2015考研英语：阅读中标点符号的妙用

　在考研阅读中，不论是阅读文章还是解答题目，标点符号都可以起到画龙点睛的妙用。下面跨考教育英语教研室张莹老师就带着大家见证一下由它们所产生的奇迹。

　　一：逗号

　　两逗号中为插入语时，看暂时跳读

　　1 For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.(2000，Text 1)

　　半导体制造业是美国发明的，而且是新的电脑时代的核心产业，一度被认为会成为下一个受害者。

　　2 Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. (2000，Text 1)

　　面对国外的竞争，美国一些大型产业出现了萎缩或者倒闭，比如消费电子业。

　　3 This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate. (2000，Text 2)

　　(做男人总是有危险。男女出生比例大约为105:100，但到成年时，这个比例就差不多会降到持平状态;而在70岁老年人中，女性人数是男性人数的两倍。但是男性死亡率高这一普遍现象正在被改变。现在，男婴存活率几乎和女婴一样。)这意味着到了找对象的关键几年，男性人数将首次超过女性。

　　二： 冒号

　　进一步解释说明前句中的事物或现象

　　1. We live a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves. (1996，Text 4)

　　60. The word “pervasive” (Line 1, Paragraph 2) might mean ________.

　　[A] widespread

　　[B] overwhelming

　　[C] piercing(A)

　　[D] fashionable

　　2. There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide: stay alive, but have fewer children. (2000，Text 2)

　　进行进化式自杀还有一种办法：一直活着、少生孩子。

　　3. I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life,” and making the alternative move into “downshifting” brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12-hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on “quality time”. (2001, Text 5)

　　69. “Juggling one’s life” probably means living a life characterized by ________.

　　[A] non-materialistic lifestyle

　　[B] a bit of everything

　　[C] extreme stress(C)

　　[D] anti-consumerism

　　三：分号

　　可表示结构并列或语意并列，有时可利用分号推测句子意思或作者态度

　　1.This is no flash in the pan; over the past couple of years, inflation has been consistently lower than expected in Britain and America. (1997，Text 5)

　　这不是昙花一现，在过去几年里，英国和美国的通货膨胀率始终低于预测水平。

　　69. The sentence “This is no flash in the pan” (Line 5, Paragraph 3) means that ________.

　　[A] the low inflation rate will last for some time

　　[B] the inflation rate will soon rise

　　[C] the inflation will disappear quickly(A)

　　[D] there is no inflation at present

　　2. For us, this means that evolution is over; the biological Utopia has arrived. Strangely, it has involved little physical change. (2000，Text 2)

　　对于我们来说，这意味着进化已经结束，生物学上的乌托邦时代已经来临。

　　3. [2004 Text 1] Instead, the best strategy is to use the agent as a kind of tip service to keep abreast of jobs in a particular database; when you get E-mail, consider it a reminder to check the database again.

　　The expression “tip service” (Line 3—4, Paragraph 3) most probably means________.

　　[A] advisory [B] compensation [C] interaction [D] reminder

　　四： 破折号

　　两破折号中为插入语时，看暂时跳读

　　1.At the same time, the American Law Institute -- a group of judges, lawyers, and academics whose recommendations carry substantial weight -- issued new guidelines for tort(侵权) law stating that companies need not warn customers of obvious dangers or bombard(轰炸) them with a lengthy list of possible ones. (1999，Text 1)

　　与此同时，美国法律协会——一群说话举足轻重的法官、律师和学者——颁布了新的侵权行为法准则，规定公司不必提醒消费者显而易见的危险，也不必为他们列出一长串可能遇到的危险。

　　2. But in the past 100, 000 years—even the past 100 years—our lives have been transformed but our bodies have not. (2000，Text 2)

　　可是过去10万年——甚至在过去100年里，我们的生很活发生了变化，但我们的身体却没有改变。

　　3.”Those things that do not show up in the test scores—personality, ability, courage or humanity—are completely ignored,” says Toshiki Kaifu, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s education committee. (2000，Text 4)

　　“那些考试成绩无法反映的东西——个性、能力、勇气或人性——完全被忽略了，”执政的自由民主党教育委员会主席Toshiki Kaifu说。(由此产生的挫折感导致了孩子们的中途退学和难以管教。)

　　五： 引号

　　1. 可表示讽刺：

　　“Scientific” creationism, which is being pushed by some for “equal time” in the classrooms whenever the scientific accounts of evolution are given, is based on religion, not science.(1996，Text 5)

　　Towns like Bournemouth and Eastbourne sprang up to house large “comfortable” classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders’ meeting to dictate their orders to the management. (1996, Text 3)

　　2. 可用于引用某人观点：

　　“I struck gold,” says Redmon. (2004，Text 1)

　　“我发现了金矿，”Redmon说。

　　3. 表示专有名词

　　I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life,” and making the alternative move into “downshifting” brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. (2001，Text 5)

　　我发现，放弃那种“为生活打拼”的信条，转向“减压减速”的生活，将会带来高于经济收入和社会地位的回报;Linda Kelsey不堪压力，辞掉She杂志社编辑职务的消息备受关注之后，她或许与我有同样的发现。

　　六：括号

　　1. 可用于解释前词意义

　　1). Drugs (substances) that affect the central nervous system and alter perception, mood, and behavior are known as psychoactive substances. (1997，Text 3)

　　2). Researchers in the late 1960 covered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. (2009，Text 1)

　　二十世纪六十年代末的研究者们发现，人类天生就会用四种主要的方法应对挑战：即所谓的分析法、程序法、关系法(或者合作法)以及创新法。

　　3). But today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdom(2009，Text 2)

　　可是今天的男人可以变成更聪明的父亲。

　　2. 通常是答案的位置

　　[2006 Text 2] Anyway, the townsfolk can’t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they’ll do better.) The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.

　　29. According to the townsfolk, the RSC deserves no subsidy because ________.

　　[A] ticket prices can be raised to cover the spending

　　[B] the company is financially ill-managed

　　[C] the behavior of the actors is not socially acceptable

　　[D] the theatre attendance is on the rise

　　[2007 Text 2]The defining term of intelligence in humans still seems to be the IQ score, even though IQ tests are not given as often as they used to be. The test comes primarily in two forms: the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (both come in adult and children’s version). Generally costing several hundred dollars, they are usually given only by psychologists, although variations of them populate bookstores and the World Wide Web. Superhigh scores like vos Savant’s are no longer possible, because scoring is now based on a statistical population distribution among age peers, rather than simply dividing the mental age by the chronological age and multiplying by 100. Other standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), capture the main aspects of IQ tests.

　　27. What can be inferred about intelligence testing from Paragraph 3?

　　[A] People no longer use IQ scores as an indicator of intelligence.

　　[B] More versions of IQ tests are now available on the Internet.

　　[C] The test contents and formats for adults and children may be different.

　　[D] Scientists have defined the important elements of human intelligence.

　　[2007 Text 4] The current state of affairs may have been encouraged – though not justified – by the lack of legal penalty (in America, but not Europe) for data leakage. Until California recently passed a law, American firms did not have to tell anyone, even the victim, when data went astray. That may change fast: lots of proposed data-security legislation is now doing the rounds in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the theft of information about some 40 million credit-card accounts in America, disclosed on June 17th, overshadowed a hugely important decision a day earlier by America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that puts corporate America on notice that regulators will act if firms fail to provide adequate data security.

　　40. It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that

　　[A] data leakage is more severe in Europe.

　　[B] FTC’s decision is essential to data security.

　　[C] California takes the lead in security legislation.(D)

　　[D] legal penalty is a major solution to data leakage.