OG 73 的解题思路，欢迎拍砖

feathsea8

先贴题目：Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthals appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could out in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the Paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.


(A) appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
(B) appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,
(D) appeared as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,
(E) appeared to have been equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,


思路一：
Appearto do 和 appear as +noun决定 appear as 错，ACD错
由appear时态区分BE
解释如下:
appear to 作“似乎，看起来”的意思时，还是与appear 最基本的，出现，呈现的意思分不开，比如The evidence appears to supportyou. 是说这个evidence 在外人眼里呈现出support you， The old man appears to be in thegood health. 是说在别人眼中，这个oldman 是 in the goodhealth.的。所以说，用appearto 的时候是有潜在对象的， 对象是在现在还是过去对时态是有影响的。RON解释说"appear"is in the present tense, since we're talking about the way these things appearto present-day observers. ifthere were a context that would place "appear" in the past, then youcould use the past tense. for instance: to nineteenth-century observers, theyappeared to have been equipped…; OG上的解释，D中：Present-tense appear is needed to…reinforcethat this is current evidence about Neanderthals in the past, 就是这个道理。至此可以去掉E了。选项A就出来了。

思路二
    即使一下子无法区分appear as+ noun和 appear to do，从动作发生的顺序上，可以注意到，Neanderthals …equipped …facingany obstacle the environment could put in their path 是发生在disappearance之前的, 是过去的过去，应该用过去完成时体现出时间的对比，ACD又是appear 开头，无法显示出时间的对比还造成歧义， 如OG所说，A. appear as equippedindicated that Neanderthals still appear this way；C appear as equipped does notindicate that Neanderthals appeared this way in the past
    重复思路一          

所以体现过去的过去的时间对比，appear as 和 appear to 的用法区分，以及appear to潜在的对象是解题的几个关键。还有两个小的点，1）目的状语优先选择todo, 一般情况下 to do 优于 for doing （但不绝对），2) 用 path 而非 paths, 从句意上也可以区分出来题目的中心是Neanderthals 这个种族的发展道路上环静造成的障碍，题目没有用解释是哪些的paths或其他方法来强调必须要用复数，所以不需要用paths。当然我觉得这是很小的点，不需要去钻牛角尖，不太有提炼语言点复制的价值。
    至于说appear要和indicates平行，我认为不是本文解题的关键，并列前后时态是否保持一致是要依句意而定的。

feathsea8

但是appear as +noun 和 appear to do 这个语言点还需要NN给确认一下

mongmong

小毅思

看了对appear的潜在对象的解释真是豁然开朗。十分感谢。

z53495532

好帖子，必须顶

落薇裳

终于看懂了，谢谢楼主~

xunzlyx

Ron的解释，说这不是一个现在完成时的问题，而是一个特殊用法 http://www.beatthegmat.com/og-12-q-73-t38806.html


this isn't a present perfect construction, because it's actually an infinitive.
i.e., it's not "they have been equipped"; it's "they appear TO HAVE been equipped".

in any case, you should probably just memorize this construction as a one-off idiomatic structure. if you say "they seemed/appeared to...", then, no matter how remote the event is (in time), you use this construction.

for instance:
it seems that the students cheated on the exam
(normal past tense in this construction)
but...
the students seem to have cheated on the exam
(not here)

i don't really have a good explanation for this, other than "i'm a writer with a firm command of formal english, and i know that it is so" and "you should just think of it as an idiom". sorry i can't do better than that.

in any case, though, you DO have to use an infinitive after "appear" or "seem" in this sort of construction. and if you think about it, this is as past-tense as an infinitive can get. so that's why you have to use it.