愛薇塔樂學英文

如何區分TOEFL托福閱讀推理題並準確作答

　　Inference questions 推理題

　　推理題的標誌是在題幹中出現infer/imply/suggest/indicate/most likely 這樣的詞彙，它和細節題屬於同源題目，都需要定位並且根據文中資訊來選擇答案。與細節題不同的是，推理題在找到原文中定位點之後考察的是學生對於文中資訊的總結概括，或者反向推理的能力。我們來看一道例題，

　　It should be obvious that cetaceans-whales , porpoises, and dolphins-are mammals. They breathe through lungs, not through gills, and give birth to live young. Their streamlined bodies, the absence of hind legs, and the presence of a fluke3 and blowhole4 cannot disguise their affinities with land-dwelling mammals. However, unlike the cases of sea otters and pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses, whose limbs are functional both on land and at sea), it is not easy to envision what the first whales looked like. Extinct but, already fully marine cetaceans are known from the fossil record. How was the gap between a walking mammal and a swimming whale bridged? Missing until recently were fossils clearly intermediate, or transitional, between land mammals and cetaceans.

　　Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 1 about early sea otters?

　　○ It is not difficult to imagine what they looked like

　　○ There were great numbers of them.

　　○ They lived in the sea only.

　　○ They did not leave many fossil remains.

　　首先我們來對題目的出題範圍進行定位，題幹的blowhole可以作為定位詞彙，定位到原文的第四句話：“However, unlike the cases of sea otters and pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses, whose limbs are functional both on land and at sea), it is not easy to envision what the first whales looked like.” 在這句話裡交代了“unlike the casess of sea otters”，即與sea otters 不一樣的是，whales 的陳述是：it is not easy to envision what the first whales looked like. 即，不容易看出第一頭鯨長什麼樣子。而sea ottter 是和鯨魚相反，所以選擇A選項，即不難看出第一頭sea otter 長什麼樣子。所以實際上，這種題目雖然叫做推理題，但是並不需要同學們在做題的時候推的過遠，基本考察的還是對原文資訊概括和總結的能力。