华慧考博:英语阅读理解主旨大意易错例题分析
华慧考博老师辅导过程中,碰到一些考生对英语阅读题的主旨大意题总是把握不准,常见的问法有:1. Which is the best title(标题)?
2. The passage is written to …()目的?
3. The passage is mainly concerned with…(主题)等等。
那么为什么会出现这种情况呢?
通过和华慧考博的学员的沟通,发现多数情况是因为没有明白做题是要选择一个 “最佳” 的答案。
我们做阅读理解题,不论是什么类型的题,包含细节事实题、推理判断题、主旨大意题、词汇理解题等,都应该结合文章的语境来确定一个最合适的答案,而不是选择文中提到的所谓“正确”的,或者“没错”的答案,一定是四个选项中的“最佳”答案,最符合题意的答案。
而这个“最佳”答案的依据当然是以文章内容为准。
做主旨大意题,需要把握文章的行文思路,也就是我们经常提到的,把各个段落意思有逻辑地串联起来从而得出文章的“脉络“或者”结构“,从中提炼文章的主旨、观点和目的等。下面华慧考博老师为大家举例分析说明。
Airbnb announced that it’s going after the major hotel chains---which at first sounded kind of cute, like a precocious Little League pitcher saying he’s going to strike out Miguel Cabrera.
But when CEO Brian Chesky laid out his thinking for me while sitting on a barrel in Airbnb’s new, funky headquarters in San Francisco, I thought the investors who have pumped $326 million into the company might not be too dim. Airbnb is becoming much more than a way to spend $26 a night to sleep in London with five other people at The Imperial Fleapit.
In fact, Airbnb is looking like a proof point of a trend that has been getting a lot of attention lately. Come refer to it as the DIY for do it yourself-movement. Venture capitalist Hemant Taneja, looking at it form a different angle, calls it “unscaling.” Chesky uses the term “decentralized production.” Marc Andreessen hit on the concept in a manifesto entitled “Why Software Is Eating the World.”
It all points to the same idea: Information technology is eroding the power of large-scale mass production. We're instead moving toward a world of massive numbers of small-producers offering unique stuff---and of consumers who reject mass-produced stuff. The Internet, software, 3D printing, social networks, cloud computing and other technologies are making this economically feasible—in fact desirable.
The hotel industry -- and the way Airbnb thinks about it -- is an example of how that is playing out. There is a fundamental truth about big hotel chains that is only now being exposed in the Internet age: Hotel chains grew out of a lack of information.
In the middle of last century cars and highways made the world far more mobile. Many more people traveled to towns they didn't know and they needed places to sleep. They had no way to know which hotel or boarding house might be nice or offer amenities they wanted. Travel guides, like Mobil’s popped up in the 1950s, but for the most part information remained scarce.
Still, the underlying story of Airbnb, information and the major hotels will get replayed in lots of industries in the next few years: Mass production and sameness mean safety when information, intimacy and trust don't exist. As information delivered globally and cheaply over the Internet, brings back intimacy and trust, the advantage of uniformity at scale slips away.
Which of the following might be the title of the passage?
A. The Styles of Hotels.
B. The Choice of Consumers.
C. The End of Mass Production.
D. The Importance of information.
记得曾经给学员做过这道题,学员给出的答案是D,理由是,联系文章开头前三段和末段“As information delivered globally and cheaply over the Internet, brings back intimacy and trust, the advantage of uniformity at scale slips away.”选D。
的确容易误选D,因为全文很多篇幅都在讲information,都离不开information;但是,大量篇幅说的内容,不代表文章的主旨就是这个,而实际上,关于information的内容只是为了阐述文章主旨的前提、背景和原因,文章主要讲的是“信息给生产方式所带来的影响”,具体的影响就是:旧的生产方式,即批量化生产,将走向衰落,新的生产方式将占主导。
通篇文章是通过谈论网络信息时代和连锁酒店的发展,论述了批量生产的未来的暗淡。A选项“酒店风格”,全文并没有就酒店的风格进行讨论;B选项“消费者的选择”,文中只是提及了我们会走向这样一个世界,消费者会拒绝批量大规模生产的商品,全篇没有就这事论述;D选项“信息的重要性”,文章围绕信息和连锁酒店来对比,体现了在未来人们会更加依赖于网络信息,但是文章主旨还是阐述未来大批量生产行业的暗淡,所以C选项最符合。
通过上述例子可见,不应该把文中总是提到的,可能重点讲解的内容和文章的主题混为一谈,文章是一个整体,有自己的行文结构,一定要把握整体来解答主旨大意题。下面留一个易错题供练习。
Recently, Japanese imports of manufactured goods from China have surged and the reputation of Chinese products has improved substantially, giving rise to concern that China will soon replace Japan as the "factory of the world". An objective evaluation of China's industrial strength, however, suggests that there is still a long way to go before it will become a truly advanced industrial country on par with Japan.
First of all, the high proportion of labor-intensive products in China's exports means that its trade structure is typical of a newly industrializing economy (NIE).This is different from that of developed countries, where the major export items, such as machinery, are technology-intensive. Although China is increasing its share of the global market for manufactured goods, including some information-technology (IT) products that are classified as high-tech, Chinese exports are still highly concentrated in lower-end products. In the case of televisions, for instance, Japan specializes in high-definition and other higher-end models, while China produces standard models whose unit values are much lower.
Reflecting China’s emphasis on processing trade, goods "made in China" contain large numbers of overseas components, some of which are made in Japan. According to official Chinese statistics, increasing exports by USS1 million requires importing intermediate goods and components worth $500,000, which do not form part of China's gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, the proportion of this imported content is higher for high-tech than for low-tech products. A computer labeled "made in China" is likely to contain a large portion of imported contents including an Intel central processing unit (CPU), Microsoft Windows operating system, and a liquid crystal display made in Japan or South Korea
In addition, approximately half of China's exports are produced by subsidiaries of foreign companies, to which dividends, interest charges, royalties and other fees must be paid. Even among Chinese companies with no capital relations with overseas companies, the majority of their exports are processed under OEM (original equipment manufacturing) contracts and sold with foreign brand names. Thus only a very small percentage of the value-added of products labeled "made in China" is actually "made by China". The latter corresponds to the concept of China's gross national product (GNP), and excludes import charges on intermediate goods and investment income paid to overseas countries.
China is so heavily dependent on foreign partners that it has yet to develop its own edge-cutting technology and internationally recognized brand names. On top of this; Chinese companies are inferior to their overseas counterparts in virtually every aspect, be it capital, human resources, or business management. As a result, China has no option but to look to cheap labor for its export competitiveness. Indeed, the majority of Chinas contribution to the value-added of its exports lies with the cost of labor, and the very low wages in China, averaging less than $100 a month, imply that this contribution must be very small.
As such, the common assumption that Chinese goods are competitive because the country's wage levels are low holds true only for labor-intensive products and does not necessarily apply to industry as a whole. Instead, China's low wages should be interpreted as a reflection of the fact that its labor productivity is poor. It is when China's wage levels approach those of Japan, reflecting a rise in productivity, that China will really become a formidable competitor for Japan.
Which of the following could be the best title for the passage?
A. China isn't a Developed Country.
B. So-called 'Made in China' Label.
C. Japan Won't Fear 'Made in China' Label.
D. China Will Replace Japan as the Factory of World.
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