雅思劍橋真題4(以下簡稱劍4)上72頁C段第二小段第一句話為:Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma - molten rock from the mantle - inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian's Wall in northern England). 很多學生一看到文中出現(xiàn)了magma;mantle以及granite等詞就開始有些暈。其實如果大家可以看到 "it is slow"后面出現(xiàn)了特殊符號"冒號",那直接看冒號后面的信息就好了;而下文又出現(xiàn)了兩個破折號解釋前面。如此一來,"vast bubbles of magma"這4個詞就成了這句話的重點內(nèi)容了。
劍9上97頁A段第六行有一句話是這樣的:Museums used to look - and some still do - much like storage rooms of objects packed together in showcases: good for scholars who wanted to study the subtle differences in design, but not for the ordinary visitor, to whom it all looked alike. 這句話一共有42個單詞,那么大的信息量到底哪些是重點呢?借用上文說到的特殊符號冒號后面是關鍵信息這一說法,"showcases"后面出現(xiàn)了冒號,那么冒號前面的文字都可以不用看了。如果再往下讀,一個"but"轉(zhuǎn)折連詞就會出現(xiàn)在我們面前,而"to whom it all looked alike"是一個非限定性定語從句,即使去掉,主句的意思和邏輯關系也不受影響。這樣一來,這句話最關鍵的信息就成了:but not for the ordinary visitor這6個單詞了。
例如:劍橋雅思6的94頁D段倒數(shù)第二句話:In Norway, after an intervention campaign was introduced nationally, an evaluation of forty-two schools suggested that, over a two-year period, bullying was halved. 這句話雖然有一堆逗號,但是大家可以一點點往后推:跳過InNorway這兩個詞,再跳過after引導的狀語從句,就會發(fā)現(xiàn)后面出現(xiàn)"…suggest that…"賓語從句,即后面是重點信息。"over a two-year period"這個時間段不是重點,因此也可以直接跳過,然后大家會發(fā)現(xiàn)這句話就只剩下了"bullying was halved"這3個詞了。