［真题例解］(1999年1月第27题)
Groundbreaking research by two French geophysicists promises to shed some light on the mystery.Using 80 metres of deep sea sediment (沉淀物) core, they have obtained measurements lots of magneticfield intensity that span 11 polarity reversals and four million years.The analysis reveals that intensity appears to fluctuate with a clear, welldefined rhythm.Although the strength of the magnetic field varies irregularly during the short term, there seems to be an inevitable longterm decline preceding each polarity reversal.When the poles flip—a process that takes several hundred thousand years—the magnetic field rapidly regains its strength and the cycle is repeated.
Q： The word “flip” (Line 5, Para. 2) most probably means “”.
A) declineB. intensifyC. fluctuateD. reverse
答案为D)。 这一题目是根据上下文判断词意的题。flip的意思是“快速翻转”，它所在的句子的意思是“当两极互换——这一过程需要上万年的时间——磁场会很快重新恢复它的强度，新的一轮循环又开始了。”因此在四个选项中： A.decline的意思是“拒绝；变小、变弱”，B.intensify的意思是“(使某物)变得更强烈、加剧”，C.fluctuate的意思是“(价格、数量等)涨落、波动”;D.reverse的意思是“使(某物)反转、倒退、颠倒”，例如：Writing is reversed in a mirror.写出来的字在镜子里是颠倒的。D的意思与flip最接近。
3.选项含义与所考单词含义表面上相近的一般不是答案。
［真题例解］(1999年6月第18题)
We must recognize that environmental health issues do not stop at city limits, county lines, state or even federal boundaries.We can no longer afford to be tunnelvisioned in our approach.We must visualize issues from every perspective to make the objective decisions.We must express our views clearly to prevent media distortion and public confusion.
Q： The word “tunnelvisioned” (Line 2, Para. 4) most probably means “”.
A) narrowmindedB) blind to the facts
C) shortsightedD) able to see only one aspect
答案是D)。选项A)“眼界狭窄的”和选项C)“目光短浅的”与“tunnelvisioned”含义相近，所以许多考生都误选了A)或C)。
4.定冠词the+被考词汇，则定冠词所指示的对象已在上文出现过。
The researcher then studied the videotapes to analyse the matches in detail.Surprisingly,he found that errors were more likely when the referees were close to the incident.When the official got it right,they were,on average,17 meters away from the action.
Q：The word“officials”(Line 4,Para 4)most probably refers to .
A)the researchers involved in the experiment
B)the inspectors of the football tournament
C)the referees of the football tournament
D)the observers at the site of the experiment
答案是C)。定冠词出现处，一般来说，其所指示的对象已在上文出现过。因此the official暗示，其含义相当的某种人已在上文出现。根据上下文知，official是指上文刚提到的my referees。
(三)推理判断题
1.如果是对某段内容进行推断，那么只需看题干要求的段落即可。
［真题例解］(2001年1月第29题)
You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of trying circumstances.The life struggles are pretty much the same for each of us.Everyone who is involved with other human beings in any social context has similar difficulties.Disagreements,conflicts and compromises are a part of what it means to be human.Similarly, money,growing old,sickness,deaths natural disasters and accidents are all events which present problems to virtually all human beings.But some people are able to make it,to avoid immobilizing depression and unhappiness despite such occurrences,while others collapse or have an N.B.D.Those who recognize problems as a human condition and don’t measure happiness by an absence of problems are the most intelligent kind of humans we know;also,the most rare.
Q：In the last paragraph,the author tells us that.
A)difficulties are but part of everyone’s life
B)depression and unhappiness are unavoidable in life
C)everybody should learn to avoid trying circumstances
D)good feelings can contribute to eventual academic excellence
答案为A)。根据题干要求，我们只用在最后一段寻找答案。根据文章末段第四、五两句可知A）正确。
2.选项词语过于绝对化，一般不是正确答案。
I recently visited a great little college in New York where the campus has doubled its minority population in the last six years.I talked with an African American who has been a professor there for a long time,and she remembers that when she first joined the community,there were fewer than a handful of minorities on campus.Now ,all of us feel the university is better because of the diversity.
Q：It can be inferred form the Passage that
A)meritocracy can never be realized without diversity
B)American political circles will not accept diversity
C)it is unlikely that diversity will occur in the U.S media
D)minorities can only enter the fields where no debate is heard about diversity
答案是A)。文中通过一位美国黑人教授之口，传达出多样性的好处的信息，因此可以推断出是多样化使不拘一格使用人才成为可能，与A)项意义吻合。若单从选项本身判断，B)和C)句意过于绝对，因此排除，这样使判断范围缩小，有利于选择答案。
3.合乎常理或符合一般常识的选项大多是答案项，而与原文相同或对原文做字面解释的则不是答案。
［真题例解］(2002年1月第39题)
These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference.If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for young trouble makers.Moreover, as Wirth suggested, there may be a link between a community’s population size and its social heterogeneity(多样性).For instance, sociologists have found much evidence that the size of a community is associated with bad behavior including gambling, drugs, etc.Largecity urbanites are also more likely than their smalltown counterparts to have a cosmopolitan （见多识广者的) outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and socalled undesirables. Everything considered, heterogeneity and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size.
Q：It can be inferred from the Passage that the bigger a community is,.
A) the better its quality of life
B) the more similar its interests
C) the more tolerant and openminded it is
D) the likelier it is to display psychological symptoms of stress
答案是C)。比较四个选项，城市越大，生活质量并不一定越好，兴趣并不一定更相似，并不一定更能显示心理压力，所以A)、B)、D)项均可排除。而C)项则合乎常理。因此将选项与常识联系后，很快就会找到正确答案。
(四)主旨题
1.只读首尾段，极可能在这些段落中发现答案。
［真题例解］(2002年12月第40题)
If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough.What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?
Q： It can be inferred from the Passage that .
A) human spiritual needs should match material affluence
B) whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue
C) how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem
D) there is never an end to satisfying people’s material needs
答案为C）。本文在前六段对过分消费的生活提出了批评，但在第七段同时指出过分消费的反面——贫穷绝不是问题的答案。接着在最后一段提出：太多和太少都会对环境造成破坏。那么要拥有多少才能满足？地球能承受什么样的消费水平？什么时候人们才能不再贪得无厌？由此可以得出结论：问题是什么样的消费水平才是合理的。
2.阅读时，注意高频率出现的单词或多次出现的同一类词，这些词可能就是蕴含中心思想的关键词。
［真题例解］(1999年1月第26题)
There are some phenomena you can count on, but the magnetic field, someday is not one of them.It fluctuates in strength, drifts from its axis, and every few 100,000 years undergoes—dramatic polarity reversal—a period when north pole becomes south pole and south pole becomes north pole.But how is the field generated and why is it so unstable?
Groundbreaking research by two French geophysicists promises to shed some light on the mystery.Using 80 metres of deep sea sediment (沉淀物) core, they have obtained measurements lots of magneticfield intensity that span 11 polarity reversals and four million years.The analysis reveals that intensity appears to fluctuate with a clear, welldefined rhythm.Although the strength of the magnetic field varies irregularly during the short term, there seems to be an inevitable longterm decline preceding each polarity reversal.When the poles flip—a process that takes several hundred thousand years—the magnetic field rapidly regains its strength and the cycle is repeated.
The results have caused a stir among geophysicists.The magnetic field is thought to originate from molten (熔化的) iron in the outer core, 3,000 kilometres beneath the earth’s surface.By studying mineral grains found in material ranging from rocks to clay articles, previous researchers have already been able to identify reversals dating back 170 million years, including the most recent switch 730,000 years ago.How and why they occur, however, has been widely debated.Several theories link polarity flips to external disasters such as meteor (陨星) impacts.But Peter Olson, a geophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says this is unlikely if the French researchers are right.In fact, Olson says intensity that predictably declines from one reversal to the next contradicts 90 percent of the models currently under study.If the results prove to be valid geophysicists will have a new theory to guide them in their quest to understand the earth’s inner physics.It certainly points the direction for future research.
Q：Which of the following titles is most appropriate to the Passage?
A) Polarity Reversal: A Fantastic Phenomenon of Nature
B) Measurement of the Earth’s MagneticField Intensity
C) Formation of the Two Poles of the Earth
D) A New Approach to the Study of Geophysics
答案是A)。浏览全文发现一些地质方面的词不断出现，“polarity reversal”差不多在每段都出现，而B)、C)、D)项只是文章涉及的细节，故选A)。
3.单从选项上判断，那些概括全文，含义深刻的选项一般是正确答案，而内容单一、片面的选项应予以排除。
［真题例解］(2001年1月第20题)
A nineyearold schoolgirl singlehandedly cooks up a sciencefair experiment that ends up debunking (揭穿……的真相) a widely practiced medical treatment.Emily Rosa’s target was a practice known as therapeutic (治疗的) touch (TT for short),whose advocates manipulate patients’“energy field”to make them feel better and even,say some,to cure them of various ills.Yet Emily’s test shows that these energy fields can’t be detected,even by trained TT practitioners (行医者).Obviously mindful of the publicity value of the situation,Journal editor George Lundberg appeared on TV to declare,“Age does’t matter.It’s good science that matters,and this is good science.”
Emily’s mother Linda Rosa,a registered nurse,has been campaigning against TT for nearly a decade.Linda first thought about TT in the late ’80s,when she learned it was on the approved list for continuing nursing education in Colorado.Its 100,000 trained practitioners (48,000 in the U.S.) don’t even touch their patients.Instead,they waved their hands a few inches from the patient’s body, pushing energy fields around until they’re in “balance.”TT advocates say these manipulations can help heal wounds, relieve pain and reduce fever.The claims are taken seriously enough that TT therapists are frequently hired by leading hospitals, at up to 70 an hour，to smooth patients’ energy,sometimes during surgery.
Yet Rosa could not find any evidence that it works.To provide such proof,TT therapists would have to sit down for independent testing—something they haven’t been eager to do,even though James Randi has offered more than 1 million to anyone who can demonstrate the existence of a human energy field.(He’s had one taker so far.She failed.) A skeptic might conclude that TT practitioners are afraid to lay their beliefs on the line.But who could turn down an innocent fourthgrader? Says Emily:“I think they didn’t take me very seriously because I’m a kid.”
The experiment was straight forward:21 TT therapists stuck their hands,palms up,through a screen.Emily held her own hand over one of theirs—left or right—and the practitioners had to say which hand it was.When the results were recorded,they’d done no better than they would have by simply guessing.If there was an energy field,they couldn’t feel it.
Q：What can we learn from the Passage?
A)Some widely accepted beliefs can be deceiving.
B)Solid evidence weighs more than pure theories.
C)Little children can be as clever as trained TT practitioners.
D)The principle of TT is too profound to understand.
答案是A)。通读全文，对文章大意进行归纳概括，便知A)是正确选项。若单从选项上看，A)项颇有哲理，而B)、C)、D)三项都有点片面单一，经不起推敲。
(五)观点态度题
1.阅读时，首先要判断文章的体裁。议论文中，文章的中心句一般都表明作者态度；说明文中，其体裁客观，作者的态度亦中立；描述性文章中，作者往往不直接提出文章观点，但常带有某种倾向，需考生细心揣摩。
2.综合判断态度题，需要分析文章脉络，理解文章中心思想才能判断出作者的情感态度。
3.要会区分不同的观点，尤其要找出作者的观点。考生要注意文中出现的直接引语和间接引语，这些观点一般是说话人而非作者的观点。作者的观点一般用in my view, in my opinion, personally, I think,I hold等表现。
4.对于选项而言，要分清选项中的褒义词、中性词和贬义词。
表示褒义的词有：positive赞成的，supporting支持的，praising赞扬的，optimistic乐观的，admiring羡慕的，interesting有趣的，humorous幽默的，serious严肃的，polite礼貌的，pleasant愉快的，concerned关切的，sober冷静的，等。
表示中性的词有：indifferent冷淡的，不关心的；impassive冷淡的，不动感情的；uninterested无兴趣的，不感兴趣的；ambivalent情绪矛盾的；neutral中立的；impersonal不带个人感情的；subjective主观的；objective客观的；informative提供信息的；impartial不偏袒的；apathetic漠不关心的。
表示贬义的词有：disgusted感到恶心的，厌恶的；critical批评的；negative否定的，反对的；suspicious怀疑的；tolerant容忍的，忍让的；worried担忧的；pessimistic悲观的；depressed沮丧的；disappointed失望的；ironic讽刺的；sarcastic挖苦的；bitter痛苦的；cynical玩世不恭的；sentimental感伤的；emotional激动的；angry气愤的等。