1.1.1 破解主题

听懂文章的主题关键在于从讲座的开头段中寻找关键信息，即主题词和其定义。从历年的真题来看，讲座的开头一般有两种类型：一、开门见山型。二、驳斥传统观点引出新观点型。第一种类型的讲座在开篇直接给出主题及对关键名词的定义。第二种类型首先会介绍与主题相关的观点或者背景知识，需要准确鉴别信息，定位真正的讲座主题是什么。

第一种即开门见山型的好处是简单明了，但也存在难点，即信息量密集，给考生的反应时间缩短。

比如 2010年的讲座：

Good morning, everyone. Today we'll continue our discussion on describing language. Last week we examined such features of language as grammar, vocabulary, the sounds of language, etc. In this lecture, we'll look at another important aspect of language. Perhaps some of you may wonder what is this important aspect of language. Let me tell you. It refers to features of communication that takes place without the use of grammar or vocabulary. They are called“paralinguistic features of language”. These features fall into two broad categories: those that involve voice and those that involve the body.

讲座在简单回顾了前一周的课程内容后，直接进入本周要讨论的内容。此篇讲座首先以一个过渡句引起学生的注意，即“In this lecture, we'll look at another important aspect of language”，使学生做好笔记的准备。接下来首先提供了一个重要的定义，“features of communication that takes place without the use of grammar or vocabulary”，然后再提出名词，即“paralinguistic features of language”。至此可知，文章的主题为语言的副语言特征，全文将对其进行详细论述。

另外，开门见山型的题目有时会使用设问句来引导主题，比如 2008年的讲座：

As we all know, English is widely used in the world. Although English is not the language with the largest number of native orfirst language speakers, it has really become a lingua franca. Then what is a lingua franca? The term refers to a language which is widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each others and where one or both speakers are using it as a second language. For example, when an Indian talks to a Singaporean using English, then English is the lingua franca.

在首先引出一个比较生僻的词组，lingua franca即通用语后，用一个设问句“Then what is a lingua franca?”引出定义，即“The term refers to a language which is widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each others and where one or both speakers are using it as a second language.”并随后举例说明，此时即可掌握文章的主题并预测随后论述的重点。

第二种类型的讲座一般由一个传统的或者普遍的观点引入，讲座通过对这个观点的分析及驳斥引出真正的观点，往往是截然相反的态度，因此要注意识别讲座的真正观点。这种类型的题目提供了更多的理解时间，以及关键名词的记录时间。比如 2011年的讲座：

Good morning everyone, today we'll look at culture or rather classifications of cultures. Usually when we deal with different people, we deal with them as if we were all members of the same culture. However, it's possible that people from different cultures have different assumptions about the world, regarding such important and basic ideas as time, personal space. And this is the view of Edward Hall. And Edward Hall is an anthropologist who spent a large part of his life studying American Indians, their culture, their language, but he was different from a lot of other anthropologists who just study one culture. He was interested in the relations between cultures, how cultures interact, what Hall believes is that cultures can be classified by placing them on a continuum, ranging from what he called high-context to low-context.

讲座虽然在一开始就提出了文化的分类 (classification of cultures)的主题，但并没有直接进入讲座的重点内容，而是通过“usually”这个关键词介绍了普遍流行的观点，即“we deal with them as if we were all members of the same culture”。真正的观点出现在“however”后，即“it's possible that people from different cultures have different assumptions about the world, regarding such important and basic ideas as time, personal space”。之后引导出 Edward Hall的观点并进行深入解释。

因此，正确识别这两种常见的开头有助于准确抓住文章的中心论点，并初步理解生僻的概念性词汇。初步理解后，也能大胆预测后文的论述内容，并有选择地做笔记。