GMAT阅读文章的套路
正如前文中讲的那样,GMAT阅读的套路性极强,概括地说,GMAT阅读的套路大致分为以下五种: 新老观点对比型、结论解释型、现象解释型、结论解释型和特别套路:
1. 新老观点对比型
· 判断标志:此类文章一般会在第一段提出一个“老观点” 。此处的“老观点”是指过去的、传统、大家一致公认的观点。而且通常GMAT提出老观点的时候会给予一些语言的提示,例如:it was traditionally assumed…it was once / usually believed… Many ××believed that…Many ××have argued… It was frequently assumed that…the common belief It was universally accepted that…
· 接下去文章一般会提出新观点,通常会在第一段中部或第二段开头,而且也会有一些语言提示: 例如, But, Yet,However 或用时间状语表示强对比(例如 in the 1960‘s 和Recently)
范文节选:
It has been frequently assumed, but not proved, that the majority of the migrants in what has come to be called the Great Migration1 came from rural areas and were motivated by two concurrent2 factors: ……..
But the question of who actually left the South has never been rigorously investigated. ……..
范文节选:
Federal efforts to aid minority businesses began in the 1960's when the Small Business Administration (SBA) ……..
Recently federal policymakers have adopted an approach intended to accelerate development of the (15) minority business sector3 by moving away from directly.. ……..
·新观点特征:对同一主体给出不同的解释。
范文节选:
Seeking a competitive advantage, some professional service firms(for example, firms providing advertising, accounting5, or health care services) have considered offering unconditional6 guarantees of satisfaction. 。。。。an unconditional guarantee can be an effective marketing7 tool if the ……..
However, an unconditional guarantee can sometimes hinder marketing efforts. With its implication that fail……..
范文点评:
第一段说“无条件质量保证很有效” 而第二段首句说“无条件质量保证有时会阻碍营销活动”针对同一个“无条件质量保证”给出了截然相反的两个观点。
·行文套路:老观点--新观点---继续论述新观点
·阅读重点: 新观点
2、结论解释型
· 判断标志:开头是主题句(经常表现为判断句),后面“展开具体内容”。
范文节选:
Recent years have brought minority-owned
businesses in the United States unprecedented8
opportunities-as well as new and significant risks.
Civil rights activists9 have long argued that one of
(5) the principal reasons why Blacks, Hispanics, and
other minority groups have difficulty establishing
themselves in business is that they lack access to
the sizable orders and subcontracts that are gener-
ated by large companies. Now Congress, in appar-
(10) ent agreement, has required by law that businesses
awarded federal contracts of more than $500,000
do their best to find minority subcontractors and
record their efforts to do so on forms filed with the
government. Indeed, some federal and local agen-
(15) cies have gone so far as to set specific percentage
goals for apportioning10 parts of public works con-
tracts to minority enterprises.
Corporate11 response appears to have been sub-
stantial. According to figures collected in 1977,
(20) the total of corporate contracts with minority busi-
nesses rose from $77 million in 1972 to $1. lbillion
in 1977. The projected total of corporate contracts
with minority businesses for the early 1980's is
estimated to be over 53 billion per year with no
(25) letup anticipated in the next decade.
Promising12 as it is for minority businesses, this
increased patronage13 poses dangers for them, too.
First, minority firms risk expanding too fast and
overextending themselves financially, since most
(30) are small concerns and, unlike large businesses,
they often need to make substantial investments in
new plants, staff, equipment, and the like in order
to perform work subcontracted to them. If, there-
after, their subcontracts are for some reason
(35) reduced, such firms can face potentially crippling
fixed expenses. The world of corporate purchasing
can be frustrating14 for small entrepreneurs who get
requests for elaborate formal estimates and bids.
Both consume valuable time and resources, and a
(40) small company's efforts must soon result in
orders, or both the morale16 and the financial health
of the business will suffer.
A second risk is that White-owned companies
may seek to cash in on the increasing apportion-
(45) ments through formation of joint17 ventures with
minority-owned concerns. Of course, in many
instances there are legitimate18 reasons for joint
ventures; clearly, White and minority enterprises
can team up to acquire business that neither could
(50) acquire alone. But civil rights groups and minority
business owners have complained to Congress about
minorities being set up as "fronts" with White back-
ing, rather than being accepted as full partners in
legitimate joint ventures.
(55) Third, a minority enterprise that secures the
business of one large corporate customer often run
the danger of becoming--and remaining—dependent.
Even in the best of circumstances, fierce compe-
tition from larger, more established companies
(60) makes it difficult for small concerns to broaden
their customer bases: when such firms have nearly
guaranteed orders from a single corporate bene-
factor, they may truly have to struggle against
complacency arising from their current success.
范文点评:
文章开头说“近年来, 少数民族企业迎来了前所未有的发展机会,但同时也面临着风险”然后第二段说“企业对少数民族企业的反应很积极”;第三段说“尽管前景很光明,但是少数民族企业也面临着风险”并说了第一个风险;第四段和第五段分别说了第二和第三个风险。所以很明显首段首句是全文的主题句.#p#
· 主题句通常为首句;
· 行文套路:总分结构
3、现象解释型
· 判断标志:
a. 首段给出一个自然的或社会的现象,往往很古怪,下文对其做出解释。
b. 文章前半部出现phenomenon,文章中部出现to explain ,interpret文章后半部评论出现 explanation interpretation19
范文节选:
Historians of women's labor15 in the United States at first
largely disregarded the story of female service workers
-women earning wages in occupations such as salesclerk.
domestic servant, and office secretary. These historians
(5) focused instead on factory work, primarily because it
seemed so different from traditional, unpaid20 "women's
work" in the home, and because the underlying21 economic
forces of industrialism were presumed to be gender-blind
and hence emancipatory22 in effect. Unfortunately, emanci-
(10) pation has been less profound than expected, for not even
industrial wage labor has escaped continued sex segre-
gation in the workplace.
To explain this unfinished revolution in the status of
women, historians have recently begun to emphasize the
( 15) way a prevailing23 definition of femininity often etermines
the kinds of work allocated24 to women, even when such ……
范文点评:
文章开始说出了一个现象:“工厂里的女工也没有逃脱性别隔离”,第二段试图解释这一现象。
· 主题句一般是作者给予正评价的解释。
· 行文套路:phenomenon---explanation---author’s attitude
· 阅读重点: 作者的态度评价
范文
A mysterious phenomenon is the ability of over-water migrants to travel on course. Birds, bees, and other species can keep track of time without any sensory25 cues from the outside world, and such “biological clocks” clearly contribute to their “compass sense.” For example, they can use the position of the Sun or stars, along with the time of day, to find north. But compass sense alone cannot explain how birds navigate26 the ocean: after a flock traveling east is blown far south by a storm, it will assume the proper northeasterly course to compensate27. Perhaps, some scientists thought, migrants determine their geographic28 position on Earth by celestial29 navigation, almost as human navigators use stars and planets, but this would demand of the animals a fantastic map sense. Researchers now know that some species have a magnetic sense, which might allow migrants to determine their geographic location by detecting variations in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.
范文点评:
文章一开始就提出一个神秘现象:“鸟类按固定路线飞行”,接下去提出了“生物钟”这种解释,结果作者用But否定了;然后又提出“天文导航”,同样作者也用but否定了;最后作者又提出“磁场感觉”,基本得到了作者的肯定.
4、问题解决、回答型
· 判断标志:
a. 首段出现了设问句。“How such large creatures, which weighed in some cases as much as a piloted hang-glider and had wingspans from 8 to 12 meters, solved the problems of powered flight, and exactly what these creatures were--reptiles or birds-are among the questions scientists have puzzled over.”
b. 首段出现了以下四个词语之一:Problem difficulty task puzzle challenge, criteria requirement “How many really suffer as a result of labor market problems? This is one of the most critical yet contentious30 social policy questions.”“Excess inventory31, a massive problem for many businesses, has several causes, some of which are unavoidable. Overstocks may accumulate through production overruns or …….
errors.”
· TS 作者给予正评价的解决方案。
· 行文套路:problem(question)---solution(answers)---author ‘s attitude
· 阅读重点: 作者的态度评价 “In many ways, our social statistics exaggerate(表示负评价的实义动词) the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same dire4 consequences today as it did in the 1930's when most of the unemployed32 were primary breadwinners, when income and earnings33 were usually much closer to the margin34 of subsistence, and when there were no countervailing social programs for those failing in the labor market.”
5、特别套路:
前面四种分类,都是根据文章的行文套路或者说是文章的“形式”来划分,而“特别套路”并非根据文章的“形式”,而是根据文章的“内容”,具体地说:如果有一篇GMAT文章是在“评述某人理论,评价某人著作或评判某人的观点”,那么这篇文章就是“特别套路”的GMAT文章。
· 判断标志
a. 开头出现:人名 (大写字母)+书名(斜体字母)Joseph Glarthaar's Forged in Battle is not the first excellent study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the Civil War, but it uses more soldiers' letters and diaries
b. 开头出现:人名+study, work analysis
· 主题句一般不是很明显,主要表现为对作品或观点的多个并列评价
· 行文套路
a. 一般会与前人比较,说出相同点(like),但是后面的部分必然会出现表示强对比(unlike)或强转折或 (But Yet However)的词汇,说明作者评价的这部作品或观点是“出彩”的
b. 对作品或观点的评价以正评价为主。
· 阅读重点: 作者的态度评价 (在GMAT文章中,作者主要使用情态动词、 自由褒贬词和实义动词来表示自己的评价)
最后,所有人都在说GMAT的阅读很难。我希望各位读者在不断提高英语水平的同时,注重把握这个考试所具有的独特规律性和GMAT文章所特有的套路,并辅之以大量练习。这样,你最终会感到自己原来以为极其困难的阅读,也可以变得较容易。我认为套路是考生得以在极短的时间内迅速把握GMAT文章的主干的最重要的“利器”,所谓“工欲善其事,必先利其器”,所以大家想要“善”GMAT这个“事”,必须要在揣摩GAMT文章的套路上多下点功夫.