雅思劍橋真題4(以下簡(jiǎn)稱劍4)上72頁(yè)C段第二小段第一句話為:Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma - molten rock from the mantle - inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian's Wall in northern England). 很多學(xué)生一看到文中出現(xiàn)了magma;mantle以及granite等詞就開始有些暈。其實(shí)如果大家可以看到 "it is slow"后面出現(xiàn)了特殊符號(hào)"冒號(hào)",那直接看冒號(hào)后面的信息就好了;而下文又出現(xiàn)了兩個(gè)破折號(hào)解釋前面。如此一來,"vast bubbles of magma"這4個(gè)詞就成了這句話的重點(diǎn)內(nèi)容了。
劍9上97頁(yè)A段第六行有一句話是這樣的:Museums used to look - and some still do - much like storage rooms of objects packed together in showcases: good for scholars who wanted to study the subtle differences in design, but not for the ordinary visitor, to whom it all looked alike. 這句話一共有42個(gè)單詞,那么大的信息量到底哪些是重點(diǎn)呢?借用上文說到的特殊符號(hào)冒號(hào)后面是關(guān)鍵信息這一說法,"showcases"后面出現(xiàn)了冒號(hào),那么冒號(hào)前面的文字都可以不用看了。如果再往下讀,一個(gè)"but"轉(zhuǎn)折連詞就會(huì)出現(xiàn)在我們面前,而"to whom it all looked alike"是一個(gè)非限定性定語(yǔ)從句,即使去掉,主句的意思和邏輯關(guān)系也不受影響。這樣一來,這句話最關(guān)鍵的信息就成了:but not for the ordinary visitor這6個(gè)單詞了。
例如:劍橋雅思6的94頁(yè)D段倒數(shù)第二句話:In Norway, after an intervention campaign was introduced nationally, an evaluation of forty-two schools suggested that, over a two-year period, bullying was halved. 這句話雖然有一堆逗號(hào),但是大家可以一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)往后推:跳過InNorway這兩個(gè)詞,再跳過after引導(dǎo)的狀語(yǔ)從句,就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)后面出現(xiàn)"…suggest that…"賓語(yǔ)從句,即后面是重點(diǎn)信息。"over a two-year period"這個(gè)時(shí)間段不是重點(diǎn),因此也可以直接跳過,然后大家會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這句話就只剩下了"bullying was halved"這3個(gè)詞了。