從2005年起，考研英語(yǔ)閱讀部分增設(shè)了“新題型”，旨在“考查考生對(duì)諸如連貫性、一致性等語(yǔ)段特征及文章結(jié)構(gòu)的理解”，題量設(shè)置為5道題目，總分值為10分。在最近的幾期班開(kāi)課伊始，陸續(xù)收到學(xué)生的郵件，問(wèn)能否把新題型放在閱讀課堂的最初幾節(jié)課去講，原因是“新題型太難，完全摸不著頭緒，而且分值又高！”——這樣的問(wèn)題，在我看來(lái)，非常具有代表性，反映了相當(dāng)一部分考生對(duì)新題型由于陌生感而產(chǎn)生的恐懼感，由恐懼感而導(dǎo)致的無(wú)力感！實(shí)際上，考生對(duì)新題型部分的控制能力從2005年、2006年新題型部分的平均得分不足4.5分亦可見(jiàn)一斑。
那么，對(duì)于那些有志于在考研英語(yǔ)的閱讀中“錙銖必較”、力爭(zhēng)高分，面對(duì)新題型卻又無(wú)所適從的學(xué)生，我感到有必要在這里進(jìn)一言：善用閱讀老方法，破解考研新題型！
根據(jù)《大綱》，考研新題型共有三種備選形式。在這里，僅就2005年、2006年連續(xù)出現(xiàn)的“七選五”或稱之為“完形填段”，也是眾多考生公認(rèn)最難的一種進(jìn)行解析。實(shí)際上，“七選五”題型是把一篇完整的文章中的五個(gè)段落“挖”出來(lái)，要求考生將其合理“歸位”，為了提高難度，額外增加了兩個(gè)混淆選擇加以迷惑。
考生怎樣才能把看似七零八落的段落重新合理歸位呢？總的來(lái)講，必須從上下文內(nèi)容的連貫性、邏輯的一致性兩方面入手，大膽假設(shè)、小心求證，以期一一破解。
就以下面的這篇大綱樣題為例：
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. 41）_ ____.
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. The 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.
42）____ _. 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.
43）____ _. There are also crab-like 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.
44）__ ___. 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.
45）_ ____. 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 creatures. These animals evolved rapidly and spread 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 starfishes, 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.
