对《考试大纲》中提出的理解文章的基本结构的要求，往往通过篇章结构题来考查。考生要学会把握文章的脉络，理解段落层次之间的关系，弄清作者的写作方法。英语的文章讲究使用主题段和主题句。主题段通常在文章的开头，简要概括文章的中心思想，主题句根据段落的写作手法的不同可能在段落的开头，也可能出现在段落的中间或末尾。段与段之间常用词语连接，承上启下，使文章行文连贯，逻辑严密。为突出主题作者可能采用不同的写作手法来组织文章，通过举例、比较、类比等手法来透彻阐明主题观点。高考对这类题型的考查主要体现在以下几个方面：

1．确定指代关系。最常见的提问方式是：The underlined word “they/it/…” in paragraph… refers to… …

2．对句子意义或作用的理解。最常见的提问方式是：The sentence “… …” in paragraph … means ….; The example of … … in para….is used to illustrate/show … ….

3．对段落大意或段落作用的理解。最常见的提问方式是：The last paragraph mainly tell us that … …; The purpose of writing Paragraph … is …. ….

4．对文章组织结构的理解。最常见的提问方式是：How is the passage organized?

5．选择句子填入短文中的空缺处。这类命题方式在上海、广东等地方高考模拟试题中频频出现。

做这类题必须了解文章的结构，把握文章的脉络，弄清句与句之间、段与段之间、句与段落之间的逻辑关系。看看05年高考题中的几个例题。

（05 浙江卷 C 篇）

In the course of working my way through school, I took many jobs I would rather forget. But none of these jobs was as dreadful as my job in an apple plant. The work was hard; the pay was poor; and, most of all, the working conditions were terrible.

First of all, the job made huge demands on my strength. For ten hours a night, I took boxes that rolled down a metal track and piled them onto a truck. Each box contained twelve heavy bottles of apple juice. I once figured out that I was lifting an average of twelve tons of apple juice every night.

I would not have minded the difficulty of the work so much if the pay had not been so poor. I was paid the lowest wage of that time—two dollars an hour. Because of the low pay, I felt eager to get as much as possible. I usually worked twelve hours a night but did not take home much more than $ 100 a week.

But even more than the low pay, what made me unhappy was the working conditions. During work I was limited to two ten-minute breaks and an unpaid half hour for lunch. Most of my time was spent outside loading trucks with those heavy boxes in near-zero-degree temperatures. The steel floors of the trucks were like ice, which made my feet feel like stone. And after the production line shut down at night and most people left, I had to spend two hours alone cleaning the floor.

I stayed on the job for five months, all the while hating the difficulty of the work, the poor money, and the conditions under which I worked. By the time I left, I was determined never to go back there again.

52．How is the text organized?

A．Topic—Argument—Explanation

B．Opinion—Discussion—Description

C．Main idea—Comparison—Supporting examples

D．Introduction—Supporting examples—Conclusion

解析：这道题考查考生对文章组织结构的理解，把握了文章的脉络，我们不难得出答案：D。

（05 浙江卷 D 篇）

Supermarkets are trying out new computers that make shopping carts more intelligent(具备智能的)．They will help shoppers find paper cups or toilet soap, and keep a record of the bill.

53．The underlined word “they” (paragraph 1) refers to ______.

A．supermarkets       B．shop assistants       C．shopping carts       D．shop managers

解析：这道题考查指代关系，分析上下两句之间的关系，很容易得出正确答案：C。

【实战演练练习一】（05 江西卷 E 篇）

Do you have any strong opinion on co-educational or single-sex schools?

A supporter of co-educational schools would probably say that schools should be like the societies they belong to .In Hong Kong, men and women mix socially on a day-to-day basis .In many fields men are even likely to have female bosses. It is, therefore, desirable that boys and girls grow up together, go to school together, and prepare themselves for a society that does not value sexual separation.

Some would go on to argue further that growing up with members of the opposite sex is important for personal development. Regular contact（接触）can remove the strange ideas about the opposite-sex and lead to more natural relationships. Single-sex conditions are seen as leading to more extreme opinions, and possibly even as encouraging homosexuality（同性恋）, though there is no proof that this is the case.

Those who are against coeducation often also fix their attention on the sexual side. Some parents fear that close contact with members of the opposite sex is dangerous for teenagers. They want their children to be attentive to their studies. Such parents feel uncomfortable with modern ways and the free mixing of the sexes.

A stronger argument comes from research into school results. Girls grow up earlier than boys ,tend to be more orderly and are likely to be better at languages. In a mixed class ,boys who might do well in a single-sex class become discouraged and take on the rule of troublemaker. Certainly in the UK this situation has greatly alarmed （惊动）the government for it to be encouraging co-educational schools to have some single-sex classes. In the UK the best schools are all single-sex, strongly suggesting that co-education is not the best answer. This may, however, not be as simple as it looks. It may simply be that the famous old schools that attract the best students happen to be single-sex, rather than that being single-sex makes them better schools.

72．In the third paragraph, by saying “though there is no proof that this is the case”, the writer means that         .

A．students in single-sex schools will certainly become homosexual

B．students in co-educational schools cannot have extreme opinions

C．students in co-educational schools are likely to be homosexual

D．single-sex school conditions may or may not have effects on the students

[参考答案]:D

解析：

推测句意要结合句子所在的段落或文章的中心。 文章第三段指出： 没有证据证明single-sex schools 会造成象同性恋这样的影响, 也就是说不一定会造成这样的影响。

【实战演练练习二】（04 重庆卷 D 篇）

Have you ever had the strange feeling that you were being watched? You turned around and, sure enough, someone was looking right at you!

Parapsychologists (灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them. To research whether such a “sixth sense”really exists, Robert Baker, a psychologist(心理学家)at the University of Kentucky, performed two experiments.

In the first one, Baker sat behind unknowing people in public places and stared at the backs of their heads for 5 to 15 minutes. The subjects（受试者）were eating, drinking, reading，studying, watching TV, or working at a computer. Baker made sure that the people could not tell that he was sitting behind them during those periods. Later, when he questioned the subjects, almost all of them said they had no sense that someone was staring at them.

For the second experiment, Baker told the subjects that they would be stared at from time to time from behind a two way mirror in a laboratory setting. The people had to write down when they felt they were being stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at and when they weren’t .Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at than if they had just guessed.

Baker concludes that people do not have the ability to sense when they’re being stared at. If people doubt the outcome of his two experiments, said Baker, “I suggest they repeat the experiments and see for themselves.”

68．The purpose of the two experiments is to        .

A．explain when people can have a sixth sense

B．show how people act while being watched in the lab

C．study whether humans can sense when they are stared at

D．prove why humans have a sixth sense

[参考答案]:C

解析：

第二段作者表明 Parapsychologists (灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them; 第三段和第四段分别用两个实验来证明前面的观点。

【实战演练练习三】

阅读下面短文，并将文后标有A-F 的句子（或段落）插入文章中标号为71-75的合适位置，使短文结构完整。其中有一个句子（或段落）是多余的。

She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last forever. But, at nearly 500 years of age, time is catching up with the Mona Lisa.

   71  

 “The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years age,” the museum said.   72  .

  73    “It is very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then you look at her and she stops,” said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University, “It’s because direct vision is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows. Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”

  74    Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis I in 1519.

In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat. He said he planned to return it to Italy. The painting was sent back to France two years later.

  75 

A．Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile.

B．However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile.

C．Visitors have notice the changes but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy. Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current chemical state.

D．The health of the famous picture, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1905, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum where it is housed.

E．The picture is now so valuable that no one can tell its exact price. Therefore, many thieves tried to steal it in any way they could think of.

F．During World War II, French did the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces. Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa has some interesting stories to tell.

[参考答案]:DCABF

解析：

文章的主题是讲述《蒙娜丽莎》这幅画的历史沧桑。 按时间线索我们可以顺利得出75题答案是F; 根据第三段“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years age,” 我们判断71题答案为D; 72题进一步说明这副画变了形, 应选择C; 73题空格位于句首, 本段描述了蒙娜丽莎脸上神秘的微笑,选项A恰当地概括了段落的主题; 74选项B 承上启下意思转折到这幅画本身的历史。