GRE阅读题型之细节题详细分析（2）

普渡哥

　　上一篇介绍了细节题中的给定行数题和写作用意题，这里主要介绍一下另一种常见的题型——强对比取非题。
　　这类题的主要特点是，原文中有强对比的双方，题干只问及其中的一方，但是原文没有给出关于这方的叙述，而说了这方的强对比另一方的特征，所以答案却是对另一方叙述的取非。强对比关系层次比较多，例如，处于不同时间、历史时期、年代的事物通常其特点呈强对比；处于相对的地域、空间的事物通常其特点呈强对比；新事物、新观点和旧事物、传统观点呈强对比；用最高级、唯一性限定的事物和其余所有同类事物的特征呈强对比等。针对这类题目，在第一篇读文章的时候及时敏锐地发现它们并在文中做好标记，为解题时回到文中定位做好充分地准备。这些强对比出现地地方，通常会伴随着一些表示这类强对比关系的标志性词语，如unlike, in contrast to, be distinguished from, used to, new, current, once, until recently, only, unique, never……
　　根据强对比层次的不同，大体上将其分为：简单明示强对比、时间壮语强对比和优缺点强对比。下面就此进行具体分析：
　　1. 简单明示强对比
　　这类强对比属于普通的强对比，如文中说“A, unlike B; “C, in contrast to D, is…”等，这些都是明示强对比。下面我们用一个例子来具体说明：
　　Promising as it is for minority businesses, this increased patronage poses dangers for them, too. First, minority firms risk expanding too fast and overextending themselves financially, since most are small concerns and, unlike large businesses, they often need to make substantial investments in new plants, staff, equipment, and the like in order to perform work subcontracted to them……
　　The passage suggests that the failure of a large business to have its bids for subcontracts result quickly in orders might cause it to_____
　　(A) experience frustration but not serious financial harm
　　(B) face potentially crippling fixed expenses
　　(C) have to record its efforts on forms filed with the government
　　(D) increase its spending with minority subcontractors
　　(E) revise its procedure for making bids for federal contracts and subcontracts
　　分析：
　　在原文中，并没有提到大企业投标失败会如何，但是文中提到了小企业的情况，标志性的词语是unlike large businesses, 这就表明文中进行了强对比，通过这句话，“since most are small concerns and, unlike large businesses, they often need to make substantial investments in new plants, staff, equipment, and the like in order to perform work subcontracted to them”，我们知道，小企业将会有财政和士气上的风险。根据这样的对比关系，大企业的情况应该与小企业的情况相反，所以，正确答案应该是A. 即“大企业会有一些波折，但是没有致命的财政影响”。
　　2. 时间状语强对比
　　题干中问A时间有什么特征，原文中没有明说，但给了A的强对比时间B的特征，将B的特点取非，即是A的特征。通常情况下，在一篇文章开始，或者一个理论刚刚提出的时候，如果出现了时间壮语，则是出题率很高的一处语言点。如，now, new, nowadays, current ideas…和过去形成强对比；once, until recently, past…和现在形成强对比。如果给出一个不早不晚的明确时间，如in 1960’s，那么和它之前、之后比较都有可能。
　　下面以举一个具体事例：
　　In the early 1950’s, historians who studied pre-industrial Europe (which we may define here as Europe in the period from roughly 1300 to 1800) began, for the first time in large numbers, to investigate more of the pre-industrial European population than the 2 or 3 percent who comprised the political and social elite: the kings, generals, judges, nobles, bishops, and local magnates who had hitherto usually filled history books. ……
　　One way out of this dilemma was to run to the records of legal courts, for here the voices of the non-elite can most often be heard, as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. These documents have acted as “a point of entry into the mental world of the poor.” Historians such as Le Roy Ladurie have used the documents to extract case histories, which have illuminated the attitudes of different social group (these attitudes include, but are not confined to, attitudes toward crime and the law) and have revealed how the authorities administered justice. ……
　　The extraction of case histories is not, however, the only use to which court records may be put. Historians who study pre-industrial Europe have used the records to establish a series or categories of crime and to quantify indictments that were issued over a given number of years. ……
　　The author suggests that, before the early 1950’s, most historians who studied pre-industrial Europe did which of the following?
　　(A) failed to make distinctions among members of the pre-industrial European political and social elite
　　(B) used investigatory methods that were almost exclusively statistical in nature
　　(C) inaccurately estimated the influence of the pre-industrial European political and social elite
　　(D) confined their work to a narrow range of the pre-industrial European population
　　(E) tended to rely heavily on birth, marriage and death records
　　分析：
　　这篇文章在开头段就提到“50年代早期，研究欧洲前工业时期历史的学者第一次开始大规模地研究人口总数97％的普通人民群众”。题目中所问的是在50年代之前的情况，这正与50年代的情况形成了强对比。所以，正确答案应该是与50年代的情况相反的信息，在50年代，就有了将近97％的普通人民群众，说明这是一个很大的比率，将近100％。那么，在50年代之前，可以肯定的是没有50年代进步，所以，人数一定比50年代要少，可能是很少的以部分。这样，通过这样的强对比，我们可以确定答案A是正确的，即“50年代之前的学者将其研究局限于前工业时期欧洲人口的一小部分”。
　　3. 优缺点强对比
　　这类题的特点是，题干中如果问某事物、著作、人怎样会变得更好，但是在原文中没有给出明确的回答，而一般会有相反的内容，即：该事物、著作、人因为什么原因现在还不够好。这样，将其取非，就可以得到原题的答案。这里需要注意一点，有时文章细节复杂，被问到的事物缺点不止一个，那么一定要找到题干所问内容的缺点，而不要被其他的缺点乱了思路。
　　下面再用一个例子取说明(仍然是上一篇文章，这里就不重负文章内容了)：
　　It can be inferred from the passage that a historian who wished to compare crime rates per thousand in a European city in one decade of the fifteenth century with crime rates in another decade of that century would probably be most aided by better information about which of the following?
　　(A) the cause of unrest in the city during the two decades
　　(B) the aggregate number of indictments in the city nearest to the city under investigation during the two decades
　　(C) the number of people who lived in the city during each of the decades under investigation
　　(D) the mental attitudes of criminals in the city, including their feedings about authority, during each of the decades under investigation
　　(E) the possibilities for a member of the city’s non-elite to become a member of the political and social elite during the two decades
　　分析：
　　题干比较长，意思是“比较两个10年的犯罪率，得到了以下哪个信息，将会最有帮助？”，在原文中有提到，两个10年的犯罪率经常无法进行比较，原因是总人口数的估计不准确。所以，根据这一信息，将其取非，便得出了选项C是正确的。即“要研究的两个10年内城市人口的统计数”。
　　小结：
　　综上所述，强对比取非题在GRE阅读中出现频率也是很高的，如果掌握了这类题的解答思路，在作答时就会迎刃而解了。