符合要求；选项D的中心是做艺术的方法也不符合要求；选项E的中心是recent movements的方式影响了摄影的技术，同样也不符合要求。而选项B非常肯定地认为摄影是fine art，这与我们文章的类型争议就不吻合了。所以正确答案是C。

通过这个例子，我们可以得出这样的经验做主旨题一定要抓选项中心、语气与文章focus、tone的相互匹配，不要过分注重选项细节，毕竟这是主旨题。

（未完待续）吴 鹏