GRE水平的閱讀材料？

01-25

就是GRE能考330左右的水平的閱讀材料？書籍雜誌？

用於提升GRE閱讀的材料，就推薦兩個。一個是提升語言能力的長難句，一個是提升閱讀能力的練習題。

長難句：

《GRE/GMAT/LSAT長難句300例精講精練》，就是長難句書籍里的一股清流。所有長難句都用「倒裝、省略和長句」來進行歸納。對於長難句的方法論和典型的50個句子，還有編者的視頻講解。在各大電商平台均有銷售。

視頻連接：

萬門大學 - 有你要的好課

GRE閱讀訓練：

《GRE閱讀白皮書》的方法論部分。這本書將於2017年3月初正式出版。如果想現在就學習到書中方法論，可以觀看隨書附贈的視頻講解。本書的編者將會躍然於屏幕上想你娓娓道來GRE閱讀的方法論和經典文章解析。

也可以點擊網址查看全部視頻：

萬門大學 - 有你要的好課

利益相關：寄託天下留學論壇GRE綜合版版主

GRE考試綜合論壇

1.Arts Letters Daily

文章極其長和變態，文學評論犯怵的建議大量灌

2.The Economist

這個不多說了

3.SciTech Daily

科技類推薦這個

4.MIT Technology Review

MIT TECH REVIEW，平時看看放鬆一下

5.【全能拓展】搜集的一些網站及文本資料推薦

Magoosh專門寫文章論述過了，他推薦的是：

The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker.

我自己只看過The Atlantic Monthly 和 The New Yorker，後者網站做的很漂亮。建議只看這些網站上文化評論和科技評論兩類文章，因為看這兩樣效率最高，最有利於備考。

文章有的簡單有的難，文化評論類的很多需要文化背景知識，不太容易看懂。以下是Magoosh網站上，關於訓練閱讀積累辭彙的原文：

Instead I』ve recommend learning vocabulary by reading voraciously from prescribed sources. These sources include The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. Most of the writing found within the pages of these august publications is not only replete with GRE-level vocabulary but is also similar in tone and style to that found on the Revised GRE.

Today I am going to take actual articles from the aforementioned sources. I will highlight important vocabulary and also discuss ways you should approach learning words when you encounter them in context.

Finally, the articles come from a wide variety of fields, e.g. business, science, literature, etc. I』ve done my best to select pieces that I think a majority will find interesting, a criteria that I recommend you employ when you embark on your own reading quest.

In each case, I』ve specifically taken excerpts that contain not only GRE words (though these are sprinkled throughout each article) but also engage in analysis of some issue.

(If you』re more interested in books than articles, head over to: GRE Vocabulary Books: Recommended Fiction and Non-Fiction).

Let』s start with an article taken from the business section of The Atlantic Monthly.

The Atlantic Monthly

Outsider, non-founder CEOs are often overvalued because many corporate boards think the answer to their problems is a superstar CEO with an outsized reputation. This leads them to overpay for people who are good at creating outsized reputations through networking, interviewing, and taking credit for other peoples』 achievements–all bad indicators of future success.

Rakesh Khurana has amply shown how this delusion of the charismatic savior creates adysfunctional market for CEOs, allowing the small number of existing public-company CEOs to demand and receive extravagant compensation. The myth of the generalist CEO is bolstered by the manyfawning media portrayals where CEOs say that their key jobs are understanding, hiring, and motivating people–leading board members to believe that you can run a technology company without knowing anything about technology.

This passage is great because it is full of relatively difficult words, many of which are high-frequency GRE vocabulary (fawning, bolstered, ample/amply). This excerpt is also filled with analysis, which will help sync your synapses for the Revised GRE.

The article also scores big points on topics of interest. After all, it』s Steve Jobs – revere him or fear him, most of us have an opinion of the company and its ubiquitous products (and now that this tech titan has just stepped down this article is more timely than ever).

Perhaps you find business blah or maybe you like to vary your reading. A great field to draw from is science. Part of the reason is the Revised GRE will typically have one science passage. While it may be drier than the typical fare found in the magazines cited above, often the science writing on the GRE is similar in tone and style to what you』ll encounter in these magazines.

So let』s take the article Bird Brain, which appeared in the New Yorker last year. It explores the development of language in human beings and whether language is the province only of humans. To do so, it tells the story of an African gray parrot, Alex, and his owner, Irene Pepperberg—namely how she trained Alex to say hundreds of words (though none, I believe, were GRE vocab) so that Alex, by the time he was an adult, was able to form relatively coherent sentences.

Below is an excerpt from the article, which is about 15-pages long. In general I would recommend the entire piece, especially if the above sounds intriguing. The excerpt includes a few vocab words (but of course) and some reflection and analysis.

The New Yorker

All children grow up in a world of talking animals. If they don』t come to know them through fairy tales, Disney movies, or the Narnia books, they discover them some other way. A child will grant the gift of speech to the family dog, or to the stray cat that shows up at the door. At first, it』s a solipsistic fantasy—the secret sharer you can tell your troubles to, or that only you understand. Later, it』s rooted in a more philosophical curiosity, the longing to experience the ineffableinteriority of some very different being. My eight-year-old daughter says that she wishes the horses she rides could talk, just so she could ask them what it feels like to be a horse. Such a desire presumes—as Thomas Nagel put it in his 1974 essay 「What Is It Like to Be a Bat?」—that animals have some kind of subjectivity, and that it might somehow be plumbed. In any case, Nagel explained, humans are 「restricted to the resources」 of our own minds, and since 「those resources are inadequate to the task,」 we cannot really imagine what it is like to be a bat, only, at best, what it is like to behave like one—to fly around in the dark, gobble up insects, and so on. That inability, however, should not lead us to dismiss the idea that animals 「have experiences fully comparable in richness of detail to our own.」 We simply can』t know. Yet many of us would be glad for even a few glimpses inside an animal』s mind. And some people, like Irene Pepperberg, have dedicated their lives to documenting those glimpses.

Though you may already know a few of these words, you should definitely look them up, especially if you are inferring the meaning based on the context. Always validate your hunch, don』t assume you can always glean the exact definition of the word simply by looking at context.

After looking up these words, you』ll notice a word with a secondary meaning, plumbed, and a couple of words from philosophy – subjectivity and solipsistic. After consulting Word Smart, Barron』s Words You Need to Know, or other vocabulary lists I』ve recommend you』ll notice that subjectivity (or subjective) is a very important word; solipsistic, on the other hand, is not as likely to pop up on the test. But if you already have a strong vocabulary, and are looking to score in the top 10%, then definitely learn solipsistic.

You will notice that the definition of interiority isn』t very surprising, as it is directly related to interior. You may also notice that it is similar to subjective. Finally, you learn the word ineffable, which say you』ve never seen before, and you also find it on a few lists. Write it down on a flashcard along with an example sentence (oh, the irony of ineffable – for to say something is ineffable is undermining the very essence of the word).

Following a process similar to the one above is important. You don』t want to simply underline the words and look them up. You want to digest them, so that, much like Alex the parrot, you will be able to use them in a coherent sentence.

Of course reading the entire article is also a good idea. Essentially you are training your brain to read through a long, relatively challenging piece, a skill that is indispensable for the much longer Revised GRE.

Let』s say that you read Bird Brain and enjoy it. You are already familiar with a number of words and want something more challenging, maybe something couched in academic jargon or that oozes literary style. (I』m assuming that if you fall into this category, you are also looking to get the difficult verbal section).

A good resource is the New York Times Book Review. Here you will find the truly erudite waxing literary on a recently published novel/book that is just as scholarly (Are these the very writers who craft byzantine Text Completions for ETS?).

Below are two excerpts from the same book review of a biography of Joseph Heller, the reclusive, and frequently irascible, author of Catch-22, one of the great novels of the 20th century.

New York Times Book Review

But again, Daugherty is often perceptive about Heller』s place in the larger culture, even if the novelist himself rarely comes into focus. For the human aspect, one turns to Erica Heller』s frank but loving memoir of her father, 「Yossarian Slept Here,」 which comes as close as possible, I dare say, to deciphering the enigma behind the obsessive, pitch-black fiction. Joseph Heller, the opposite ofdemonstrative, was given to oblique ways of showing affection…

That was the year Heller published his second novel, 「Something Happened,」 which Daughertycommends as follows: 「Joe stepped beyond Wilson』s sentimentality and Yates』s bitterness toeviscerate modern America』s success ethic.」 Such a pat comparison to Sloan Wilson, the author of 「The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,」 and Richard Yates, the author of 「Revolutionary Road,」 is the sort of thing Daugherty might have emended given a bit more time to think about it; at any rate, 「Something Happened」 is perhaps the one work of postwar American fiction that makes Yates seem positivelyPanglossian. Erica Heller, for her part, describes the novel (probably her father』s best) as 「569 pages of hilarious but mordant, caustically wrapped, smoldering rage」 — though of course it』s personal in her case. Primary among the targets of the protagonist Bob Slocum』s paranoid, solipsistic rant is his family…

This article is clearly the most challenging of all the ones printed in this post. There are many difficult words, some that may give even the literate amongst us pause (Panglossian is derived from a character in Voltaire』s Candide, Dr. Pangloss. The doctor was always optimistic, regardless of the circumstances).

Interestingly, solipsistic makes another appearance. Maybe it』s not such an arcane word after all. Higher-frequency words—GRE-wise—include mordant, caustic, emend, enigma, and oblique.

Also, you want to be careful not to rely too much on assumptions. Demonstrative does not simply mean to demonstrate (it means tend to expression one』s emotions outwardly). And pat, such a diminutive word, so folksy-sounding and innocuous, has many meanings. The adjective form, which is employed in the book review, could easily pop up on the GRE, and cause you to answer a text completion incorrectly. So be sure to look up such word (if an explanation is pat it is superficial/cursory and unconvincing).

Surprisingly, difficult vocabulary words and highfalutin prose aren』t only found in the esoteric niche of the book review. Let』s take an opinion piece we are far more likely to read: the movie review.

The New York Times

At a certain point, though — to say exactly when would ruin a fairly stunning surprise — the cat-and-mouse psychology is jettisoned in favor of something more procedural. The two halves of 「Love Crime」 divide according to the words of the title: the first explores the knotty, feverish, ambiguous bond between Christine and Isabelle, while the second is all about guilt, innocence, evidence and motive. It is interesting and ingenious, even if some of the kinky, queasy fascination that had been so intoxicating in the earlier scenes ebbs away.

太泛泛了建議去太傻、寄託這樣的罈子轉轉，他們對資料的整理會比較全面，友情建議《GRE考試官方指南》、《36套》還有新東方的綠皮書（新版是紅皮書了）反覆刷，當然是建立在有理論有反思的基礎上，如果是打算考GRE而不是只是想玩玩看看的話，要做的事情還有很多，但是基本上刷G就是一個無聊的過程，真正可靠的資料沒有市面上賣的那麼多。

自從2011年8月GRE改革取消了類反題目，增加閱讀部分的比例(佔verbal題目總數的50%)後，GRE閱讀部分的重要性可想而知。但是，GRE閱讀，特別是文學、社會科學等文章類型一直以來都是廣大中國考生最頭痛的，也是最難提高的部分。於是，經過多次考試實戰和多年閱讀文章的研究，筆者發現在GRE閱讀的文章里，還是有一些廣大考生所不熟悉的「規律」。因此，在本文里，筆者將嘗試去解開GRE閱讀中最讓考生頭痛的「閱讀規律」---邏輯、結構以及文章的同一概念的同義替換----希望可以幫助廣大考生快速提高閱讀分數和閱讀能力。

官方真題例3.1：

建議考生先自己閱讀下面的文章，閱讀完後再看後面我們給出的分析。

Notable as important nineteenth-century
novels by women, Mary Shelley』s Frankenstein and Emily Bronte』s Wuthering
Heights treat women very differently. Shelley produced a 「masculine」 text in
which the fates of subordinate female characters seem entirely dependent on the
actions of male heroes or anti-heroes. Bronte produced a more realistic
narrative, portraying a world where men battle for the favors of apparently
high-spirited, independent women. Nevertheless, these two novels are alike in
several crucial ways. Many readers are convinced that the compelling mysteries
of each plot conceal elaborate structures of allusion and fierce, though
shadowy, moral ambitions that seem to indicate metaphysical intentions, though
efforts by critics to articulate these intentions have generated much
controversy. Both novelists use a storytelling method that emphasizes ironic
disjunctions between different perspectives on the same events as well as
ironic tensions that inhere in the relationship between surface drama and
concealed authorial intention, a method I call an evidentiary narrative
technique.

分析：

Notable
as important nineteenth-century novels by women, Mary Shelley』s Frankenstein
and Emily Bronte』s Wuthering Heights treat women very differently. Shelley produced a 「masculine」 text in which the fates of
subordinate female characters seem entirely dependent on the actions of male
heroes or anti-heroes. Bronte produced a more realistic narrative, portraying a
world where men battle for the favors of apparently high-spirited, independent
women. Nevertheless, these two
novels are alike
in several crucial ways. Many readers are convinced that the compelling
mysteries of each plot conceal elaborate structures of allusion and fierce,
though shadowy, moral ambitions that seem to indicate metaphysical intentions,
though efforts by critics to articulate these intentions have generated much
controversy. Both novelists use a storytelling method that emphasizes ironic
disjunctions between different perspectives on the same events as well as ironic
tensions that inhere in the relationship between surface drama and concealed
authorial intention, a method I call an evidentiary narrative technique.

首先，該篇文章的主題句分別為第1句和第4句。

從結構的角度而言，

第1層結構為文章提到的2個作者在各自的作品中對待女性的不同點。接著用2個句子分別來具體描寫它們的不同之處。

第2層結構為文章提到的2個作者在各自的作品中對待女性的相同點。接著還是用2個句子分別來具體描寫它們的相同之處。

從邏輯的角度而言，

differently為對比邏輯關係里的不同邏輯。

alike為對比邏輯關係里的相同邏輯。

Nevertheless,為轉折（也即是廣義的相反）邏輯。需要提醒的是，考生要注意到nevertheless轉折的並非是其最前面的那一句，而是該篇文章的第1層邏輯的不同點，也就是第一句。筆者這樣說只是想時刻提醒讀者，閱讀的精髓本質並非是簡單地對原文的中文翻譯，而是看到句子與句子的結構、邏輯關係和聯繫、文章的主旨與細節。

下面一起來題目：

例題：

The
primary purpose of the passage is to

A. defend a
controversial interpretation of two novels

B. explain
the source of widely recognized responses to two novels

C. delineate
broad differences between two novels

D.compareand contrast two novels

E. criticize
and evaluate two novels

解析：

該題很明顯為主旨題目。直接從剛才我們對文章的結構和邏輯分析不難得出，該篇文章主要的邏輯是對比邏輯。因此考生在看選項的時候，切記要先看動詞。很快我們可以得出答案為D選項。

例題2：

According
the passage, Frankenstein differs from Wuthering Heights in its

A use of multiple narrators

B method of disguising the
author』s real purposes

C portrayal of men as
determiners of the novel』s action

D creation of a realistic story

E controversial effect on
readers

解析：

該題為細節中的不同邏輯關係的題目。具體而言就是問Frankenstein 和 Wuthering
Heights這2本小說不同之處在於Frankenstein（題目用代詞its表示）的什麼。

考生這時候應該思考一下，該題的答案應該定位到原文哪一層結構？沒錯，就在第1層。因為只有第1層才說的是不同之處。而題目更加詳細地問我們是Frankenstein這本小說怎樣。於是回到原文對應的地方：「Shelley produced a 「masculine」 text in which the fates of
subordinate female characters seem entirely dependent on the actions of male
heroes or anti-heroes.」

我們不難得出，該句的大意是在說：Frankenstein這本小說描寫的是女性角色的命運完全依賴於男性的行為。從邏輯關係的角度而言，就是女性角色和男性角色的行為的邏輯關係。那麼答案也必然是對該邏輯關係的同義替換。所以答案不難得出是C選項。有意思的是，原文的表達是：女性角色的命運完全依賴男性的行為；而正確答案的表達為：男性決定女性角色。由於篇幅的關係，更全面的邏輯關係和原文對正確選項的替換類型，我們會在課堂上或者後面出版的閱讀書籍中詳細闡述。

官方真題例3.2：

建議考生先自己閱讀下面的文章，閱讀完後再看後面我們給出的分析。

Although scientists observe that an
organism』s behavior falls into rhythmic patterns, they disagree about how these
patterns are affected when the organism is transported to a new environment. One
experimenter, Brown, brought oysters from Connecticut waters to Illinois
waters. She noted that the oysters initially opened their shells widest when it
was high tide in Connecticut, but that after fourteen days their rhythms had
adapted to the tide schedule in Illinois. Although she could not posit an
unequivocal causal relationship between behavior and environmental change,
Brown concluded that a change in tide schedule is one of several possible
exogenous influences (those outside the organism) on the oysters』 rhythms. Another
experimenter, Hamner, however, discovered that hamsters from California
maintain their original rhythms even at the South Pole. He concluded that
endogenous influences (those inside the organism) seem to affect an organism』s
rhythmic behavior

解析：

Although scientists observe that an organism』s behavior
falls into rhythmic patterns, they disagree about how these patterns are
affected when the organism is transported to a new environment.One experimenter, Brown, brought oysters from Connecticut waters to Illinois
waters. She noted that the oysters initially opened their shells widest when it
was high tide in Connecticut, but that after fourteen days their rhythms had
adapted to the tide schedule in Illinois. Although she could not posit an
unequivocal causal relationship between behavior and environmental change,
Brown concluded that a change in tide schedule is one of several possible
exogenous influences (those outside the organism) on the oysters』 rhythms.
Another experimenter,
Hamner, however, discovered that hamsters from California maintain their
original rhythms even at the South Pole. He concluded that endogenous
influences (those inside the organism) seem to affect an organism』s rhythmic
behavior

該篇文章的主旨為第1句。由第1句中的disagree一詞可以預判文章後面應該會出現關於disagree後面的部分的內容的不同的觀點。

文章的結構於是不難得出可以分為2層。

第1層即是第一句，為該篇文章主題句。

第2層中分為2小點。第1點為one部分的內容，也即是Brown的實驗的具體內容和發現的結果以及結論。第2點為Hamner的具體的實驗的內容和結論。

需要提醒考生的是，文章中主題和細節的重複的部分。也就是當考生看完主旨句的時候，就應該意識到，scientists, organism』s behavior, environment都是抽象詞，文章後面會不斷具體重複這幾個主題抽象詞。

例如：

scientists=Brown
+ Hamner

organism= oysters+ hamsters

environment= Connecticut+ Illinois+ California

behavior= opened their shells widest + adapted to +
maintain their original rhythms

官方真題例3.3：

A Marxist sociologist has argued that
racism stems from the class struggle that is unique to the capitalist
system—that racial prejudice is generated by capitalists as a means of
controlling workers. His thesis works relatively well when applied to discrimination
against Blacks in the United States, but his definition of racial prejudice as
「racially-based negative prejudgments against a group generally accepted as a
race in any given region of ethnic competition,」 can be interpreted as also
including hostility toward such ethnic groups as the Chinese in California and
the Jews in medieval Europe. However, since prejudice against these latter
peoples was not inspired by capitalists, he has to reason that such antagonisms
were not really based on race. He disposes thusly (albeit unconvincingly) of
both the intolerance faced by Jews before the rise of capitalism and the early
twentieth-century discrimination against Oriental people in California, which,
inconveniently, was instigated by workers.

分析：

A Marxist sociologist has argued that racism stems from the class struggle that is unique to the capitalist system—that racial prejudice is generated by capitalists
as a means of controlling workers. His thesis works
relatively well when applied to discrimination againstBlacks in
the United States, but his definition of racial prejudice as 「racially-based negative prejudgmentsagainst a
group generally accepted as a race in any given region of ethnic competition,」 can be interpreted as also including hostilitytoward such
ethnic groups as the Chinese in California and the Jews in medieval Europe.
However, since prejudice against these latter peoples was not inspired by capitalists,
he has to reason that such antagonisms were not really based
on race. He disposes thusly (albeit unconvincingly) of both the intolerance
faced by Jews before the rise of capitalism
and the early twentieth-century discriminationagainst Oriental people in
California, which, inconveniently, was instigated by workers.

上面的不同的顏色或者符號標記，代表該GRE文章中大量的---同義替換。

如下：

1, racism—racial
prejudice—discrimination—racial prejudice—racially-based negative
prejudgments---hostility—antagonisms—intolerance--discrimination

2， stems
form---generated by---inspired by ---based on—instigated by ---provoked by

3, capitalist system---- capitalists---- capitalism

4, A Marxist sociologist--- His---- He

5, class struggle----a means of controlling workers

6,
against—toward—against….(很多很多的against)…

7， Chinese---- Oriental people

那麼大家思考過沒有，文章在後面展開過程中，為啥不斷地同義替換那幾個詞？也就是大家如果在看文章第一句：A Marxist sociologist has argued that racism stems from the class struggle
that is unique to the capitalist system—that racial prejudice is generated by
capitalists as a means of controlling workers.的時候，應該想到什麼？其實，如果對GRE閱讀熟悉的話，就應該清楚，很多文章的寫作意圖是反駁別人的觀點。那麼我們思考一下，後面作者會怎麼反駁那個馬克思學家？對，應該是從如下兩點：

1、在某某情況下，也存在racism,可是不是由於class
struggle.

2、在某某情況下，也存在racism,可是那時候，還沒有capitalist
system.

也就是我們在後文的不斷的反駁中，不得不去重複這幾個概念：偏見、來自於、資本主義

第一點反駁：在某某情況下，你得說也存在這種偏見。

第二點反駁：同樣，你也得說，在某某情況下，也存在偏見，可是那時候還沒有資本主義。

試想一下，如果我們在看文章的時候，在腦海里，把剛才那些所有的同義替換的單詞，都理解為同一個概念，或者說idea，那麼我們看文章的時候，就可以把前面看到的概念和後面看到的「聯繫」起來。這樣，就不會像大多數的中國考生那樣，看到後面的intolerance, antagonisms 的時候，就開始絞盡腦汁地回想那些單詞的中文意思。

那麼，大家再思考一下，如果我們能夠有這種「deliberate oversimplification」---在看文章的時候，有意的把那些相同的概念的單詞聯繫起來，腦海里出現同一個「概念」，而不是每個單詞的對應的中文翻譯。那麼，看起文章來，就夠快，而且，最重要的是，你可以把整篇文章串起來！這樣，在考場上看文章的時候，才可以在規定的時間裡，看完文章並且做完題目。以上所探討的問題，也是考生在備考的時候，應該注意到並且熟悉的一點。

小結：

從上面筆者對閱讀文章的分析，讀者不難發現，真正對閱讀文章的理解遠遠不是簡單的翻譯即可，而是要深入熟悉閱讀文章的內部的結構與邏輯關係。備考的時候，只要考生對GRE閱讀文章的結構、邏輯關係以及出題規律的無比熟悉，而並非簡單的記憶辭彙和進行題海戰術，那麼對的閱讀的攻破也將唾手可得。