成人英語三級考試閱讀理解解題技巧(5)

推測作者寫作目的的題目往往是這樣問的。

The author's main purpose in writing the passage is to

The author writes this passage to

The author in this passage in tends to

推測寫作目的題和了解文章大意題有所不同，后者要知道文章講什么，中心思想是什么。而前者要知道寫文章是為了什么，達到什么目的。例如有一篇講美國離婚問題的文章。中心思想可能是高離婚率對美國社會、家庭、當事者和孩子的影響，而寫這篇文章的目的可能是要社會引起關注或要人們對離婚十分謹慎。因此，這種題比了解文章大意題更難解答，它不僅要求了解內容，還要了解作者的口氣，分析作者的論述方法，這樣才能推斷出寫作目的。例如以下短句表達了作者不同的用意。

To argue a belief，文章作者擺事實，講道理，論證自己的觀點。

To inform people of something，文章作者只介紹和傳遞信息，并不發表自己看法。

To illustrate the significance/importance，文章作者會從多方面闡述意義或重要性。

To warn people of certain danger，文章作者會分析該事物的后果，危害性。

To analyse the causes of something，文章作者會從間接和直接或平行幾方面分析原因或因素。

To describe certain problems/phenomena，文章作者會用事實、數據、例證或生動的形象描寫。

To give people a piece of advise，文章作者用祈使句較多。告訴方法、做法等。

To propose a solution，文章作者會闡明某種建議或解決方法的可行性、優點等。

例1

Most individual stockmarket investors, particularly in Asia, are speculators who want to pit their wits against the market at large. They share British entrepreneur Jim Slater's view that "a long-term investment is a short-term investment gone wrong," and look for the big,quick profits which can be made when share prices are driven up by important new information about a company's business, for instance the announce- ment of a takeover bid.

Official market-moving announcements of this kind are frequently foreshadowed by unofficial rumours. Buying or selling on the basis of such "inside" information vio- lates the rules of most stockmarkets, but is widely practised and hard to document. Sometimes a rumour may be spread deliberately for the purpose of artificially raising a share price, usually by investors who hold shares which they want to sell. This is the so-calledramp .

Speculative situations tend to produce the highest rewards, but they also carry with them the highest risk.the profits made by the first people into a ramp are only as big as the losses made by those who get in last. The merit of analysing companies be- fore plunging headlong into buying their shares is that it helps limit the "downside”of any investment--the amount of money you stand to lose if your investment goes wrong. Companies which have good saleable assets and steady cash earnings may fall periodically out of favour with the stockmarket,but they are unlikely to collapse alto-gether,and they are likely sooner or later to regain value.

This investor who bothers to verify that the company in which he is speculating is not fundamentally worthless has the reassurance that even a bad short-term buy should prove to have some long-term value.

The author in this passage intends to

A. warn people not to buy stocks

B. encourage people to go to stockmarket

C. advise people to be cautious of buying or selling stocks

D. tell people how to buy and sell stocks

這篇文章是關于買賣股票的。文章確實介紹了投資技巧，但從第一段到第四段的介紹中無不讓人感到股票買賣的風險。第一段說人們熱心于搞短線，通過宣布上市公司的內部重大消息，引起股票價格大跌大漲。第二段是說小道消息的作用，有時故意散布謠言，造成股價大跌大漲。第三段是說股票市場這種情況以及不正當的投機行為可能一下子帶來巨大的暴利，但也具有很大的風險。所以在買之前要了解該公司的業績，才不會輸光。尤其是最后一段是直接對投資者說的：The investor who bothers to veri-fy that the company in which he is speculating……has the reassurance that even a bad short-term buy should prove to have some long-term value只有核實和掌握該公司的情況，才能在做短線買賣中，獲得長期投資的收益。顯然按照作者的口氣和論述，我們可以推斷作者介紹股票市場中這種獨特的投機情況，是要投資者小心謹慎。所以C項ad-vise people to be cautious of buying or selling stocks是正確的答案。

可見，注意作者的口氣是推測他寫作目的的關鍵。除此外，還要注意文章的主題大意。雖然寫作目的和文章大意是兩回事，但把握文章的中心思想對于推測寫作目的會大有幫助。

例2

Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable occupations. Personal consultants give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants(被告). But in the executive circle, beauty can be- come a liability. While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the ex- ecutive ladder,it is harmful to a woman. Handsome male executive were perceived as having more integrity than plainer men,effort and ability were thought to account for their success. Attractive female executives were considered to have less integrity than unattractive ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck. All unattractive women executive were thought to have more integrity and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was attributed more to personal relationships and less to ability than was that of attractive overnight successes. Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is perceived to be more feminine(女性的)and an attractive man more masculine(男性的)than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally masculine position appears to lack the "masculine" qualities required. This is true even in politics. "When the only clue is how he or she looks,peo- ple treat men and women differently,"says Anne Bowman,who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergradu- ate students to rank two groups of photographs,one of men and one of women,in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for politi- cal offices. They were asked to rank them again,in the order they would vote for them.

The results showed that attractive males utterly defeated unattractive men, but the women who had been ranked most attractive invariably received the fewest votes.

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