我們做目的題或者主旨題的時候我們會看到選項(xiàng)開頭會有些動詞，有的讀起來平平無奇，比如discuss和explore，有的讀起來有明確的態(tài)度，比如contradict或者support。對這些題目里面動詞的處理一般先考慮基本方向，方向跟原文不同的可以排除；方向差不多但具體意思上稍微有點(diǎn)區(qū)別的先不要考慮這些區(qū)別，不然容易被誤導(dǎo)，這時候應(yīng)該先考慮后面名詞的區(qū)別，比如discuss two explanations和explore definitions of a concept里面名詞部分有較大區(qū)別，一般這個時候答案就出來了；極少數(shù)情況下，如果名詞部分區(qū)別不是很大，最后再考慮動詞的程度差別，比如call into question質(zhì)疑和limit限定有一定的差異。

來看一個GMAT閱讀的例子。
In 1988 services moved ahead of manufacturing as the main product of the United States economy. But what is meant by "services"? Some economists define a service as something The broader, classical definition is that a service is an intangible something that cannot be touched or stored. Yet electric utilities can store energy, and computer programmers save information electronically. Thus, the classical definition is hard to sustain.

The United States government s definition is more practical: services are the residual category that includes everything that is not agriculture or industry. Under this definition, services includes activities as diverse as engineering and driving a bus. However, besides lacking a strong conceptual framework, this definition fails to recognize the distinction between service industries and service occupations. It categorizes workers based on their company s final product rather than on the actual work the employees perform. Thus, the many service workers employed by manufacturers- bookkeepers or janitors, for example-would fall under the industrial rather than the services category. Such ambiguities reveal the arbitrariness of this definition and suggest that, although practical for government purposes, it does not accurately reflect the composition of the current United States economy.

文章一開始介紹背景，表明服務(wù)業(yè)很厲害，第二句話提出問題，探討服務(wù)業(yè)的定義。后面說了一些經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家的定義和更寬泛的經(jīng)典定義，但馬上轉(zhuǎn)折說這兩個定義都有問題。第二段段首說美國政府定義更有操作性，這里可能會預(yù)判后面如何夸這個定義，但第三句however轉(zhuǎn)折以后一頓痛斥，所以總的來說是講了一個問題，對這個問題的三種回答，以及這些回答都各有各的問題。

The author of the passage is primarily concerned with discussing
research data underlying several definitions
arguing for the adoption of a particular definition   
exploring definitions of a concept
comparing the advantages of several definitions   
clarifying some ambiguous definitions

A答案是錯的，因?yàn)橹恢v了幾個定義但沒講到這幾個定義背后的研究數(shù)據(jù)。在這里最好不要用discuss來排除，之前有同學(xué)認(rèn)為只有作者一個人在這里說事情，不算討論。這么嚴(yán)厲做題很容易誤導(dǎo)自己，如果A的discuss都算有問題，C答案的explore相應(yīng)地說起來也會有問題，因?yàn)榭梢蕴Ц苷f作者沒有抽絲剝繭層層推進(jìn)地去找到服務(wù)業(yè)的定義。但C恰恰是正確答案。discuss和explore，包括identify這種沒有特別明確的態(tài)度的詞，起碼不應(yīng)該是我們排除選項(xiàng)的原因。對方向都差不多的動詞，要寬容。

B說主張采納一個定義，這里就有明確的支持態(tài)度，不符合原文作者對幾個定義的吐槽這個方向。

C正確是因?yàn)槎寄苷业綄?yīng)，且能較好概括全文。a concept對應(yīng)service，definitions這個s加得就很有靈性，因?yàn)榇_實(shí)講了三個。另外全文第二句就是在問service的定義，后面回答一下也比較符合全文主旨。

我們再看一個GRE閱讀的例子。
A recent study shows that southern fulmars bring 40 percent more food to their chicks than do the closely related Antarctic petrels. Yet fulmar chicks are only 20 percent heavier than petrel chicks. Hence, petrel chicks appear to be more efficient at converting their food into body mass. How can this be explained? First, while both species feed their chicks via regurgitation, petrels go on longer foraging trips. These trips may allow petrels to extract more water from the food or to partially digest their stomach contents, thereby creating more energy-rich meals. Thus petrel chicks may receive more nutritious meals than fulmar chicks. Second, fulmar chicks are less well insulated than are petrel chicks and may need to allocate a higher proportion of food energy to thermoregulation rather than growth.

最近研究表明南方暴風(fēng)鹱給幼鳥帶的食物，比近親南極海燕給幼鳥帶的要多40%。但是暴風(fēng)鹱幼鳥只比海燕幼鳥重20%。這里的轉(zhuǎn)折是表示兩個事實(shí)之間的沖突，不是否定前面的研究。就是按照正常情況多吃了40%，就應(yīng)該也更重40%，但結(jié)果只重了20%。一般后面都會對事實(shí)之間的差異做解釋。所以（Thus），海燕幼鳥似乎能更高效地把食物轉(zhuǎn)化成體重。咋回事呢？首先，雖然兩種鳥都是靠反芻來喂孩子，但海燕覓食路途更長。山長水遠(yuǎn)，海燕可以從食物里面提取更多水出來，或者部分消化他們胃里的東西，這樣給孩子吃的能量更豐富。就是量小但營養(yǎng)好。所以海燕幼鳥比暴風(fēng)鹱幼鳥吃的營養(yǎng)更棒。其次，暴風(fēng)鹱幼鳥比海燕幼鳥隔熱要差一些，需要花更大精力去做熱量調(diào)節(jié)，沒辦法用來長身體。

Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence in the context of the passage as a whole ? 題目問高亮句的作用。

It evaluates a claim. 這個會有同學(xué)選是因?yàn)橛X得這句話說更nutritious，不過這是對一餐飯的評價(jià)，而不是選項(xiàng)說的對一個觀點(diǎn)的評價(jià)。

It identifies an implication of a conjecture. 高亮句有個明顯的Thus表示在給結(jié)論/結(jié)果，所以答案選B，對應(yīng)implication（影響/后果）。選項(xiàng)里的conjecture對應(yīng)高亮句前面的may，就是作者自己也不是很確定，大概也許可能吧，純猜。高亮句就是猜測得出的相應(yīng)結(jié)果。

It reinterprets experimental results. 這是很有迷惑性的錯誤答案，因?yàn)榍懊嬲f研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，這句話算是對研究發(fā)現(xiàn)的一種可能解釋（閱讀里面一般不用考慮interpret和explain的區(qū)別）。這個錯在re，也就是動詞的大方向，reinterpret一般用于反駁/新觀點(diǎn)類的文章，前面有一個結(jié)果，陳述一下別人對這個結(jié)果的解讀/解釋，轉(zhuǎn)折之后提出自己的解釋叫reinterpret。這里沒有別人，談不上re。包括有的選項(xiàng)出現(xiàn)present a novel explanation，novel新的意味著文章中前面可能得有個老的。

It undermines a hypothesis.
It qualifies a theory. D和E的undermine和qualify表示否定，thus句一般不表示否定，however或者nevertheless之類的才表示否定。

一開始我們說到要先考慮大方向，再考慮名詞差異，最后沒辦法的情況下再考慮動詞的細(xì)微區(qū)別。比如我們GRE最后一次閱讀課上會講到的一個題，題目問Which of the following is NOT described in the passage?直接找的話會發(fā)現(xiàn)五個答案在原文都出現(xiàn)了，而且跟原文說的一模一樣，不可能是矛盾。這時候要仔細(xì)考慮題目，題目說的是describe，要被描繪。五個答案雖然都被mentioned，但B選項(xiàng)里的概念在原文中只是提了一嘴，沒有具體展開講是怎樣的，沒有被described，所以答案是它。