08考研英语知识点每周答疑
一、答疑之“七选五”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.
［试题分析］本篇是一篇科普文章，介绍的是史前类动物。文章结构比较清晰，首先用一般性的介绍来引入史前类动物和记载它们形体和活动的化石，接下来的几段就逐渐按照进化的顺序来一一介绍各种动物。接下来我们具体分析一下五个空白处的内容。
1、考查知识点：段落主题＋句子之间的逻辑联系
先看空白处的位置(句中)，再看一下空白处的上下文。上文讲的是许多生物都已经灭绝，没有后代生活在这个世界上。下文讲的是化石使我们了解了这些生物的形态。可以推断，空白处是一个衔接的句子，应该是从生物到化石介绍的过渡，再看选项中，［A］［B］［E］都提到了这两方面内容，但［A］［E］谈的是具体的一些生物，不是这段泛泛而谈的所有生物，因此不契合。［B］是正确答案
2.考查的知识点：下文的新信息
本题考查寻找特征词的能力。在该题中，根据就近原则在该题后的句子中找到“the fossils”和“water action”为特征词。“the fossils”说明“fossils”一词是至少是第二次出现，因为它前面加了定冠词the，通过仔细观察并不难发现， 2以及其前面的内容中都没有fossils，这就确定fossils一词必定出现在1， 2中。根据意群相一致原则，在2中必定要与“water action”同现或复现的语言点。综上所述，有同时满足以上两个条件的选项才是正确答案。虽然[G]项一开始就有“how fossils are preserved”, 但是[G]项讲的是动物遗体上的有机组织转化形式，没有提及水的活动。选项［F］中就多次提到水在化石形成过程中的重要作用，与上下文相符合
3.考查的知识点：上下文衔接＋结构上的呼应
本题选择的特征词是“also”。“also”表并列关系，这就证明在3前面的句子中应当与also后的crab like creatures相并列，即空白处显然有关于另一动物的内容；从本段开始，文章转向讨论由低级高级变化(进化)中的动物。[E]项开始的部分是“The earliest animals whose remains have been found.”,符合文章写作的顺序。文中出现了these are the sea-lilies与下文的there were also ……相呼应。[B]项与上文相符，但与下文不符，且与全文结构不相吻合。
4. 考查的知识点：上下文衔接＋段落主题
本题选择的特征词是these以及与其具有同指关系的ammonites 和They 。通过阅读4以后的两个句子不难发现，these，ammonites ，They是指同一事物，意即有“shell”的事物。同时4后一开始就有“Of these,...”,也就是说，空白部分应该有“some, several, many”或类似的词，答案只能是[A]。由于文中有了“The first animals”,为避免句式上的重复，作者改变句子起始的模式。这种做法很多见，因而也是考生阅读和写作中应该注意的。
5.考查的知识点：上下文衔接
该题目是一道简单试题，一方面这是一道段落题，这就决定了有可能选最长的选项为答案，另一方面根据就近原则在下一段首句中发现的About 75 million years ago成为我们解题的关键。
从文章的整体结构看，这里需要一个内容的“高潮”：前面几段，动物都在不断地进化，而下文中“About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over”,这里需要有一个“交代”。只有[C]项符合这一条件；同时，“reptile”在本题空白处前文章中从没有提到，在下文中又没有作为新信息，因而作为正确答案的选项中一定有这个词，只有[C]项中有“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”。所以正确答案只能是[C]。
答案： 1.B 2.F 3.E 4.A 5.C
二、答疑之翻译题：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年考试真题)
参考译文：记者必须比普通的公民更了解法律，这种观点是基于对新闻媒体的特殊职责以及约定俗称的惯例的理解之上的。
分析：句子主干是the idea…rests on an understanding…, that后面跟的是idea的同位语从句，of后面跟的则是修饰understanding的后置定语。按照中文的习惯，在这句话中，我们选择先翻译从句以避免所指不明晰。
对于翻译多重嵌套复合句，可以采用拆分句子的方式，首先找准句子主干，滤去修饰性成分，尤其是长的后置定语或者定语从句，然后再用指代词把滤去的成分逐步添加进来。
在2008年的英语大纲中，对翻译部分的要求描述与2007年的大纲描述并无差别。其主旨依旧是“主要考查考生准确理解概念或结构较复杂的英语文字材料的能力”。尽管如此，但是，纵观往年考题，我们发现一个趋势，那就是考题材料语言句子的复杂化程度在逐步提高，因此，对考生的语言理解能力就提出了更高的要求。实践证明，在考试的过程中，大部分考生都能对要翻译的句子有一个模糊的概念，即明白英文的大概意思，但往往会对一些小的地方把握不准，或者干脆不知道该怎么组成一个符合中文言语习惯的句子。这些问题的解决一方面依赖于我们平时对英语学习以及中文功底的积累，另一方面也可以辅以一些小的技巧去帮助我们得到更快的提高.
