朗阁海外考试研究中心  祝丹霞

 

笔者通过对剑桥真题的研究发现，剑桥四到六的题目年代相对比较久远，雅思阅读的特征主要表现在：特别强调定位问题，简单题型的定位词较容易在原文找到，即不太容易发生变化；剑桥七和八的难度有所增加，主要体现在matching和heading题量增加；剑九到十二是近几年雅思官方出的题，特征也很明显：增加了简单题型(short-answer), 需要注意的是这类题型在剑桥四出现之后一直在剑九才再一次出现，并且题目的难度系数有所增加。当然，雅思阅读一直的难题，段落细节匹配题的特征--没有定位词--也一直限制了定位方法的使用。笔者就上课学生的反馈和对真题的总结研究发现，难度系数增加的原因是定位难度加大，也就是说定位词被替换或者失效，这也是近来雅思考试的一个大趋势。

 

例如：剑9 Test 2 Passage 1是非无判断题Q5

题目：Prescriptivism still exists today.

原文：These attitudes are still with us, and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained.

题目和原文所对应的句子笔者已经呈现出来，我们可以清楚的看到传统意义上最适合的定位词应该就是prescriptivism, 但是在原文答案所在句并没有出现我们选定的定位词，如果过分依赖定位词的考生在考场上就会容易心慌。

 

那么，我们应该怎么来应对这样的问题呢？当然，加快阅读速度，提升长难句理解能力，增加词汇量，提升对文章所涉及的主题具备一定的了解，这些方式都是可以带来雅思阅读考试的正向影响的。本文中，笔者想要针对定位不精准定位词失效的情况下，讨论文章发展结构对定位的帮助，并且能够将结构化阅读法应用在雅思阅读中。

 

雅思阅读主要考查考生在读长篇文章时筛选信息的能力(read discriminately), 即知道哪些是重要信息必须细读，哪些是无用信息可以忽略。因而，雅思考试的文章没有必要逐字逐句地读，而是要懂得如何对信息进行甄别和取舍。要做到这一点，关键在于了解作者行文时的构思以及文章的写作目的。和读GRE以及GMAT文章时的思路也是一样的，如果做题前就能对文章的思路了如指掌，那就好比站在了作者的高度，做题定位时也就能够有的放矢了。具体笔者就通过剑9 Test 1 Passage 2的一篇文章解析怎样通过文章发展帮助应对定位词失效的情况。

 

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.

 

Questions 14-17

Reading Passage 2 has five paragraphs, A-E.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.

14 Paragraph B

15 Paragraph C

16 Paragraph D

17 Paragraph E

 

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence

The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has haunted humanity for centuries, but we may now stand poised on the brink of the answer to that question, as we search for radio signals from other intelligent civilisations. This search, often known by the acronym SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), is a difficult one. Although groups around the world have been searching intermittently for three decades, it is only now that we have reached the level of technology where we can make a determined attempt to search all nearby stars for any sign of life.

A

The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity - the same curiosity about the natural world that drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe. We want to know whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there is something very special about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that we see around us on the planet. The simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to answer this most basic of all questions. In this sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery of pure science which is continually pushing out the horizon of our knowledge. However, there are other reasons for being interested in whether life exists elsewhere. For example, we have had civilisation on Earth for perhaps only a few thousand years, and the threats of nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have told us that our survival may be tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe ourselves out? Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that, if other civilizations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. Thus any other civilisation that we hear from is likely to be far older, on average, than ourselves. The mere existence of such a civilisation will tell us that long-term survival is possible, and gives us some cause for optimism. It is even possible that the older civilisation may pass on the benefits of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and other threats that we haven't yet discovered.

B

In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First. UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are generally ignored since most scientists don't consider the evidence for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration (although it is also important to keep an open mind in case any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we make a very conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like us, since if it differs radically from us we may well not recognise it as a life form, quite apart from whether we are able to communicate with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows, be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun. and perhaps most restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.

C

Even when we make these assumptions, our understanding of other life forms is still severely limited. We do not even know, for example, how many stars have planets, and we certainly do not know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions. However, when we look at the 100 billion stars in our galaxy (the Milky Way), and 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, it seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life form on it; in fact, the best educated guess we can make, using the little that we do know about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting it. That means that our nearest neighbours are perhaps 100 light years away, which is almost next door in astronomical terms.

D

An alien civilisation could choose many different ways of sending information across the galaxy, but many of these either require too much energy, or else are severely attenuated while traversing the vast distances across the galaxy. It turns out that, for a given amount of transmitted power, radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance, and so all searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. So far there have been a number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales. Until now there have not been any detections from the few hundred stars which have been searched. The scale of the searches has been increased dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this project is being spent on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies at once. The project has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world's largest radio telescopes, the American-operated telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and the French telescope in Nancy in France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with high sensitivity for signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other part of the project is an undirected search which is monitoring all of space with a lower sensitivity, using the smaller antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network.

E

There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien civilisation. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart from the impracticality of sending a reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host of ethical questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any reply could be sent. Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior and much older civilisation? Luckily, there is no urgency about this. The stars being searched are hundreds of light years away, so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to reach us, and a further few hundred years for our reply to reach them. It's not important, then, if there's a delay of a few years, or decades, while the human race debates the question of whether to reply, and perhaps carefully drafts a reply.

 

Questions 18-20

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 18-20 on your answer sheet.

18 What is the life expectancy of Earth?

19 What kind of signals from other intelligent civilisations are SETI scientists searching for?

20 How many stars are the world's most powerful radio telescopes searching?

 

Questions 21-26

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

21 Alien civilisations may be able to help the human race to overcome serious problems.

22 SETI scientists are trying to find a life form that resembles humans in many ways.

23 The Americans and Australians have co-operated on joint research projects.

24 So far SETI scientists have picked up radio signals from several stars.

25 The NASA project attracted criticism from some members of Congress.

26 If a signal from outer space is received, it will be important to respond promptly.

 

宏观上去观察整篇文章不难得出文章的三个题型，heading, short-answer, 是非无判断题是比较典型的段落主旨题和两个细节题。并且之前我们也分析过，主旨题和细节题是相辅相成的，基于段落拓展准则--topic sentence + supporting details, Heading题可以有效帮助梳理文章结构从而帮助细节的定位。

 

关于做heading题的方法在这里就不赘述了，笔者会侧重分析文章结构。A段的主要内容是已经给我们的例子，讲的是探究外太空的理由。B段的主旨句是该段最后一句，重点当然是在but后面的内容，but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows, be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and perhaps most restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water. 外星人存在的可能性，所以答案选IV, 当然C段的第一句话也是非常典型的承上启下句。C段的topic sentence是倒数第二句，in fact, the best educated guess we can make, using the little that we do know about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting it, 同义转述之后答案就是VII, 主要讨论了有外星生物存在的可能性。D段主旨句是It turns out that, for a given amount of transmitted power, radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance, and so all searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. 所以同义转述对应答案I, 寻找无线电波。最后一段E段，主旨句是原文第一句，答案选的就是II, 对外星信号的回应的探讨。

 

接下来第18题，定位词life expectancy, 填的答案是数字，但是定位词是一个小词，要在原文直接去找比较困难。所以通过做heading题对文章脉络的理解，该题的答案一定会出现在原文的A段，包含的是探究外星的原因，有好奇，有地球寿命危机，应对地球上出现的问题等等，所以18题的答案对应句子Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that, if other civilizations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. 我们可以看到life expectancy被换成了life time, 答案是several billion years. 19题就相对比较简单，做heading题的时候D段的首句就是答案，填入radio wave或者radio signal都可以。20题填进去的答案也是一个数字，并且是在讨论搜寻信号，所以答案肯定还是在D段，为1000。

 

21题也是笔者在上课过程当中发现比较难定位的一道题目，定位词为serious issues, 但是该题的宏观定位一定是在原文的第一段，这样就会加快做题速度，对应原文的句子应该是The mere existence of such a civilization will tell us that the older civilization may pass on the benefits of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and other threats that we haven't yet discovered. 所以答案选TRUE。接下来22题是我们在做heading题第14题对应的句子，but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows, be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and perhaps most restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water. 所以答案选TRUE。第23, 24, 25全部都在讨论对信号的探索，所以答案全部都会出现在原文的D段，23题定位词是澳洲和美国两个国家，判定有没有合作，对应原文句子So far there have been a number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales, 答案是NOT GIVEN。24题判定的考点是have picked up, 已经接收到了一些信号，对应原文句子Until now there have not been any detections from the few hundred stars which have been searched, 24题答案是FALSE。25题以congress定位，判定有没有收到批判，对应句子为The scale of the searches has been increased dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life., 所以答案是NOT GIVEN。26题主要探讨的是对接受到的信号的回应，也就是原文最后一段的前二句，明确说到最重要的就是we should not reply immediately, 所以答案是FALSE。

 

通过分析该篇文章我们不难总结，有些题目定位词太小难以定位，或者定位词替换，都会导致考生在考场上心态的变化和时间的浪费。笔者认为，不妨在分析阅读题目当中加入文章结构的梳理，会让我们做题事半功倍。