考過託福考試的考生應該都知道,託福聽力材料分對話和講座兩類,主要以傳統四選一的選擇題為主,採用三種方式考查考生對聽力材料的基本理解:內容主旨題、目的主旨題和細節題。只有分清楚了題目要問我什麼,考生才能知道需要留意聽什麼、記筆記時重點記什麼、分析選項時才知道排除哪些選項。
託福聽力中,主旨題是出現頻率非常高的題目了。相信備考聽力的同學們不會對主旨題感到陌生,且會積累到主旨題的一般規律以及解題技巧。對於一部分同學而言,在聽Lecture開頭的部分的時候,會先泛聽課堂回顧的內容,然後等待Today, let’s focus on…此類的提示詞,進而捕捉主旨。但同學們需注意,並非每篇文章都會符合一般規律,甚至有的文章會設置一些陷阱,接下來我們就來學習一些技巧,避免主旨題「踩坑」。
01
從第一句開始集中注意力
聽力文章畢竟是直接取自北美的真實課堂場景,難免會有老師會以不同的方式來開始自己的教學,開門見山的方式其實就是陷阱的來源之一。有的同學習慣了前面內容泛聽,逐漸進入狀態,就會導致錯過主旨關鍵信息。
例如:Ok, back in the 1930s, a biologist named G.F.Gause first proposed what’s known as 「Gause’s hypothesis」. Gause said that whenever you've got two similar species competing for the exact same limited resources, one of them will have some sort of advantage,however slight that'll eventually enable this species to dominate and ultimately exclude the other one, even cause it to become extinct. That's why Gause's hypothesis came to be called "The competitive exclusion principle". (TPO36 Lecture 4)
02
區分小故事和主旨
教授為了在課堂開始時吸引學生的注意力,會以一些小故事或者例子來開始整個課堂,在講完故事或例子之後才會出現主旨,會有學生把這些小故事或者例子當成主旨。
如TPO54的這篇:A popular misconception about archaeology: Some people imagine we just go out into the field with a shovel and start digging,hoping to find something significant.
Well, while there is an element of luck involved, we have an array of high-tech tools to help us figure out where to concentrate our efforts.
One of the newer tools actually relies on particle physics. Talk about interdisciplinary!
Here's a machine that brings together two very different sciences.This machine is called a muon detector. (TPO54 Lecture 2)
有的同學聽到第一句的misconception就趕快記下來了,主旨題就選擇了misconception相關選項。但其實這個詞其實是professor來吸引學生們注意,進一步引入muon detector這個重點信息的。
03
識別背景介紹
Professor為了讓學生更好地理解課上講解的重點,會在開頭部分進行背景介紹。
如:We』ve been talking about animal cognition - the study of animal intelligence. Now, much of the research in this area is motivated by the search for animal analogues, or parallels to human cognitive processes. And one of the processes we』ve been investigating is metacognition. (TPO30 L1)
有的同學聽到第一句對animal cognition進行下定義,會誤以為主旨與此相關。其實對animal cognition的講解是為了引出metacognition這個重點。