托福閱讀：如何看出“弦外之音”

托福閱讀到底在考察什么？官方指南里面告訴我們是“在文章當(dāng)中強(qiáng)烈暗示，但沒有明確表明的”。一言以蔽之——弦外之音。要想知道什么是弦外之音的概念——比喻言外之意，即在話里間接透露，而不是明說出來的意思。

托福閱讀為我們大張旗鼓的玩起了弦外之音這樣的事情，這一點(diǎn)尤其在托福TPO里面體現(xiàn)得尤為明顯。
我們當(dāng)然還是拿真實(shí)例子說話，首先看一下托福真題TPO1里面的一段。
Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the “solid” ground underfoot to hold all this water.
　　題目：
Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 1 about the ground that we walk on?
A It cannot hold rainwater for long periods of time.
B It prevents most groundwater from circulating.
C It has the capacity to store large amounts of water.
D It absorbs most of the water it contains from rivers.

很顯然原文At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the “solid” ground underfoot to hold all this water. 為我們提到很難想象，在如此“堅(jiān)實(shí)”的地下，會(huì)有足夠的空間來盛如此之多的水，這里就很隱晦的告訴我們其實(shí)地下并不“堅(jiān)實(shí)”，而是還有很多的空間，來盛放 groundwater，因此我們得到的正確答案就是C選項(xiàng)，也就是原來我們行走的這片土地之下還有足夠的能力來承載如此之多的水。
很顯然，這里也是很隱晦的告訴我們地下空間其實(shí)是很大的。下面這道題也是一樣。

The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
　　All of the following are mentioned in paragraph 3 as places that sediment-laden rivers can deposit their sediments EXCEPT
A A mountain valley
B Flat land
C A lake floor
D The seafloor

本題問的是到底哪里沒有沉積呢？
dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. 告訴我們，只有在流速緩慢的地點(diǎn)才會(huì)沉積。但是他不直接告訴我們具體在什么地點(diǎn)，而是讓我們?nèi)ビ眠壿嬐评怼?br /> 因此當(dāng)我們尋找的時(shí)候，發(fā)現(xiàn)Flat land“平緩之地”毫無疑問是流速緩慢的，這樣的地方不會(huì)沉積，然后再告訴我們a river slows on entering a lake or the sea，湖和海洋，也是流速緩慢的地點(diǎn)，自然也不會(huì)沉積。那么唯一會(huì)沉積的地方也就只有上游mountain valley才會(huì)沉積，因?yàn)楹恿髁鹘?jīng)的地點(diǎn)分別是from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land，以及a river slows on entering a lake or the sea。
自然當(dāng)我們排出了Flat land、a lake以及the sea之后，也就只可能剩下mountain valley了。
這就是托福閱讀的特點(diǎn)，也就是不直接告訴我們答案，而是讓我們在充分理解句意的情況下自己infer出答案。高！實(shí)在是高！