08考研英語知識點每周答疑

　　一、答疑之“七選五”分析：

　　Long before Man lived on the Earth, there were fishes, reptiles, birds, insects, and some mammals. Although some of these animals were ancestors of kinds living today, others are now extinct, that is, they have no descendants alive now.

　　1).Very occasionally the rocks show impression of skin, so that, apart from color, we can build up a reasonably accurate picture of an animal that died millions of years ago. That kind of rock in which the remains are found tells us much about the nature of the original land, often of the plants that grew on it, and even of its climate.

　　2).Nearly all of the fossils that we know were preserved in rocks formed by water action, and most of these are of animals that lived in or near water. Thus it follows that there must be many kinds of mammals, birds, and insects of which we know nothing.

　　3).There were also crablike creatures, whose bodies were covered with a horny substance. The body segments each had two pairs of legs, one pair for walking on the sandy bottom, the other for swimming. The head was a kind of shield with a pair of compound eyes, often with thousands of lenses. They were usually an inch or two long but some were 2 feet.

　　4). Of these, the ammonites are very interesting and important. They have a shell composed of many chambers, each representing a temporary home of the animal. As the young grew larger it grew a new chamber and sealed off the previous one. Thousands of these can be seen in the rocks on the Dorset Coast.

　　5).About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over and most of the groups died out. The mammals quickly developed, and we can trace the evolution of many familiar animals such as the elephant and horse. Many of the later mammals though now extinct, were known to primitive man and were featured by him in cave paintings and on bone carvings.

　　[A]The shellfish have a long history in the rock and many different kinds are known.

　　[B]Nevertheless, we know a great deal about many of them because their bones and shells have been preserved in the rocks as fossils. From them we can tell their size and shape, how they walked, the kind of food they ate.

　　[C]The first animals with true backbones were the fishes, first known in the rocks of 375 million years ago. About 300 million years ago the amphibians, the animals able to live both on land and in water, appeared. They were giant, sometimes 8 feet long, and many of them lived in the swampy pools in which our coal seam, or layer, or formed. The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles and for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea, and in the air.

　　[D]The best index fossils tend to be marine creature. There animals evolved rapidly and spread over large over large areas of the world.

　　[E] The earliest animals whose remains have been found were all very simple kinds and lived in the sea. Later forms are more complex, and among these are the sea-lilies, relations of the star- fishes, which had long arms and were attached by a long stalk to the sea bed, or to rocks.

　　[F]When an animal dies, the body, its bones, or shell, may often be carried away by streams into lakes or the sea and there get covered up by mud. If the animal lived in the sea its body would probably sink and be covered with mud. More and more mud would fall upon it until the bones or shell become embedded and preserved.

　　[G]Many factors can influence how fossils are preserved in rocks. Remains of an organism may be replaced by minerals, dissolved by an acidic solution to leave only their impression, or simply reduced to a more stable form.

　　［試題分析］本篇是一篇科普文章，介紹的是史前類動物。文章結構比較清晰，首先用一般性的介紹來引入史前類動物和記載它們形體和活動的化石，接下來的幾段就逐漸按照進化的順序來一一介紹各種動物。接下來我們具體分析一下五個空白處的內容。

　　1、考查知識點：段落主題＋句子之間的邏輯聯系

　　先看空白處的位置(句中)，再看一下空白處的上下文。上文講的是許多生物都已經滅絕，沒有后代生活在這個世界上。下文講的是化石使我們了解了這些生物的形態?？梢酝茢啵瞻滋幨且粋€銜接的句子，應該是從生物到化石介紹的過渡，再看選項中，［A］［B］［E］都提到了這兩方面內容，但［A］［E］談的是具體的一些生物，不是這段泛泛而談的所有生物，因此不契合。［B］是正確答案

　　2.考查的知識點：下文的新信息

　　本題考查尋找特征詞的能力。在該題中，根據就近原則在該題后的句子中找到“the fossils”和“water action”為特征詞?！皌he fossils”說明“fossils”一詞是至少是第二次出現，因為它前面加了定冠詞the，通過仔細觀察并不難發現， 2以及其前面的內容中都沒有fossils，這就確定fossils一詞必定出現在1， 2中。根據意群相一致原則，在2中必定要與“water action”同現或復現的語言點。綜上所述，有同時滿足以上兩個條件的選項才是正確答案。雖然[G]項一開始就有“how fossils are preserved”, 但是[G]項講的是動物遺體上的有機組織轉化形式，沒有提及水的活動。選項［F］中就多次提到水在化石形成過程中的重要作用，與上下文相符合

　　3.考查的知識點：上下文銜接＋結構上的呼應

　　本題選擇的特征詞是“also”?！癮lso”表并列關系，這就證明在3前面的句子中應當與also后的crab like creatures相并列，即空白處顯然有關于另一動物的內容；從本段開始，文章轉向討論由低級高級變化(進化)中的動物。[E]項開始的部分是“The earliest animals whose remains have been found.”,符合文章寫作的順序。文中出現了these are the sea-lilies與下文的there were also ……相呼應。[B]項與上文相符，但與下文不符，且與全文結構不相吻合。

　　4. 考查的知識點：上下文銜接＋段落主題

　　本題選擇的特征詞是these以及與其具有同指關系的ammonites 和They 。通過閱讀4以后的兩個句子不難發現，these，ammonites ，They是指同一事物，意即有“shell”的事物。同時4后一開始就有“Of these,...”,也就是說，空白部分應該有“some, several, many”或類似的詞，答案只能是[A]。由于文中有了“The first animals”,為避免句式上的重復，作者改變句子起始的模式。這種做法很多見，因而也是考生閱讀和寫作中應該注意的。

　　5.考查的知識點：上下文銜接

　　該題目是一道簡單試題，一方面這是一道段落題，這就決定了有可能選最長的選項為答案，另一方面根據就近原則在下一段首句中發現的About 75 million years ago成為我們解題的關鍵。

　　從文章的整體結構看，這里需要一個內容的“高潮”：前面幾段，動物都在不斷地進化，而下文中“About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over”,這里需要有一個“交代”。只有[C]項符合這一條件；同時，“reptile”在本題空白處前文章中從沒有提到，在下文中又沒有作為新信息，因而作為正確答案的選項中一定有這個詞，只有[C]項中有“The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea,and in the air”。所以正確答案只能是[C]。

　　答案： 1.B 2.F 3.E 4.A 5.C

　　二、答疑之翻譯題：But the idea that the journalist must understand the law more profoundly than an ordinary citizen rests on an understanding of the established conventions and special responsibilities of the news media.(07年考試真題)

　　參考譯文：記者必須比普通的公民更了解法律，這種觀點是基于對新聞媒體的特殊職責以及約定俗稱的慣例的理解之上的。

　　分析：句子主干是the idea…rests on an understanding…, that后面跟的是idea的同位語從句，of后面跟的則是修飾understanding的后置定語。按照中文的習慣，在這句話中，我們選擇先翻譯從句以避免所指不明晰。

　　對于翻譯多重嵌套復合句，可以采用拆分句子的方式，首先找準句子主干，濾去修飾性成分，尤其是長的后置定語或者定語從句，然后再用指代詞把濾去的成分逐步添加進來。

　　在2008年的英語大綱中，對翻譯部分的要求描述與2007年的大綱描述并無差別。其主旨依舊是“主要考查考生準確理解概念或結構較復雜的英語文字材料的能力”。盡管如此，但是，縱觀往年考題，我們發現一個趨勢，那就是考題材料語言句子的復雜化程度在逐步提高，因此，對考生的語言理解能力就提出了更高的要求。實踐證明，在考試的過程中，大部分考生都能對要翻譯的句子有一個模糊的概念，即明白英文的大概意思，但往往會對一些小的地方把握不準，或者干脆不知道該怎么組成一個符合中文言語習慣的句子。這些問題的解決一方面依賴于我們平時對英語學習以及中文功底的積累，另一方面也可以輔以一些小的技巧去幫助我們得到更快的提高，