大学英语四级阅读文章结构特点
林明金
（节选自《大学英语四级精讲与测试》林明金主编，2005年清华大
学出版社出版）
英语文章有其固定的结构：引言、正文、和结尾三大部分。通常，引言的作用是点明主题、陈述文章的中心思想。正文部分则阐述引言中的中心思想（即作者的观点）或对所提出的论点进行讨论，用事实、实验结果或例子来说明 或证实。段与段之间有必然的联系和一定的逻辑性。每个段落都围绕引言中提出的中心思想来展开。结尾部分将正文里阐述或论证的观点归纳起来，得出结论。且多数情况下，结尾部分是对主题句的重述，但措辞可能不同。
文 引言——主题、中心思想
章
段1 (论点1)
结
正文—— 2 (论点2)
构 3 (论点3)
结尾——结论
由于四级阅读测试的文章体裁主要为议论文和说明文，故考生应当重点掌握该类别的文章结构特点。
一、议论文的结构特点和论证方法
一) 议论文的结构：
论点、论据、结论三要素。议论文重在“说服”—— 即作者要力图说服读者赞同并支持其观点或驳斥某一观点。
例如：（2000年6月）
内燃机) has something to do with burning fuel, expanding gases and pistons (活塞) being driven. For people should have some basic idea of how the things that they use do what they do. Further, students might be helped by a course that considers the computer's impact on society. But that is not what is meant by computer literacy. For computer literacy is not a form of literacy (读写能力) ；it is a trade skill that should not be taught as a liberal art.
[段首句from their fear of computers. But this is quite different from saying that all ought to know how to program one. Leave that to people who have c hosen programming as a career. While
programming can be lots of fun, and while our society needs some people who are experts at it, the same is true of auto repair and violin making.
[段首句 Let us assume that in the future everyone is going to have to know how to use a computer to be a competent citizen. What does the phrase “learning to use a computer”mean? It sounds like learning to drive a car”, that is, it sounds as if there is some set of definite skills that, once
[结论]but learning the rules of one game may not help you play a second game, whose rules may not be the same. There is no such a thing as teaching someone how to use a acquired, enable one to use a 这是一篇较典型的议论文，具备了议论文的三大要素。主题论点：学生应学习电脑知识。论证的论据：①学习电脑知识指学会使用电脑；②学会使用电脑并不难；③因为学会使用电脑如同学会玩一种游戏。结论：学会使用电脑就是学会使软件。
二）议论文的两种主要论证方式
1）归纳法：从一系列个别事例中综合她们的共同的本质，归纳出一般的结论和规律的方法。
2）演绎法与归纳法相反，它是从一般规律推论到个别事物的方法。
分析1995~2000年前真阅读短文中的26片议论文，采用演绎法推理的共18篇，约占69%。其余的8篇中采用归纳法的6篇：
1995年1月 Passage Four 1996年6月 Passage Three 1997年6月 Passage One 1998年1月 Passage Three 2000年 6 月 Passage Two 2000年 12 月 Passage One 此外有两篇采用归纳+演绎法：
1995年6月 Passage Four 1996年1月 Passage Four
二、说明文的结构特点和说明方法
典型的说明文同样具备文章的典型结构：（说明的）主题、（说明的）事实和实例、（得出的）结论。说明文的目的侧重于“告知”，即告诉人们某事并对其 加以解释，以便读者了解。它与议论文的根本区别在于——客观、真实，重细节描述，轻抽象评论。其语言多采用客观性词语，较少使用主观判断性词汇。
说明文的说明方法与议论文的论证方法大致相同，亦采用归纳法和演绎法，但相比较而言，归纳法在说明文中使用的更多些。
例如：（1998年6月）
Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland,[中心思想Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests.
she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well.
respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster，
but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived smokers. non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.
then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but al so had trouble separating important information from insignificant details.
“As our tests became more complex.”Sums up Spilich,“non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins”He predicts,[结论句]
这是一篇典型的说明文：有说明的主题——decided to find out whether smoking helps them to “think and concentrate”。 随后作者以四次实验来验证、说明该主题; 最后得出结论——smoking might damage mental capacity。
了解并掌握上述两种体裁的篇章结构的特点和表达方法，对考生在解题过程中把握主线，理清作者的思路，从而克服忙乱和盲目的心理，增强做题的理性和逻辑性。
段落结构特点
前文提到四级阅读总量大约1000~1200词，由于字数的限制和四篇短文的要求，一般所选择的材料大部分是从更长的文章或书籍中来的，故它们的文章结构多数时候并不完整，因此考察段落结构特点的意义远胜于文章的结构。
可以说英语段落是英语文章结构的微缩，通常也有三部分构成：主题句（topic sentence 又称段首句）、辅助句（supporting sentences / developing sentences 又称扩展句）和结论句 （concluding /ending sentence 又称结尾句）。
1) 主题句：段落的主旨，表明作者的观点、态度或写作意图，是段落发展的依据。另
一方面，各段落的主题句构成一篇文章的骨架，自始自终贯穿着文章的中心思想。
2) 辅助句：说明主题句或为主题句提供论据。它们只有一个目的——服务主题句，因
此所提供的事实或论据必须紧扣主题句。
3) 结论句：对一个段落内容的总结、归纳或概括。结论句实际上是主题句的重述。应
当注意的是，在许多情况下，结论句可以省略。
常见的段落类型有如下三种：
例如：（1998年1月）
It is[辅助句1] from sport to business to fashion to science, and the range of comment and special features (特定) as well, from editorial page to feature articles and interviews to criticism of books, art, theatre and music. A newspaper is even more[辅助句2] never completely, never straight through, but always by jumping from here to there, in and out, glancing at one piece, reading another article all the way through, reading just a few paragraphs of the next.[辅助句far more than any one reader is interested in. What brings this variety together in one place is its
topicality (时事性), its immediate relation to what is happening in your world and your locality now.[辅助句of what appears in a newspaper has no more than transient(短暂的) value. For all these reasons,[结论1] what each person does is to put together out of the pages of that day's paper, his own selection and sequence, his own news paper. For all these reasons,[结论from them without missing things you need but without wasting time,
这是一种典型的段落特征：主题句—— 一份出色的现代报纸。辅助句——说明一份出色的现代报纸的特征①内容无所不包；②阅读方法独特；③提供多样性；④出版速度快。结论句——引出下面两种结果①没有两个人在真正意义上阅读相同的报纸；②有效阅读报纸需要技巧。
例如：（1997年6月）
In the past , making structures quake-resistant meant firm yet flexible materials, such as steel and wood, that bend without breaking. Later, people tried to lift a building off its foundation, and insert rubber and steel between the building and its foundation to reduce the impact of ground vibrations. The most recent designs give buildings brains as well as concrete and steel supports, called smart buildings, the structures respond like living organisms to an earthquake's vibrations. When the ground shakes and the building tips forward, the computer would force the building to shift in the opposite direction. ［结论句/主题句］ The new smart structures could be very expensive to build. However, they would save many lives and would be less likely to be damaged during earthquakes.
这是段落结构的第二种情形：辅助句的内容在先（叙述了从过去到最近的建筑结构和建筑材料的演变）。而结论句/主题句则放到了段落的最后：抗震性能最强的“智能建筑”虽然造价昂贵。但能拯救生命。
例如：（1997年6月）
The human brain contains 10 thousand million cells and each of these may have a thousand connections. Such enormous numbers used to discourage us and cause us to dismiss the possibility of making a machine with humanlike ability, but now that we have grown used to moving forward at such a pace we can be less sure.［主题句］ take us a long time to render it intelligent by loading in the right software (软件) or by altering the architecture but that too will happen.
这是段落结构的第三种情形：主题句出现在段落的中间位置。作者先做了些铺垫，然后才列出主题句，阐明段意。接着又对该主题作了进一步的说明。