【学习经验】托福听力开头解析（2）

类比开头可以分为两种，第一种是正比，即比较两种相同之处；第二种是反比，即比较两者不同之处。这两种都可以通过信号词判断，正比可以通过like,same等信号词判断，而反比可以通过opposite,contrast进行判断。首先我们得明白，类比开头并不能做出主旨题，不能轻易从开头做主旨，但是类比开头并不能忽略，能帮我们解决第二题，即第二题细节题，所以也不能忽视。我们来看一个例子：TPO21，Lecture 1

All right, so now we’ve talked about folk legends and seen that their ... one of their key features is there’s usually some real history behind them. They are often about real people, so you can identify with the characters, and that’s what engages us in them. The particular stories might not be true and some of the characters or events might be made up. But there’s still a sense that the story could have been true since it is about a real person. That’s distinct contrast from the other main branch of popular storytelling, which is folk tales.

Folk tales are imaginative stories that ... um ... like folk legends, they have been passed down orally, from storyteller to storyteller for ... since ancient times. But with folk tales you don’t ever really get the sense that the story might have been true. They are purely imaginative and so quite revealing, I think anyway, about the culture and the connection between folk tales and culture

从这段文章里我们看出文章是类比的开头，并且通过contrast这个信号词判断出这事反比的开头，即folk legends的主要特征是real，而folk tale是imaginative，但这里值得注意的是类比的开头并不能帮助我们做出主旨题，但是我们能做出第二题，即细节题，我们先来看下第一题，
　　What is the lecture mainly about?
　　The role played by folktales in contemporary Norwegian society
　　A description of the major types of Norwegian folktales
　　A comparison of Norwegian folktales and Norwegian folk legends
　　An illustration of the differences between oral literature and written literature

我们看到第三个选项A comparison of Norwegian folktales and Norwegian folk legends，具有很大的误导性，这也是类比开头容易掉入的陷阱，类比开头我们并不能知道文章主题部分是强调A，还是强调B，或者是在强调A和B。但是，我们也不能忽视这个类比开头，题目会出现在第二题，细节题，如下：
　　What does the professor find appealing about folk legends?
　　They are very imaginative.
　　They are somewhat realistic.
　　They stress what is important in a culture.
　　They show similarities between otherwise diverse societies.
　　我们可以看到，题目出的是folk legends的特点，所以我们可以看到类比开头并不能忽略，但是能帮我们解决第二题，所以也不能忽视。