第一节 文章改写
虽然通常情况下GMAT阅读短文章的字数在200~250个单词,长文章的字数在350个单词左右,但是未被改写的文章长度可能在3000~5000个单词,所以被改写后的文章句子结构更为复杂,出现了更多的现在分词、过去分词以及大量复杂的从句,逻辑关系更难理解,这势必加大了考试的难度。
由于GMAT阅读文章都是学术型较强的文章,那么无论文章如何被改写,一定会保留文章的论点、论证和论据,也一定出保留研究的对象、研究方法、预期目的和结果等。从这个角度讲,考生只要了解了常见的GMAT文章写作特点就可以知道每篇文章常考的句子位置、常考句子特征、考查角度,从而具备一定的考点预测能力。
例如下面的文章:
这篇文章一共200个单词左右,5个句子。虽然文章被改写,但一篇Argumentation文章应该有的要素都具备了。文章结构如下:
文章的第一句话提出问题,后面的内容是解决问题,由于考试不会出What's the problem?这样的问题,所以第一句话可以浏览性阅读。
问题的解决方案和对方案的评价是考试的重点,所以应该重点读后面的文字。在读的过程中发现句②和句④都较长,成分较为复杂,逻辑关系也较为复杂,这些是考试易考查的句子。句⑤是作者最后给出的观点,注意考试时会考查作者的观点和态度。
所以,了解GMAT阅读文章的写作特点,在备考时会更加有针对性地训练应试能力,比如长难句的解析能力、文章分析能力和考点预测能力。
阅读心得
第二节 题材广泛
GMAT阅读文章涵盖的学科知识十分广泛,涉及人文科学、社会科学、自然科学、生命科学和经管类等,貌似要求考生做到上知天文下知地理。那么,针对题材问题,考生是否需要阅读大量的科学文献呢?当然没有必要。《GMAT官方指南》已明确指出考生不要期望对阅读文章的内容都非常熟悉,即使遇到熟悉的题材,考生也要依据文章的信息进行判断。
由于多数考生对不熟悉背景的文章具有一定的恐惧,所以笔者建议考生在备考时多读一些这样类型的文章,了解常用词汇、文章套路、出题模式和正确选项及错误选项的特点。
下面附上一篇有关天文学的文章,读者可以感受一下GMAT考试的体裁,从而为GMAT考试做好充分的备考准备。
When a large body strikes a planet or moon, material is ejected, thereby creating a hole in the planet and a local deficit of mass. This deficit shows up as a gravity anomaly: the remova of the material that has been ejected to make the hole results in an area of slightly lower gravity than surrounding areas. One would therefore expect that all of the large multi-ring impact basins on the surface of Earth's Moon would show such negative gravity anomalies, since they are, essentially, large holes in the lunar surface. Yet data collected in 1994 by the Clementine spacecraft show that many of these lunar basins have no anomalously low gravity and some even have anomalously high gravity. Scientists speculate that early in lunar history, when large impactors struck the Moon's surface, causing millions of cubic kilometers of crustal debris to be ejected, denser material from the Moon's mantle rose up beneath the impactors almost immediately, compensating for the ejected material and thus leaving no low gravity anomaly in the resulting basin. Later, however, as the Moon grew cooler and less elastic, rebound from large impactors would have been only partial and incomplete. Thus today such gravitational compensation probably would not occur: the outer layer of the Moon is too cold and stiff.