劉靜

科普類文章是高考英語的?？碱}材。文章中詞匯的意思比較單一、穩(wěn)定、簡明，不帶感情色彩，具有單一性和準確性的特點。為了描述一個客觀事物，嚴密地表達自己的觀點，作者經(jīng)常會使用集多種語法現(xiàn)象于一體的長句。所以，文中出現(xiàn)的句子結(jié)構(gòu)通常較復雜，語法分析較困難。

近幾年，高考的閱讀理解以考查同學們的語言運用能力為主，語言知識為輔，選材貼近生活，重視實用和語言文化背景的滲透?？疾榈念}型以細節(jié)理解題為主，推理判斷題的比例逐步提高，主旨大意題及詞義猜測題占有重要地位。下面我們以一篇科普閱讀為例對這類題目進行具體分析。

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally， the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

“Its extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components （元件），” said Robert Wood， the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago， his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own，” he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components， each of which individually has to perform well， but then has to be matched well to everything its connected to，” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power， computation， sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small， off-board power source， the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source， so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites， in farmers fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off， land and fly around，” he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet， the power， sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions， you know， to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals，” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

1. It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly .

A. consists of a flight device and a control system

B. can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C. can collect information from many sources

D. has been put into wide application

2. Which of the following can be learned from the passage？

A. The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B. Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C. There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D. Woods design can replace animals in some experiments.

3. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage？

A. Father of Robotic Fly

B. Inspiration from Engineering Science

C. Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D. Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

解析 1～3 BDC。

以第1題為例，這是一道細節(jié)推理題，是科普文中最常見的題型，要求從細節(jié)中整理或推斷出相關(guān)信息，并作出判斷。第三段的The flight device was built into a set of power， computation， sensing and control systems.和A選項有出入，A選項中沒有全面包括原句的信息，屬于信息遺漏。B答案和第四段中的so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites， in farmers fields or on the battlefield是一致的，尤其是劃線部分的語氣與答案B中的at the present time剛好吻合。所以同學們在做科普文章時，注意語氣方面的細節(jié)也同樣重要。與此同時，這個句子也暗示了答案C和D是錯誤的。

第2題是一道信息量較大的題目。它要求同學們對每一個選項都有相關(guān)的記憶和了解。比如A，涉及到文章作者的寫作意圖，這是在閱讀科普文時同學們應(yīng)貫徹始終的一個問題：作者為什么要介紹這種科學或者技術(shù)？想提供給我們什么樣的信息或者啟示？仔細搜索會發(fā)現(xiàn)找到相關(guān)信息并不難，比如通過to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals， 我們就可以知道答案D是對的。

最后一題是常見的最佳標題的選擇，做這類題目通常有多種方法，但在科普文中，最重要的還是“關(guān)鍵詞法”。通讀全文，找到文章的關(guān)鍵詞：Robotic Fly，再結(jié)合文章的內(nèi)容和作者的寫作目的不難得知，文章講的是這個產(chǎn)品的特性和它的用途。因此C選項正確。

綜上，科普類文章無非也是主流的閱讀理解題，同學們大可不必過于緊張。我們應(yīng)該拓展知識面，從提高能力入手，養(yǎng)成良好的閱讀習慣，以不變應(yīng)萬變。這里我有以下幾點建議給大家：

1. 如果想做好科普類閱讀理解題，同學們平時就應(yīng)該多注意閱讀科普知識類文章，學習科普知識，積累常見的科普詞匯，從根本上提高科普英語的閱讀能力；

2. 科普類文章最?？疾榈氖羌毠?jié)理解題。細節(jié)理解題一般針對原文中的某句話或某部分的具體內(nèi)容設(shè)置問題，但干擾項通常也包括文章中的某個細節(jié)。常見的干擾項有以下特點：將原文內(nèi)容擴大或縮小，把未然當已然，無中生有等。因此同學們應(yīng)熟悉題型，穩(wěn)定心態(tài)，從容應(yīng)對；

3. 要熟悉科普類文章的結(jié)構(gòu)特點。科普類文章一般由標題（Headlines）、導語（Introductions）、背景（Background）、主體（Main body）和結(jié)尾（Ends）五部分構(gòu)成。標題是文章中心思想高度而又精辟的概括，但根據(jù)歷年的高考真題情況來看，這類閱讀理解材料一般不給標題，而要同學們選擇標題。導語一般位于整篇文章的首段。背景交待一個事實的起因。主體則對導語概括的事實進行詳細敘述，這一部分命題往往最多，因此，閱讀時，同學們要把這部分作為重點。結(jié)尾往往也是中心思想的概括，并與導語相呼應(yīng)，命題者常在此要設(shè)計一道推理判斷題；

4. 在進行推理判斷時，同學們一定要以閱讀材料所提供的科學事實為依據(jù)，同時得出的結(jié)論還應(yīng)符合基本的科普常識。

大家可以試著做一做下面的模擬訓練。

A Walk through the Amazon rainforest today and you will find it is steamy， warm， damp and thick. But if you had been around 15， 000 years ago， during the last ice age， would it have been the same？ For more than 30 years， scientists have been arguing about how rainforests like the Amazon might have reacted （反應(yīng)） to the cold， dry climates of the ice ages， but until now， no one has reached a satisfying answer.

Rainforests like the Amazon are important for mopping up CO2 from the atmosphere and helping to slow global warming. Currently the trees in the Amazon take in around 500 million tons of CO2 each year： equal to the total amount of CO2 giving off in the UK each year. But how will the Amazon react to future climate change？ If it gets drier， will it still survive and continue to draw down CO2？ Scientists hope that they will be able to learn in advance how the rainforest will manage in the future by understanding how rainforests reacted to climate change in the past. Unfortunately， getting into the Amazon rainforest and collecting information are very difficult. To study past climate， scientists need to look at fossilized pollen， kept in lake muds. Going back to the last ice age means drilling deep down into lake sediments （沉淀物） which requires specialized equipment and heavy machinery. There are very few roads and paths， or places to land helicopters and aero planes.

Rivers tend to the easiest way to enter the forest， but this still leaves vast areas between the rivers completely unsampled （未取樣）. So far， only a handful of cores have been drilled that go back to the last ice age and none of them provide enough information to prove how the Amazon rainforest reacts to climate change.

1. The underlined phrase “mopping up” in the second paragraph means “ ”.

A. cleaning up B. taking in

C. wiping out D. giving out

2. How will the Amazon rainforest react to future climate change？

A. Itll get drier and continue to remove CO2.

B. Itll remain steamy， warm， damp and thick.

C. Itll get warmer and then colder and drier.

D. There is no exact answer up to present.

3. Whats the main idea of the last paragraph？

A. Its important to drill deep down into lake sediments to collect information.

B. Its impossible to prove how climate changes in the Amazon rainforest.

C. Its hard to collect information for studies of the past climate in the Amazon rainforest.

D. Its necessary to have specialized equipment and machinery to study the past climate.

4. The best title for this passage may probably be .

A. Studies of the Amazon

B. Climates of the Amazon

C. Secrets of the Rainforests

D. Changes of the Rainforests

解析 本文主要介紹了熱帶雨林對氣候的影響。

1. B。詞義猜測題。根據(jù)第二段中的helping to slow global warming，同時結(jié)合生物常識可推知mopping up的意思是“吸入”。另外，文章中的currently the trees in Amazon take in around 500 million tones of CO2 each year也暗示mop up和take in的意思相同。

2. D。事實細節(jié)題。根據(jù)文章第3段的內(nèi)容（尤其是最后一句話）尤其是最后一句話可推知此題最佳答案為D。

3. C。主旨大意題。根據(jù)文章最后一段中的So far， only a handful of cores have been drilled可知資料收集不容易。

4. C。主旨大意題。文章主要講的是亞馬孫熱帶雨林難以預料的變化，所以選C為佳。