托福聽力：文章開頭解析

文章開頭的重要性我們都知道，如果能對文章開頭有了解那么就能輕松解題。讓我們來看一種類比開頭。首先，類比開頭可以分為兩種，第一種是正比，即比較兩種相同之處，第二種是反比，即比較兩者不同之處，這兩種都可以通過信號詞判斷，正比可以通過like,same等信號詞判斷，而反比可以通過opposite,contrast進行判斷。
　　首先我們得明白，類比開頭并不能做出主旨題，不能輕易從開頭做主旨，但是類比開頭并不能忽略，能幫我們解決第二題，即第二題細節(jié)題，所以也不能忽視。我們來看一個例子：

TPO21，Lecture 1
　　All right, so now we’ve talked about folk legends and seen that their ... one of their key features is there’s usually some real history behind them. They are often about real people, so you can identify with the characters, and that’s what engages us in them. The particular stories might not be true and some of the characters or events might be made up. But there’s still a sense that the story could have been true since it is about a real person. That’s distinct contrast from the other main branch of popular storytelling, which is folk tales.
　　Folk tales are imaginative stories that ... um ... like folk legends, they have been passed down orally, from storyteller to storyteller for ... since ancient times. But with folk tales you don’t ever really get the sense that the story might have been true. They are purely imaginative and so quite revealing, I think anyway, about the culture and the connection between folk tales and culture

從這段文章里我們看出文章是類比的開頭，并且通過contrast這個信號詞判斷出這事反比的開頭，即folk legends的主要特征是real，而folk tale是imaginative，但這里值得注意的是類比的開頭并不能幫助我們做出主旨題，但是我們能做出第二題，即細節(jié)題，我們先來看下第一題：
　　What is the lecture mainly about?
　　The role played by folktales in contemporary Norwegian society
　　A description of the major types of Norwegian folktales
　　A comparison of Norwegian folktales and Norwegian folk legends
　　An illustration of the differences between oral literature and written literature

我們看到第三個選項A comparison of Norwegian folktales and Norwegian folk legends，具有很大的誤導性，這也是類比開頭容易掉入的陷阱，類比開頭我們并不能知道文章主題部分是強調A，還是強調B，或者是在強調A和B。但是，我們也不能忽視這個類比開頭，題目會出現在第二題，細節(jié)題，如下：
　　What does the professor find appealing about folk legends?
　　They are very imaginative.
　　They are somewhat realistic.
　　They stress what is important in a culture.
　　They show similarities between otherwise diverse societies.
　　我們可以看到，題目出的是folk legends的特點，所以我們可以看到類比開頭并不能忽略，但是能幫我們解決第二題，所以也不能忽視。

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