托福阅读艺术类话题

托福阅读艺术类话题

托福阅读艺术类文章的难点是在于对复杂动词的理解上，还有就是在于对定语结构的分析上。无论是谓语动词还是非谓语动词，如不能准确理解动词在句中的含义，很大程度上会影响我们对文章内容的理解。而在艺术这类特定语域出现的动词，还是有它存在的特殊性。今天我们集中分析托福阅读艺术类的文章。

我们把托福阅读的文章题材，分为社会科学、生命科学、自然科学三大部分。建议初学者抑或基础较薄弱的学生首先接触社会科学类的文章，该类题材包括文化、艺术、历史、经济等几门学科，与生活较为接近，对词汇和内容的理解要求也相对较低，今天我们集中分析艺术类的文章。综合TPO中以人类艺术为题材的文章，我们发现，要么分析一种艺术形式在一定时期的存在方式、意义、起源;要么以时间为轴线，分析一种艺术形式的演变进程。

我们以Origins of Theatre与Cave Art in Europe为例，学生在学习这两篇文章时出现的问题主要集中在以下两个方面：

【一】对复杂动词的理解

无论是谓语动词还是非谓语动词，如不能准确理解动词在句中的含义，很大程度上会影响对文章内容的理解。而在艺术这类特定语域出现的动词，必然有其独有特性。这里所说的复杂动词，我觉得应该分为两种，一种是熟词偏义，另一种则是较抽象、学术化的词汇。比如：

Under this theory, relating and listening to stories are seen as fundamental human pleasures. Thus, the recalling of an event 【a hunt, battle, or other feat】 is elaborated through the narrator’s pantomime and impersonation and eventually through each role being assumed by a different person.

短短两句话内，其中三个动词会对学生对文章的理解造成误导。看到relating, 只能想到“联系”，elaborated会想到“详细、复杂的”，assume则只能想到“假定”。于是两句话读下来不知所云。实则relate咋这里指“叙述”，“elaborate”指“详细阐述...”，而assume在这里指“承担”某一角色。再比如：

...., whose difficulty of access has been interpreted by some as a sign that magical-religious activities were performed there.

Interpret对大多数学生来说过于抽象，然而它其实在这里等同于explain，动词后对一种现象进行了解释。更本质上讲，实则是一个隐性的因果逻辑词，不出意外得在这里设置了一道事实信息题。如果不理解Interpret在该句中的含义，对做题会造成很大障碍。

其他抽象动词不一一详述，有兴趣的同学在读这两篇文章时一定要特别留意以下动词的含义：envision, advance, perceive, objectify

托福阅读艺术类话题素材

The history of painting is a never-ending chain that began with the very first pictures ever made. Each style grows out of the styles that came before it. Every great artist adds to the accomplishments of earlier painters and influences later painters.

We can enjoy a painting for its beauty alone. Its lines, forms, colors, and composition 【arrangement of parts】 may appeal to our senses and linger in our memories. But enjoyment of art increases as we learn when and why and how it was created.

A painting always describes something. It may describe the artist's impression of a scene or person. It also describes the artist's feelings about the art of painting itself. Suppose, for example, the artist paints a picture of the birth of Venus, the Roman goddess of love—a subject that has been used many times. The viewer may not learn anything new about the subject from the more recent version that could not have been learned from the older one. Why, then, do painters bother to depict the same scene again? The answer is that they want to tell us something new about the way the scene can be painted. In a way, the artist is saying, "I have painted the birth of Venus as no other artist before me has painted it." The artist not only depicts the birth of Venus but also makes a statement about the art of painting itself.

Many factors have influenced the history of painting. Geography, religion, national characteristics, historic events, the development of new materials—all help to shape the artist's vision. Throughout history, painting has mirrored the changing world and our ideas about it. In turn, artists have provided some of the best records of the development of civilization, sometimes revealing more than the written word.

Prehistoric Painting

Cave dwellers were the earliest artists. Colored drawings of animals, dating from about 30,000 to 10,000 B.C., have been found on the walls of caves in southern France and in Spain. Many of these drawings are amazingly well preserved because the caves were sealed up for many centuries. Early people drew the wild animals that they saw all around them. Very crude human figures, drawn in lifelike positions, have been found in Africa and eastern Spain.

The cave artists filled the cave walls with drawings in rich, bright colors. Some of the most beautiful paintings are in the Cave of Altamira, in Spain. One detail shows a wounded bison, no longer able to stand—probably the victim of a hunter. It is painted in reddish brown and outlined simply but skillfully in black. The pigments used by cave painters were earth ochers 【iron oxides varying in color from light yellow to deep orange】 and manganese 【a metallic element】. These were crushed into a fine powder, mixed with grease 【perhaps animal fat】, and put on with some sort of brush. Sometimes the pigments were used in sticks, like crayons. The grease mixed with the powdered pigments made the paint fluid and the pigment particles stick together. The cave dwellers must have made brushes out of animal hairs or plants, and sharp tools out of flint for drawing and scratching lines.

As far back as 30,000 years ago, people had invented the basic tools and materials for painting. Techniques and materials were refined and improved in the centuries following. But the discoveries of the cave dweller remain basic to painting.

托福阅读文章看不懂怎么办

托福阅读看不懂的困难：

1.出现大量的生词，看不懂。

2.词汇量不低，但即便看懂了单词，依然不理解托福阅读文章。

托福阅读看不懂的解决办法和建议：

1.对于看不懂单词，首先有可能是因为词汇量的问题。天道留学老师建议大家在这个阶段里，积累词汇，并以词根词缀的方式来记忆更有助于牢固地积累，这里我们推荐大家《新托福词汇词根+联想+读音记忆法》--出品，其中的托福词汇更贴近新托福词汇范围，并以更科学的方法帮助备考托福初期的考生更有效快速地提高词汇量，从而尽快将考生自己的经历放在托福阅读这样分数比重大的部分。当词汇积累到一定的程度时候，把托福阅读文章中的单词全直译出来，虽然不太会通顺，但至少能明白。

2.把句子里的所有修饰的词全省略，只剩下主谓宾。

3.如果考生说，我的词汇量似乎不少了，阅读过程中看得懂词汇，但就是不理解文章的意思，或者说，做错题目，怎么办?

“最无奈的莫过于看得懂文章，但做不对题”。这种情况在新托福阅读出现以来，貌似成为一种常态。反而是在老托福的时期，这样的话，从来没有见过。究其原因还是因为新托福考试取消了语法的单项考察，但是在实际考试之中又将对于语法的考察融合在了新托福考试之中，这里面就是托福阅读考试体现得最为明显。

比如说The extreme

seriousness of desertification results from the vast areas of land and the tremendous numbers of people affected, as well as from the great difficulty of reversing or even slowing the process.

很多人在看到这句话的时候，经常翻译为“沙漠化是源于”或者翻译为“沙漠化导致”“很多的土地与很多的人去影响的原因。”这里面有两个点特别容易犯错误，一是result from是源于的意思，而不是单纯的导致的意思。二是affected在这里其实是后置定语，因此这里的意思是“被影响”，这里很多人又疑惑了，因为我们以前看到的东西都是，人的因素导致沙漠化啊，怎么又会是被影响呢?这就是你的问题了，你被自己以前获得的信息给影响了，你只要知道文章的作者是这么认为的就可以了，何必把自己脑中的信息强加在本文作者身上呢。

这句话其实是一个很浅显的例子，很多时候，考生只是认为自己已经把文章读懂了，但是实际上你们在对于文章的理解上有无数的错误，这其实就是语言的细节!这些细节点要想解决靠的是什么?靠的是单词的积累，靠的是语法的一步一步的打磨。

如果你经常有“最无奈的莫过于看得懂文章，但不对题”的感叹的时候，建议大家最好还是从自身下手，去检查自己的单词，以及语法。如果觉得不知道从哪里下手，到底该怎么提升，建议你做做老托福的语法，而且要多分析错题

托福阅读怎么练

1.多刷题，多练习，提升阅读速度

在刷题练习之前要强调的一点是，词汇量必需过关。从某种意义上来讲，词汇量的大小是托福阅读理解高分的基础和关键。以牺牲词汇量为代价的技巧练习是完全不可取的，因为基础打不好，根本谈不上任何技巧。

打好基础以后就要多练习了，练习时提升阅读速度是关键。对托福有了解的同学都知道，托福的阅读量非常大，一般情况下，很多中国考生没办法把文章全部读完，有人提倡“扫读法”、“跳读法”和“略读法”，这些方法可能对个别文章有些用处，但并不适用所有题型。所以，从根本上讲还是要多练习，提高自己的阅读速度。

2.做精读，吃透文章

练习托福阅读的时候，一定要做精读。在阅读当中，精读和泛读都很重要的。很多同学做了很多TPO，却不返回去分析做错的地方，也不对文章做精读。如果只刷题，而不看不分析自己存在哪些问题，那读十篇，还不如读一篇。因为这样的泛读对你是没有一点提升的。

那么如何做精读呢?首先，要整理文章中的单词，然后要分析长难句和文章结构，最后分析错题出错的原因。